Student Halls stinging me with unreasonable charges.

dodger1

real1314 wrote: »

Unreasonable bank charges?

Unfair Private landlord tenancy agreements?

What makes a university exempt from the unfair terms and conditions legislation?

A private landlord charging £35 for a job that cost £5 would readily be challenged, as should this.

How many occurrences will it take for some people (who have even been members on here for years!) to realise that a contract is NOT the be-all and end-all. Legislation can over-ride ANY contract. Unfair terms and conditions legislation is one of the KEY money saving issues.

Get it challenged, get every dodgy term challenged. :cool:

But what's a dodgy term to one person is a perfectly acceptable term to another. Reading through this thread it appears a lot of people think this charge is acceptable. Normally unacceptable terms jump out and hit you, this one doesn't.

betterl8

having been a landlord in the past, I think the charge is high but not unjustifiable.

the cost of the card is neglegable, however the following need to be done:-

Stock check and supply of card to halls

Supply of card from reception to student

Programming of card

Deletion of previous card.

collection of monies

raising of invoice on student account.

payment of monies into bank

reconciliation of monies recieved to nominal accounts.

collection of monies again after check bounces...

so you need, a procurement guy, an IT guy, a receptionist and an accountant, with overheads of the card itself, the delivery cost of the cards, the bank charges......

what you see on the front desk is there to minimise the hastle to you, the customer, so if they already have an efficient system in place that you dont see, it doesnt mean that it is not there. It means they can replace the card quickly, when you crawl in with a kebab and a blonde after a few amber nectars, and need to get into the room!!

suited-aces

My uni would NEVER run something like that a loss, getting them to lower their price down anywhere near close to cost price would have been a massive achievement. The fact they now charge £5 shows how close the real cost is.

mynameisdave

Kierz wrote: »

You're clearly arguing just for the sake of arguing now, you've made it more than clear you have no understanding of any of this situation.

Of course. I havbe no understanding of the situation because I pointed out two statements that you make which contradicted each other.

Your argument that the only thing they need to do to maintain this non existent system is a 10p card and 1 minute of the persons time is fundamentally false.

I have a full understanding of the situation. You claim they are making 1,000's each year from this and that the cards are of low quality.

If they are making thousands then there is obviously a large infrastructure requirements for all these dards that are lost or damaged. If they are not making thousands then there cannot be a lot of cards lost or damaged.

It really is that simple unless you want to have your cake and eat it.

suited-aces

I must explain to my old lecturer that his concept of marginal costing was deeply flawed.