Verizon Cancellation Fee

I canceled my long distance service on my phone in order to save some money but I found out that there is a fee to cancel it! While my actual long distance provider, Sprint, didn't charge anything (and the phone representative, Jose, was very polite) Verizon, the local carrier needs $8.70 to cancel it as a "programming change." It shouldn't cost the consumer extra for Verizon to type "cancel" into their computer to cancel a service. And these companies complain that they are in financial hardship! Arggh, they have me coming and going.