BT Payment Processing Fee - (awkward customers)

deadringer

Mr Oink and Naf are spot on.

1. It does NOT cost £5.40 to clear a cheque. Full stop.

2. It does NOT cost £5.40 to take a cash payment over the counter (If it did, all the corner shopkeepers in the country would be bankrupt by now...duh!)

3. It does NOT cost £5.40 for a company to receive a payer-instigated electronic payment.

4. The argument 'all the telecomm companies do it' does not hold up. Lots of people binge drink, too, that doesn't make it right.

5. The argument 'if you don't like it, move telecomm supplier' does not hold up. I'm complaining to BT because BT is my current supplier. If I was with another supplier I'd be complaining to them. Besides, everyone knows they are all colluding on this surcharge bonanza.

6. If you are late with a payment there is a £7.50 late payment fee to 'help offset the admin cost'. So what is the £5.40 fee for exactly?

7. If you are persistently late with payment and get disconnected, there is a £125 reconnection fee (rather hefty for clicking a few keys on a computer to switch your line back on, but anyway...). So what is the £5.40 fee for?

8. If you are deemed to be a credit risk, you need to pay a deposit, anywhere from £50 to £300 (individual) or even £2000 (business). So..erm..what's the £5.40 fee for?

9. Would you hand over your blank cheque-book, or your direct-debit card and PIN, to an under-paid, over-worked, under-trained kid in a call centre somewhere in a third-world country? Then let them write out cheques to themselves or visit the bank machine and take out your money at will? Yeah, I didn't think so. And yet we're expected to give them exactly this access to our bank accounts?

10. Then, when you do notice at the end of the month/quarter they've taken the wrong amount, you pull out a little of paper tucked away in your files, the erm...so called DD 'guarantee'. You try ringing said call centre only to get passed from one poor over-worked, under-trained kid who can barely speak English (let alone work out the maths) to another. Not me, thanks. [Absolutely no disrespect to the under-paid, over-worked, under-trained staff at the call centres. They are just as much victims of BT's greed as we are.]

11. My bill of £51 this month has the £5.40 surcharge on top. That's an over TEN PER CENT surcharge on my bill they want ME to pay for the privilege of paying money TO them. Think about it: You go to the corner shop to buy a can of drink. The price says 60p. You take it to the counter to pay. The shopkeeper says: "That's 60p for the drink and another 6p for the trouble it's taking me to take your 60p and put it in the till." Bonkers. Or how about this: You go to buy a new car. It's £20k. You hand them £20k cash. They say oh, we want £2k on top to 'process' your payment. BONKERS.

12. Of the £51 bill, almost £42 (that's almost 80%) is PRE-payment of line rental. They are charging me a surcharge on a PRE-payment. This is legal? On what planet?

13. They will charge the £5.40 EVEN IF YOUR ACCOUNT IS CONTINUOUSLY IN CREDIT. I always overpay my account by a modest amount to keep it in credit until the next quarter. They still charge the surcharge.

14. ARE YOU SITTING DOWN? Here's the big one. "BT Payment Services Ltd" is a wholly owned private company by...yep you guessed it...BT plc. "BT Payment Services Ltd" made a NET profit of FORTY ONE MILLION POUNDS in 2009. (source: Their own audited accounts, lodged with Companies House. Have a look yourself. Company number 6111881.) You read that right. They made a whopping big PROFIT on the processing fee, NOT just 'to cover costs' of 'processing'.

15. So you think it could not get worse? Economy's on the brink. Cutbacks. Job losses. Give the average working guy and gal a break? OH NO. Think again. In 2010 "BT Payment Services Ltd" made a NET profit of just under FORTY THREE MILLION POUNDS!


How can any right-minded person think this surcharge is anything other than money-grabbing greed?

Mark_In_Hampshire

I don't have any direct debits, indeed the facility is disabled on both my bank accounts to prevent someone in a call centre setting one up for another customer but on my bank account by miskeying the information (had that twice in the past)

Several points:

1. It doesn't cost £5.40 to BT to clear a cheque, no. It's probably in the order of a few pence. However I run my own small business, and it costs me about £42 to clear a cheque. Yes, really. Half an hour of time to go to the bank in person, and £2 parking. So I could either charge customers £42 each time they send me a cheque, or simply say that I don't accept them. Which is what I do. (Though the customer can, if they want, pay the cheque into my bank themselves) However none of this has to do with DD;

3. It's probably about two pence.

4. Not all companies do it. and 5. You could take your pick of a number of suppliers who don't charge extra for a BACS or Faster Payment. If you remain with a company with whom you disagree over policy, really, that company can simply take your acceptance that you think it's OK. Otherwise, you would have left.

On most of the other points, the fee has nothing to do with the cost of processing the payment.

It's because you are a complete nuisance.

You're a nuisance to utility companies, because you're not what they want.

What they want are people who don't really check their bills, don't want paper copies, don't really look at their bank account, and whom they can quite easily overcharge with impugnity since the customer won't realise.

What utility companies emphatically do not want are nuisances who check their bills, and who on doing so send payment, or lodge an issue with them that takes someone time to sort out. Much, much better to get the money in automatically regardless of whether the bill is right, and then if the customer queries it later, perhaps issue a bill credit. Big win every time. The customer cannot therefore be too much of a nuisance, because they're a nice pushover and very compliant, and the company gets the money anyway.

If the bill is wrong, then the company can issue a bill credit in their own time, whenever. The most laughable aspect is the so called "direct debit guarantee" which offers no safeguards at all, and only limited recourse should the payee get it wrong. For instance: say your bill ought to be £30 but you're debited £300.

Scenario 1: You don't have £300. So you get some nice fat bank charges which you're responsible for paying. Payee's mistake, but it costs them nil. You did nothing wrong, but you're now £20 worse off (or whatever)

Scenario 2: You do have £300 and so it's paid. Now you have to plead with the payee for the £270 back (cheque within 14 days which never turns up, bill credit). You can have the bank reverse the DD and put the £300 back in your account. However, now you're in breach of contract for failing to pay the £30 you did owe. So now the payee can legitimately claim a late payment fee since you were late paying. That it was their error matters not. It is irrelevant. The customer is responsible for paying on time even when by DD and the money is being pulled from your account. The payee has no responsibility at all.

In summary: the fee is for being the nuisance. The answer is to go elsewhere.

Sadly, I suspect that direct debit type payment will become the only option for many services eventually, because so many people are misled that it's a safe way to pay and believe that protection exists "the safeguards" when in fact there are no safeguards (deliberately so, the banks want their bank fees!).

Mark_In_Hampshire

Mr_Oink wrote: »

Thanks Mark, but I'd never use AA in Bracknell. Seriously overpriced guff IMHO. Really, their pricing for one thing reads like a sketch from Monty Python.

I have experienced 'Zen' and found it be mixed. When it worked it was great and cheap, but their technical support dealing with a line fault was utterly hopeless. The clincher was minor spamming and cold calling - it was such a turn off, I moved provider. Also, IDNET beat them in terms of providing FTTC. It's been live in my area for a year and ZEN spent too long faffing around - which was not untypical of dealing with them in general.

Granted Zen are a tenner a month cheaper than IDNET, but they are just in totally different leagues. IDNET kick their backsides totally IMHO.

If I can nail the simple 'caller display' then that will do nicely.

I have personal experience of Zen from some years ago; I've only ever had ADSL twice (always lived in cabled areas or used 3G) and they seemed excellent then, though they're strangled by what BT Wholesale will or will not do unless you happen to be connected to one of their 3 (?) LLU exchanges;

No personal experience of IDNET though they have the same issue as Zen in terms of BT Wholesale - it's not LLU - and I seem to remember them being stung very badly not so long ago when Openreach decided to disconnect many of their customers by mistake. But they remain very well rated.

AAISP - giggle - yes, they're very well rated, so I thought I'd give them a call to see if they could delve more deeply into why our 3km phone line can't manage a usable broadband service (sub 2Mbps hence why we use 3G) and the response was "Well, we can get you 2Mbps. That's not too shabby". I nearly laughed out loud and ended the call before we got onto discussing bonded ISDN solutions or dialup.

DVardysShadow

Mark_In_Hampshire wrote: »

On most of the other points, the fee has nothing to do with the cost of processing the payment.

It's because you are a complete nuisance.

You're a nuisance to utility companies, because you're not what they want.

What they want are people who don't really check their bills, don't want paper copies, don't really look at their bank account, and whom they can quite easily overcharge with impugnity since the customer won't realise.

What utility companies emphatically do not want are nuisances who check their bills, and who on doing so send payment, or lodge an issue with them that takes someone time to sort out. Much, much better to get the money in automatically regardless of whether the bill is right, and then if the customer queries it later, perhaps issue a bill credit. Big win every time. The customer cannot therefore be too much of a nuisance, because they're a nice pushover and very compliant, and the company gets the money anyway.

I quoted that bit on its own because it stands on its own as a great description of the truth of modern utility thinking.

deadringer

Indeed, wise words. They all rely on customer inertia, the oldest marketing trick in the book.

I reluctantly pay the 4 x £5.40 = £21.60 per year because it's a lot less than the cost of my time, the stress, and financial loss dealing with the mess they'd create if I gave them my bank details. No doubt they know and count on this. Manipulative rip off.

---

BT PAYMENT SERVICES LTD, COMPANY REGISTRATION NUMBER 6111881, IS A WHOLLY OWNED SUBSIDIARY OF BT PLC AND MADE ALMOST FORTY THREE MILLION POUNDS IN *NET* PROFIT IN 2010 FROM 'PAYMENT PROCESSING' FEES.

dshart

I agree that the whole payment processing charge is a rip off. I used to pay by monthly direct debit until BT overcharged me for several items and it took me a long time to get them to remove the charges. As it was taking them so long to sort it out I decided to cancel my DD and requested that they send me quarterly bills which I would pay after checking they were correct.

Needless to say my first quarterly bill had incorrect charges on it so I refused to pay it till they sent me a correct bill. The way I see it a bill is an invoice and if it is incorrect then there is no obligation to pay it. I spoke to numerous people trying to sort it out but they would not send out an amended bill. I received credit notes, promises of discounts on the next bill, everything but a correct bill. All of which I refused and demanded a correct bill. Eventually after almost 3 months I received an correct bill from them which I promptly paid.

Then my next quarterly bill arrived and guess what, there was a late payment charge on it!! I phoned them up and demanded to know why the late payment charge as I had paid promptly once I received the correct bill. Anyway to cut a long story short this argument followed the same course for almost 3 months before the sent the correct bill and I paid again. But again my next quarterly bill again had late payment charges which I again disputed.

This process went on for a year until they finally wised up and stopped applying the late payment charge when I paid a correct bill on time. BT do anything they can to avoid sending out and amended bill, I think it is because they have to publish it in their figures for incorrect billing. They will offer you credit notes and good customer rebates or anything else to compensate for the amount they have overcharged rather than admit they overcharged or got the bill wrong.

I would advise anyone who has received an incorrect bill from any company to withold payment till they issue a correct bill.

The other reason I think the payment processing is a rip off is that they say that people who dont pay by direct debit are more likely to pay late or have to be chased up all which costs them money. But if the payment processing covers the extra expense BT incur for this then why do they also have a late payment charge?

To all the people who said that DD is the way to go I say be careful, DD is great when everything goes okay but when these companies slip up, they have your money and it becomes a nightmare for you to try and get it back from them. They will never call you back, you will have to constantly chase them up and basically they wont care about you. But if you owe them money they tend to listen a bit more. Remember DD is more convenient for them too, that is why they want people on it, they are not just doing it for your benefit.

Mark_In_Hampshire

dshart wrote: »

I would advise anyone who has received an incorrect bill from any company to withold payment till they issue a correct bill.

On a technicality -

If the bill is correctly addressed, but the amount is incorrect, you should pay the part you owe and put the rest into dispute.

For example, if you see a charge for a service you didn't order, you should subtract that off the pre VAT (net) amount, then work out how much the new inc VAT (gross) amount is, pay that, and dispute the rest.

If, on the other hand, you're a company, and the bill is wrongly addressed (e.g. the company name is wrong) then you should refuse the bill and insist on a correctly addressed one. As you can't use an incorrectly addressed bill for tax/VAT purposes, as it isn't "your bill".

Of course, and very importantly you can't "part pay" a direct debit, nor can you "part reverse" a direct debit. The payee would, as you say, prefer to get your money first (whether owed it or not) and then issue a bill credit or resolve it some other way.

Companies don't like people like you (see my long post above, don't respond to this without reading that, or you'll get the context of this comment wrong) because you're a nuisance. You expect bills to be calculated correctly. You expect to be able to call them up when overbilled, and take up someone's time getting a resolution.

That's why you get charged more.