Paying bills at the counter?

squinty

Most utility companies and most councils and housing associations offer the options of paying through one or more of the payment networks (paypoint, payzone or girobank). These are often in local shops.

Naf

jennifernil wrote: »

I can understand this. What I do not understand is why so many people are so reluctant to set up DDs to pay their bills.

With the DD guarantee, there should be no problem, and it is really convenient, often gets a discount, cuts out having to remember to make payments etc.

As pensioners, we are often away from home in our caravan for 3-4 months at a time, frequently abroad and without internet access, so DDs are pretty essential.

But those of us living on an income where finances are worked out almost to the penny and we're lucky to have £20 left over at the end of the month don't have the luxury to let companies make mistakes on our DDs and then have to wait for the DD guarantee to claim it back. I refuse DDs because not just once, and not just one company have made mistakes on my bills, and if they had just taken the payment I would have been without grocery money for up to two weeks, plus one if them took 6 months to resolve which would have meant the following months' payments would also have been claimed wrong. SOs are a perfectly reasonable way of keeping your payments automated while you're away, whilst still retaining control. Granted once in in a position to have an overdraft/savings buffer in my current account it will be somewhat different and DDs won't be so difficult to manage.