There's a difference between taxes and fees. Ooma is not required to collect fees. Fees aren't specific to the customer or the transaction. They are used to offset the "cost of doing business" that resulted from government regulation. Taxes on the other hand are related to the customer and transaction and are collected on behalf of the government. Taxes collected go entirely to the government. Fees do not. Ooma actually has not started collecting any taxes yet, even on monthly customers.tommies wrote:However, it's needed to reminder this tax/fee ooma is bound to do by law. As some one had said earlier, don't blame the merchant for the tax(es).
The law doesn't say Ooma cannot pick up the tab for taxes (or fees) as part of their business model, which is exactly what they were doing early on. When your local furniture store runs the "no tax" sale, we all know the tax is still there, the merchant just decided to pay for it on their end to make the price more appealing. When Ooma was picking up the taxes on their end, they also priced the Ooma at a higher price point.
Many people factored in the zero fees into their decision to purchase Ooma and it wouldn't be good practice to go back and change the terms. Ooma basically made the calculation that the average customer would cost N dollars tax per year for the number of years the product would last and they included that in the purchase price. Customer's basically have already pre-paid those taxes by virtue of the higher pricing. Ooma will make money on some folks and lose money on others but they should balance out. If Ooma miscalculated the costs of taxes, then they shouldn't hide behind the "taxes are out of our control" excuse (and they've never implied they would do this) and retroactively tax their old customers, which is what is basically being suggested in your first sentence. That would be like those customers who paid higher pricing (which implicitly included some amount for taxes) coming back after enjoying 6 months of Free service and demanding Ooma refund the price difference because the customer had also "miscalculated" how much they would be willing to pay up front and because gasoline is higher than they budgeted for.
The merchant made a calculated guess that they could price a product higher and absorb future fees to make the overall value proposition more appealing. So yes, you can blame the merchant if they later come back and decide they miscalculated and need to change the terms.