The £7.50 late payment charge, unlawful?

lezandcarla

I payed my bill late appareently, I thought you had 30 days to pay the bill. I work in business and have to allow 30 days to customers for paying their bill. That is how business works. I also get charge £1.50 a month for the option ttto pay over the phone woth my debit card. I have roughly 5 days to pay my bill. It came this month on august 29th and it says on the bill to be paid by the 1st sept. HHow bad is that. I thought it was law to allow 30 days to pay a bill. Any help, is the charge unlawful and a bit excessive seeing they charge 4.50 to pay the bill.

help

BexTech

That is how your business works.

The last company I worked for invoices were to be paid 28 days from invoice date, another company I worked for it was 21 days from invoice date, another it was end of the month following the month of invoice date. Some firms negotiated paying us 60 days from invoice date, some small firms who we didn't have a track record for they had 7 days from invoice to pay.

Pay by direct debit and save your self some money. Or if you still want to pay by debit card, sign up for direct debit, but still pay by debit card. Direct Debit is so much easier, though I know people who are useless at budgeting and money management or haven't built up a buffer zone on their bank accounts often opt for the more effort method of non-DD.

lezandcarla

Ok but why charge 4.50 to pay a bill. Its apparently 1.50 a month, ok if you pay monthly, i pay quarterly, which means one transfer of cash, that doesn't cost 4.50 to do... its a sham. should we all drum up complaints in one hit and moan like hell

BexTech

I think it is wrong too, however at the moment that is the way they are running their business, the problem is yes you could move your line rental to other providers, though doing this would simply be cutting your nose off to spite your face, as these other line rental providers simply don't accept customers unless you pay by direct debit, if a direct debit fails and you are late paying not only do you get a higher late payment charge they also charge a fee when they allow you to send a cheque for that payment, but inform you you must ensure your DD payments don't fail again.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=1598074&postcount=3 has details of reducing costs.

Virgin Media for example charge £5 per month for not paying by direct debit.

I'd simply save a little so you have a buffer in your account, so you have no worries about ever going overdrawn or over and overdraft (people really shouldn't be sailing so close to the wind), switch to paying BT line rental by Direct Debit and go paperless this give you line rental for £10.50 per month (remember Direct Debit customers for many years have had cheaper line rental than non-DD payers, this isn't something new). Then switch you calls only to Primus and also use 18185.

However if you still wish to use your own payment method, then look at: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=446084


It's just that DD is so much easier, you never worry about missing payments, you don't have to spend time paying them, it's automatic, however it does require that you can budget and manage money properly.

BritBrat

However if you still wish to use your own payment method, then look at: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....html?t=446084

It works for me

BT Direct Debit, How To Beat It

Full Thread Here:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=446084

Kilty_2

lezandcarla wrote: »

Ok but why charge 4.50 to pay a bill. Its apparently 1.50 a month, ok if you pay monthly, i pay quarterly, which means one transfer of cash, that doesn't cost 4.50 to do... its a sham. should we all drum up complaints in one hit and moan like hell

Well - 3 electronic payments into my business bank account would cost less than one done over a counter and my business would have better cashflow...

It doesn't cost £4.50, though. (more like 60p and I'm sure BT have better business banking rates than I do :rotfl:)