Clint Abe, a consumer goods sales representative, lives paycheck to paycheck.

With finances tight, the Kailua resident is upset that Hawaiian Telcom would charge him a monthly fee of $1.95 — the equivalent of $23.40 a year — for each one-time online payment he makes for his land-line and Internet services.

"Why should I as a consumer, using the Hawaiian Telcom system, be charged for the privilege of paying my bill online?" asked Abe, who wanted to make an electronic check payment. "They can’t show me that if I put a check in the mail, it costs them less to process that payment as an online bill pay."

Abe, who said he recently complained unsuccessfully to a Hawaiian Telcom customer service representative, isn’t alone among consumers nationwide who feel they’re being nickeled and dimed by so-called "convenience fees."

About three weeks ago Verizon Wireless customers protested a plan by the telecommunications provider to charge $2 for every payment subscribers make over the phone or online with their credit or debit cards. More than 95,000 names were collected in an online petition against the fees, and Verizon Wireless, the nation’s largest cellphone company, dropped the fee the following day.

Last year Bank of America dropped a plan to charge customers $5 a month for using their debit cards following a similar customer backlash.

In Hawaii the picture is mixed with HawTel, Hawaiian Electric Co., Kauai Island Utility Cooperative and Hawaii American Water, which provides sewer service to Hawaii Kai, charging customers a fee for one-time online credit card and electronic bank payments.

Oceanic Time Warner and the Hono­lulu Board of Water Supply, on the other hand, charge no such fee.

"I don’t think it’s a good idea," Oceanic President Bob Barlow said. "I’m assuming companies are trying to cover every cost possible, but customers don’t need another charge."

Is it fair to charge customers who opt to make one-time online payments and not charge those who mail in a check, pay in person or use automatic bank account deductions?

Many companies say there is no issue with charging for such payments since there are several methods, such as mail, office payments and automatic deductions, that involve no cost to the customer.

"This is a standard practice in the electric utility industry nationwide," said HECO spokesman Peter Rosegg. "As a regulated utility, we must control our operating costs and do our best to ensure fairness to all of our customers. Waiving credit card fees would result in higher operating costs, which would ultimately end up being paid through electric rates by all customers, regardless of whether they use credit cards to pay their bills or not."

In many cases companies have outsourced one-time online payment processing to third-party vendors who charge convenience fees. Those fees usually are kept by the vendors or split with credit card companies, and are not retained by the businesses who contracted with them.

Atlanta-based Chartwell Inc., an information provider that helps utilities improve customer satisfaction, found in an August 2011 study that 84 percent of the 41 utilities surveyed use vendors for card payment acceptance, and more than half charge for those payments. Furthermore, it said more utilities are moving from fee-free to convenience fees.

Third-party vendor fees ranged from $1.50 to $5.95 per transaction, with the amount going higher if a customer’s bill exceeded a certain dollar figure, such as $300, the study found.

"Utilities will look to third parties to accept payments because the utilities cannot work the card acceptance fees into their rates, nor are they willing to eat the costs," Chartwell said.

Utilities pay about 24 cents, on average, for a paperless transaction by electronic means, according to a separate Chartwell study. If the payment is with a credit card, the company — MasterCard, Visa, etc. — will charge as much as $1 per transaction.

"So, paperless with no card transaction is relatively inexpensive," Chartwell Vice President Dennis Smith said. "But card fees can run it up significantly."

Paper-based transactions — payment through the mail by check — cost utilities on average $1.09, the Chartwell study found. This includes the cost to mail the bill to the customer and to receive and process the payment.

While HECO, KIUC, HawTel and Hawaii American Water do not keep any of the money generated from the convenience fees, that’s of little concern to customers who have to ante up for the one-time payments.

"A one-time bill pay should be included in their cost of doing business," Abe said of Hawaiian Telcom, whose one-time online payment fee began in April when it started working with BillMatrix, an electronic payment service provider. Abe used to drop off his payments at one of HawTel’s five retail stores, but they all closed in August.

Rosegg said HECO has an in-house staff that processes more common payments such as checks and cash and that the company is charged "a few cents" to deposit those with the bank. He said there would be greater costs if HECO were to process one-time online payments itself because of the fees charged by card companies and the cost involved to set up an in-house system and hire the personnel to receive the payments.

"We don’t think it would be meaningfully cheaper, and it would be much more complicated on our end," he said. "In terms of bureaucracy, it would be much more difficult. If we do it out of house, it’s very much cleaner because a third party handles it."

Rosegg said fees charged for electronic bank transfers are assessed by either the bank or HECO’s vendor, Speedpay.

HawTel uses BillMatrix to collect online credit card and electronic check payments, and customers are charged $1.95 per transaction. Customers who drop off a payment at First Hawaiian Bank are assessed $1. HawTel spokeswoman Ann Nishida Fry said the company relies on outsourcing "due to the increased security and regulations surrounding the handling of customer banking and credit card data."

She said BillMatrix offers enhanced security for customers, fraud detection capabilities and other functions that customers desired.

"Our goal is to make paying bills as easy and convenient as reasonably possible," Nishida Fry said. "Our customers requested a variety of options, and we do our best to accommodate them. Most of them understand that some enhanced options will have fees attached.

"With that said, many customers have migrated to automatic bill payment and enjoy having one less bill to worry about each month thanks to these no-cost payment options."

The Board of Water Supply, on the other hand, paid its former third-party vendor, CheckFree, $2,500 a month so that customers making one-time online payments would not be assessed a fee, BWS spokesman Kurt Tsue said. The BWS currently doesn’t allow those one-time online bill payments because it’s changing its software to a new billing systems and its contract with CheckFree ended.

Those who use one-time online payments do so for a number of reasons. Among those cited by customers are the uncertainty of not having enough money in their accounts on the day the payment is debited and the potential difficulty of canceling automatic monthly debiting if the service is no longer desired.

Abe, who used to drop off his payment at a now-closed HawTel retail store, said he was shocked when he went online the first time to pay his bill using an electronic check transfer and discovered that the telecommunications company would charge him a $1.95 fee. He refused to take the plunge, especially since two other online payments he makes — one to T-Mobile for his cellphone and one to Honda Financial Services for his car lease — are linked to his checking account and don’t involve any fees.

"I’ve never done it online (for Hawaiian Telcom) because I’m not going to pay $1.95," he said. "A stamp costs 44 cents and an envelope maybe 5 cents. If they want their money slower, that’s fine with me."