We are rarely at a loss for words here at www.hearusnow.org, but we have to admit we were left speechless by Verizon’s stunning announcement it’s doubling its already ridiculous penalty on customers who want to get a better phone or service from another company.

Beginning next week, Verizon will raise its “early termination fee” to $350 per line for its more advanced phones, including its popular Blackberry devices and its just-introduced Droid.

Think about that for a minute. That’s $350 per line. If you have a tech-happy family of four all with a Blackberry that means it could cost you a cool $1,400 to move to a new carrier.

If that sounds like highway robbery, it’s probably because it is.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar summed up the situation very well in letters she sent to Verizon and the Federal Communications Commission this week.

“These fees are anti-consumer and anti-competitive and they bear little to no relationship to the cost of the handset device” said Klobuchar, a member of the Senate Commerce Committee.

For its part, Verizon says it’s doubling the fees on its high-end devices to better reflect the actual prices of the phones. Verizon and other wireless carriers have long claimed they have to charge the fees because they heavily subsidize phone devices for consumers in exchange for their agreement to one or two year service contracts.

It’s possible there could be some truth to Verizon’s argument, but consumers will simply have to take the company’s word on that because neither Verizon nor other big wireless companies disclose how much they actually pay for the phones and how much they subsidize them.

A second argument put forward by Verizon in recent days is that too many customers were taking advantage of a special offer the company had been running offering one of it’s popular Blackberry phones free with the purchase of another Blackberry. The company contends many customers were selling the free phones they received on eBay.

But that argument begs the question of why all of Verizon’s new high-end wireless phone consumers should be forced to pay the price for the company’s somewhat dubious business decision to give away free Blackberries.

No other wireless carriers has followed Verizon’s lead on early termination fees – at least not yet. We hope they don’t, which could put market pressure on Verizon to reverse itself.

But like Apple with its iPhone, Verizon is betting that consumers will covet its new Droid device so much that they will be willing to pay any price to get one – up to and including a ridiculous $350 early termination fee. I would be nice if they were wrong.

To read coverage of the issue by Consumer Reports' electronics blog click here and here.

To read Consumers Union’s statement on this topic click here.

To read Verizon’s response to Sen. Klobuchar’s letter click.