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Cash or Cheque paying customers penalised study shows
# 28 February 2008, 06:44 by Cable Forum
A recent study report done by price comparison website, uSwitch, suggests and heavily criticises firms who charge customers over the odds for not paying by direct debit. Those customers who choose to pay by cash or cheque get charged more if they require a paper bill and or want to pay by cash or cheque. Firms such as Virgin Media, BT and Talk Talk – are all guilty of insisting customers pay more if they choose to pay other than through the direct debit route.
BT charges £18 extra per year for customers paying by cash or cheque whilst Virgin Media charge a staggering £60 per year. Talk Talk charges £42 a year.
All-in-all, the study shows that such non DD paying customers are being charged an extra £237 million a year.
The report highlights that some customers which don’t want to pay by direct debit, probably down to a previous bad experience, or simply exercising their right to choose how to pay, feel they are being arrogantly penalised and dictated to by such firms who levy such charges.
uSwitch says that it has worked out that 13 million households do not pay their telephone bills by direct debit.
Companies have always argued that customers paying by direct debit should enjoy lower bills.
But there are even some companies such as Tiscali, who do not take on any non direct debit paying customers at all.