Payment Fees

[pickrest]

I have just received my latest phone bill from BT and have noted that BT have now increased their payment fees to £18.00  £21.60 inc vat  by BT Payment Services who ever they are  if you dont pay by direct debit which I dont do and you still have to pay even if you pay online .What a rip off talk about make the rules up as you go along If I trusted BT to handle my account correctly I might pay by direct debit but I dont , so two can pay at this game  BT I am now charging you £25.00 to pay my account on line for my time and my payment services.They are forcing everyone of their clients to go down this route. You should answer to the ombudsman then you might have some explaining to do .The sooner they close BT down the better CEO if you read this you should be ashamed of your company.

[AnitaM]

Hello pickrest,

Thanks for your feedback.

Our pricing team have supplied me with some information.

We did raise the costs for the payment processing fee for business customers on 1 October 2015.  We do manage our costs robustly to remain competitive but do have to adjust our charges when our own costs continue to rise. It is common practice across our industry and in other sectors to charge extra for non-Direct Debit payment, however, telecoms providers are regulated and monitored by Ofcom.

Paying by cash, card or cheque involves extra cost, such as the cost of operating our manual receipting centre, card fees, reminders etc.

As you're already aware, BT Business customers can avoid this charge altogether by switching to Direct Debit, and most already do so, as it is the easiest and most convenient way to pay. They are protected by the Direct Debit guarantee and have 10 working days from the date of their bill, before the money is taken from their account. We make this clear in our Code of Practice.

Customers who receive large print & Braille bills do not incur this charge either, regardless of how they decide to pay and non-business customers are not charged a payment processing fee.

Anita

BT Business Community Admin

[pickrest]

Standard reply as per usual . Lets force all our customers to pay by direct debit  including schools and other large institutions that cant pay by direct debit because of accounting procedures. I know how the system works and they are not allowed to pay by direct debit so do they still get charge payment fees .I bet they do . What a scam.

[pickrest]

What a joke and a farce how is it that residential customers dont pay payment processing fees when us business customers do  and the process is exactly the same. Even one of your payment operators told me he thought the fee was a rip off but cant do anything about it .Perhaps the latest report might just make BT wake up and smell the coffee. I look forward to the day when BT is broken up and they have proper decision making rather than half past three around the coffee table on a friday afternoon with third rate managers.