Want to pay your wireless bill in an AT&T store? That'll be $2 extra for the "privilege" of handing it to a clerk. Want to pay your credit card bill over the phone? That will be $15.

The disparate impact of policies designed to discourage consumers from paying in cash--like the AT&T's in-store charge--falls squarely on the poor, many of whom do not have bank accounts. (Bank accounts are not particularly useful if you never have any money to keep in them.) AT&T says the poor should just suck it up and get pay-as-you-go phones.

But these policies are also an indication of how many companies really make their money these days: not from providing the service they purport to provide, but by nickel-and-diming customers with fees at every turn. Heck, some credit card companies have chucked all but the pretense of lending money and turned entirely to generating fees.

Maybe AT&T was just frustrated with its customers who paid their bills on time, and decided this was a good way to squeeze a bit more money out of them, too.