Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob
It's all very well companies asking their customers to pay by DD, but to force such a payment style is wrong.
There are numerous examples of payments being incorrectly deducted from numerous suppliers.
If people want to retain control of their money, that should be their choice.
And yes there is the so called Direct Debit Guarantee, but have you ever tried to enforce it 
The major question though is whether the companies using such "fees" are trying it on or not.
Depsite when the contract may have been started, most do carry terms that allow variation with notice.
Now unless that variation is, in law, unfair to the consumer (shows bias to the company), if notice is given it's reasonable.
From what I can see, given that there has to be some manual billing input for any payment that isn't automated such as Direct Debit, it would be difficult for any customer to prove that BT's £4.50 a quarter is anything more than a service fee, and thus reasonable, equally the onus is probably on BT, who raise the fee, to prove it's reasonable. |
as i said im busy, but 'force such a payment' does seem unlawful ,although i have never looked for the exact law, i think it will be covered by the same rules that say shops etc cant refuse a cash payment even if you pay in pennys as its queens currency.... someone might try and look it up.
as for direct debit, now that IS in UK law and it states '
a direct debit is tantamount to a cash payment '
that being the case, it will be hard for any Uk company to lawfully equate a higher price for cash payments in any UK court.
while the gov bodys that are there to protect the UK consumer, or the consumer themselves dont take these matters to (small claims) court, OC the companys in the UK will always try it on.
after all, they know people are lazy and will not fight for their rights, at least thats what the banks thought at one time...
---------- Post added at 12:16 ---------- Previous post was at 12:07 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Akia
But the companies are claiming these are SERVICE charges which would not be covered under the same rules.
I suppose it would be upto a court to decide whether they are service charges or penalties.
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OC they are, they stand to loose a LOT of extra cash flow if they didnt.
look at the case of the banks, they stead fastly refused to ever take it to the courts, until that is, one person took the wrong road and gave the banks a possible out.
its not by any means a clear cut case for the banks to win a ruling, and some have a point that this test case was infact a planted case to favour the banking institutions after all we are talking VAST amounts of cash.
however the banks are a special case, and its not by any means comparable to the likes of VM or BT cash flow, so they(anyone other than the banks infact) have a lot more to loose % wise and far less cash flow to fight a valid consumer or official bodys court case.