Surcharge for Non Direct Debit??!!

proeleche

I'm sure I've read that it is illegal in Ireland to charge someone more to pay in a certain way - can anyone confirm?

Mark_In_Hampshire

proeleche wrote: »

I'm sure I've read that it is illegal in Ireland to charge someone more to pay in a certain way - can anyone confirm?

Correct. Transactions have to be at face value regardless of the method of payment.

Personally I don't pay any DD surcharges, and I don't use DD.

The answer is simply not to use any companies which charge a surcharge.

For things like phone and broadband the best service * is normally to be found with smaller suppliers anyway.

* best is not necessarily, in fact rarely, the cheapest

zppp

JuicyJesus wrote: »

Not true: I know with my bank for certain, due to the new Payment Service Regulations a bank is required to refund the amount of any unrecognised payment (be it debit card, direct debit or Faster Payment) before 4pm the same day unless they have evidence of customer involvement.



Pardon me, I was just having a vent there.

Completely agree with JuicyJesus, any payment that has debited in error or as a fraud, whether suspected or confirmed, will recredit the funds. The bank will then initiate the relevant claim, indemnity, chargeback etc.

TalkTalk

HI All,

To clarify from a perspective of TalkTalk, which the OP states is there ISP, the 3.50 direct debit surcharge is applicable for the administration costs of actually processing and allocating payments via alternative methods.

Every other method involves increased costs with mainly processing either via CS team for card payment, cashiers for direct banking, which all require relevant IT support, desks, wages, lights, buildings, managers, systems and resources etc.

All these costs are not relevant to DD payments which are paid and allocated to account automatically every month.

TT do not mitigate late payments fees via this charge, this is purely to cover the additional cost of administration for these payments, to ensure this is not recouped in increased costs to other customers who pay via DD.

There are two options in dealing with these costs, either charges are applied to those individuals who choose more costly payment methods ( take for examples companies charging 2% for credit card payments because these cost more to collect) or alternatively to increase the costs for everybody to cover the higher overheads.

TT also see that offering a reduction to customer who pay by DD is not necessarily the most open an honest way in which to apply these charges, which indicates we save money via DD. This isnt true, its just other payments cost more to process, so they cos the customer more to make via the addition of the administration charges

REgards

Mark