BT Direct Debit, How To Beat It

Anon

I have read this thread and I am clearly missing the point - if you have every intention of paying the bill anyway, why spend more time and effort, and lost interest - albeit a miniscule amount - by paying before the bill is due to come out of your account by DD? Or is it simply a protest against them charging for non-DD and you are incurring them costs to process your payment? If this is the case, this results in higher costs overall for BT ... which are then passed back to all customers to ensure that profits are maintained?

Anon

BritBrat

More of a protest from me, as I still pay it as I always did and at the same time.

If this is the case, this results in higher costs overall for BT ... which are then passed back to all customers to ensure that profits are maintained?

You almost got that right too, my bill since May when they decided to charge me for paying on time has been around about £11 - £12 a month total bill, before may it was between £40 and £70 a month.

Not only do I now save £1.50 a month by signing up to direct debit that has never been used by BT as a further protest I also took most of my calls away from them and they get two or three a month now.

And although I now still pay other providers for all the other calls they total for free evening and weekend calls about 50p a month or less and for all the rest about £6 a month, so not only did BT lose a lot of profit I also saved a lot of cash.

So in my case, trying to charge me for paying on time using internet banking BT made a big mistake and although they now send me letters to come back to BT I can't ever see me doing it in the near future, they will have to have a really good deal to get me back.

I have read this thread and I am clearly missing the point

To sum up, I pay the same as I did before but don't get charged for it, I was happy for years for others to get a discount that was my choice and BT took that choice away.

The BT CEO Ben told me it was a corporate decision and I replied that I will make a customer decision and that is what I did.

And if they ever get a ruling that the charge is not legal, I will be claiming back all those other years I paid the extra.

Mytheroo

DD has cost me literally hundreds of pounds in bank charges due to payments being asked for when I don't have the funds. Now with online banking I can choose when to pay after I have checked my account. Case in point is today when I got the email for my bill. I was about to pay it when I spotted the £4.50 charge and investigated it. BT will get their money 2 weeks before any DD payment, and I'm ok with it...I know I have the funds, or I could pay half this week and half next etc. Now if DD payments actually cost less to manage than my online payment (all automatic..no forms for MY BANK STAFF to process...no waiting in queue at the bank when it ****s up, no charges to me for not having enough money ''We cannot let your account go £7.21 in arrears, therefore we have returned your DD and charged you £37.50 putting your account £21 in arrears'') then I will pay the extra, but as it is £1.50 per payment for some, I don't see why my payment costs £4.50 to 'process'.
In short, online banking costs MY BANK less in administration, but makes them less money on charges. All evidence I've seen so far (not a huge amount) says online banking costs BT the same as DD.

BexTech

People shouldn't be running their bank accounts so close to zero though, that just smacks of poor budgeting and money management and or living beyond their means. People should be dropping services and cut back until they have at least several hundred pound buffer in their bank account.

Odd_Fellow

BexTech wrote: »

People shouldn't be running their bank accounts so close to zero though, that just smacks of poor budgeting and money management and or living beyond their means. People should be dropping services and cut back until they have at least several hundred pound buffer in their bank account.

What a pious response.

If you can't say anything constructive, don't say anything at all.

nomoneytoday

Mytheroo wrote: »

or I could pay half this week and half next etc

That's exactly why BT want you everyone to by DD, so that they get single payments in a timely fashion...

Mytheroo

thing is, I get emailed my bill, and if I have the money spare I pay it there and then. A single payment quicker than DD without any human needed for the transaction to be processed. If I don't have the money then a DD wont mean they do get their money, it just means it costs me more to send it late

Mytheroo

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Mytheroo
MoneySaving Newbie

Oh how true :-)

Mark_In_Hampshire

We don't pay anything by Direct Debit, because it's a completely open and insecure system which is designed to benefit the payees and enables Banks to profiteer but doesn't really provide any benefit at all to the customer. I pursued this with BACS who referred me to APACS, who referred me to BACS...

I'm new here and dont want to speak out of turn, but I am surprised that Direct Debit is recommended on this site as a way to pay for anything; just one error by one payee once could incur charges and consequential losses through no fault of your own, borne entirely by you, and far greater than any potential saving across a whole year by using DD.

We received the letter from BT stating that when we pay our bill we agree to a relationship with their third party to process payments on their behalf, so we'rw writing to them to refute this and to deny any such relationship with the third party. I am assuming this therefore means that we have no obligation to pay the £4.50 charge but I do not fully comprehend the legal nature of BT as the "agent" and would welcome views on this.

BT say they may disconnect our service if we do this, but then that places them in breach of contract for the supply of the actual services for which we are always paying in full.

On the subject of the late payment fees; £7.50 would surely be a penalty charge irrecoverable at law anyway, and, in any event, our BT bills arrive only one or two days before the "payment due" date, so payment "on time" is logistically almost impossible anyway; the bill last month arrived on the 27th (dated the 19th) and the reminder to pay turned up on the 1st. What a waste of paper in an effort to intimidate people into paying by DD.

At the same time we have like other posters moved all our calls to 1899 and have saved a fortune. We had no intention of doing that prior to BT's attempt to "pull a fast one" with the changes, but it's BT's continuing loss.

Once the 12 months is up we'll be changing provider (the letter we received also stated that our 12 month contract will auto-renew every year unless we say otherwise, so we're refuting this change to their Terms as well). We'll be going with a reseller which isn't something I'd normally encourage, but then the service could not possibly be worse so there's nothing to lose.

Should BT want to discontinue supply early on the basis that we refuse to pay their payment processor what they want, we intend to ask them how they would like to compensate us if we release them from the contract early.

How has anyone else got on with this?

vix2000

I don't pay by direct debit as I object to someone else having access to my account and taking what they want. I have always paid bt by standing order and have only just realised the charges. I have moved my calls to sky and will only be paying my line rental. I already pay sky a charge for not paying dd so 2 in one. Will pay my line rental by s/o a month in advance so they can't charge me? (I hope)