BT Payment Processing Fee

double-slit

Dear All,
Apart from going to a Direct Debit (due to income flow) is there any other way to avoid the £6 Payment Processing Fees.
I feel I have been penalize just because of my choice of payment.
As a loyal customer (30 years) I have never miss a payment.
I pay at the Bank either cash or a cheque.
My BT Bill is £61.99,{£46.35 line rental,£9.64 calls,£6.00 Payment Processing Fee}.
I am thinking about Plusnet as I have my broadband from them.
Where is the voice of the consumer in all of this.
Regards
Ray

To ignore the facts does not change the facts

brewerdave

Plusnet charge extra for paying by any other means than Direct debit too. Sorry!!

cynicalgit_2

Sadly BT need your money to pay for their grandiose £1 billion football rights. I believe Bt own plusnet. They've gone from a State Monopoly to a Private Monopoly. They don't give a toss for their customers.

earthstorm

most will do this if you dont use DD, then same as charging for paper statements.

We started offering DD to our web hosting clients because of the reduced costs for this.

Direct Debit charge us a 1% fee to a Max. £2
Paypal charges start at 3.4% of total amount plus 20p per transaction.
Creditcards are processed between 2.5% to 4% depending of provider

Yes Plusnet is a BT subsidiary

littleboo

cynicalgit wrote: »

Sadly BT need your money to pay for their grandiose £1 billion football rights. I believe Bt own plusnet. They've gone from a State Monopoly to a Private Monopoly. They don't give a toss for their customers.

The payment processing fee has been around long before the football rights. BT Retail are clearly not a monopoly.
OP - I think the Post Office bb/telephony allow paying by cash at the counter

Buzby

It was challenged in the a small Claims Court by a property solicitor who made such a hash of it, BT won. It did not set a precedent, but BT refer to this as their justification to apply charges based on how a consumer pays.

That said, a new law arrived supposedly disallowing the practice, but it is routinely ignored.

somethingcorporate

They want you to pay by DD (there are compelling business reasons for this) and they are adding ppfs to push you onto their preferred method so either go for it or pay for the privilege of using another method. Or go elsewhere.

earthstorm

Buzby wrote: »

That said, a new law arrived supposedly disallowing the practice, but it is routinely ignored.

The new law is not to stop the practice, it was set out any of these charges must only reflect the true costs to the retailer/service provider.

the problem arises if the provider uses various processors that have different rates, so they have to find a rate that will cover all their processors

Buzby

The law (which escapes me ATM) was to prevent pricing differentials being used to confuse consumers, the issue of what it cost the company was/is an irrelevance.

BT/Virgin use an intermediary for payments to inflate their processing costs to the end user.

cynicalgit_2

littleboo wrote: »

The payment processing fee has been around long before the football rights. BT Retail are clearly not a monopoly.
OP - I think the Post Office bb/telephony allow paying by cash at the counter

BT aren't a monopoly!! Ru having laugh? Who owns the majority of the UK's communications infrastructure?

Heinz

The obvious counter-argument is that you get a discount if you pay by DD rather that you pay extra for using another payment method.