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cant pay for my bill unless i call?

AndyH
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Registered: ‎27-10-2012

Re: cant pay for my bill unless i call?

Quote from: rongtw
Have just spoke to a Accountant friend of mine , he reasons that for every £100 you spend in a shop , the actual cost to the retailer is 8p for debit card processing   

Debit card payments are fixed, irrespective of the transaction amount.
Credit card payments are a percentage of the transaction amount.
I very much doubt retailers are as low as 8p - this is nearly half what my Streamline pricing shows for >£500k in transactions per annum.
TORPC
Grafter
Posts: 5,163
Registered: ‎08-12-2013

Re: cant pay for my bill unless i call?

There is one local corner shop, that charges 50p for any transacted amount,
All other small / corner shops / supermarkets, within a 2 - 3 mile radius do not charge anything
@Townman
Quote from: Townman
Sorry, your accountant is quite wrong.
Based on my experience running a pub, 8p just about covers the cost of printing the card payment receipts.  PDQ rolls cost about £3.50 each and on some machines, you only get 60 transactions out of a roll.
The minimum authorisation charge is 4p per transaction, including payments, refunds and cash backs.

PN do not supply the paper roll format of a card transaction (therefore in this instance (would not apply)
They also do not offer cash back (therefore as above it would not apply)
It is unlikely that they use a PDQ in the sense of paying customers & afaik, no customers are physically allowed to go to PN towers to make a payment

Quote
The minimum transaction charge is 35p - depending on card used it can be much higher, 2.5% or more of the transaction value - Amex and Dinners Club are the highest which is why many merchants do not accept those cards.
There is also the rental cost of the PDQ device, to say nothing of the cost of mandatory industry security verification (PCI-DSS is an onerous costly burden - an area I specialised on before leaving the IT industry).
When VAT is added in the minimum cost of the transaction to the merchant charged by the payment processor is circa 50p using a manual PDQ device.

Therefore the rental cost for a PDQ for their paying customers is not necessary relevant in this instance
& as my best guess of 95% - 99% of payment(s) are done electronically  (unless there is a glitch & needs a human being to fix the glitch) where would any of these charges be warranted for online payments?Huh
jelv
Seasoned Hero
Posts: 26,785
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Registered: ‎10-04-2007

Re: cant pay for my bill unless i call?

Quote from: rongtw
Have just spoke to a Accountant friend of mine , he reasons that for every £100 you spend in a shop , the actual cost to the retailer is 8p for debit card processing   

Tell you what - you subcontract the card payments for Plusnet and they'll pay you 12p per transaction. You could make a fortune turning over a 50% profit on every transaction!
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
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Anotherone
Champion
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Registered: ‎31-08-2007

Re: cant pay for my bill unless i call?

How about we go back to paying for everything by cash, that would really foul up the system!
TORPC
Grafter
Posts: 5,163
Registered: ‎08-12-2013

Re: cant pay for my bill unless i call?

How about we go further back to before money was invented http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money
warbleeder
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Registered: ‎04-03-2010

Re: cant pay for my bill unless i call?

i know topic is afew days old but i aint bben on forums for afew days....
i think it would be verry interesting to see how a card payment only company would cope if say 100 of their customers showed up with cash in hand
because a company can not legally refuse payment no matter what form its in
(and this is not aimed at PN)
AndyH
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Re: cant pay for my bill unless i call?

Quote from: warbleeder
because a company can not legally refuse payment no matter what form its in

This is not true.
A company can decide how it wants payment, there is no law stating that any company must accept a certain kind of payment.
jelv
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Re: cant pay for my bill unless i call?

I suspect warbleeder may be getting confused by what is legal tender, i.e. if a company accepts payment by cash what coins they must accept which depends upon the amount being paid.
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
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HPsauce
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Re: cant pay for my bill unless i call?

I don't think legal tender is in any way relevant; as that link says:
Quote
Legal tender has a very narrow and technical meaning in the settlement of debts. It means that a debtor cannot successfully be sued for non-payment if he pays into court in legal tender. It does not mean that any ordinary transaction has to take place in legal tender or only within the amount denominated by the legislation. Both parties are free to agree to accept any form of payment whether legal tender or otherwise according to their wishes

So basically, if PN says how they wish to be paid you have 3 choices:
1. Pay as requested
2. Negotiate an individual agreement (that always works well with mass consumer organisations!  Roll_eyes )
3. Take your business elsewhere
jelv
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Re: cant pay for my bill unless i call?

Quote from: HPsauce
I don't think legal tender is in any way relevant

That was the point I was trying to make.
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
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HPsauce
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Re: cant pay for my bill unless i call?

Maybe, but you referred to "if a company accepts payment by cash" which is NOT what legal tender is about, though many people think it is.  Wink
itsme
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Re: cant pay for my bill unless i call?

Some companies by law cannot accept cash.
jelv
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Re: cant pay for my bill unless i call?

Quote from: HPsauce
Maybe, but you referred to "if a company accepts payment by cash" which is NOT what legal tender is about, though many people think it is.  Wink

It absolutely is what legal tender is about. If payment by cash is a method of payment accepted by a company then legal tender applies (e.g. they can refuse to accept payment if people turn up with bags full of pennies to pay large bills).
If payment by cash is not a method of payment accepted then obviously it is irrelevant.
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
   Why I have left Plusnet (warning: long post!)   
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Anotherone
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Re: cant pay for my bill unless i call?

jelv is right on that. I have given a local shop more than 20p in 1p coins somewhile back - they did take them (I think they wanted the change) but they didn't have to.
brainthee
Newbie
Posts: 4
Registered: ‎10-12-2010

Re: cant pay for my bill unless i call?

This talk of how many pence a TX costs is pointless for this topic and should be brought back on track.
Having worked for a company who's sole business is to provide flexible payment systems, it hurts me every month when it's an absolute ball ache to sort my PN bill.
Several issues that show PN is WAY behind the times with payment systems:
1) No flexible DD dates. DD goes out x days after your billing date and that is it. Apparently they can now change your billing date to make the DD match the day you want, but not without several months of kicking and screaming.
2) No ability to EASILY (key word) pay a pending/due bill. There doesn't need to be complicated logic behind this. If a bill is due, and no DD is setup, show a payment button. Simple. That is it. Simple.
3) No ability to make a payment without storing the card. While I'm not the tin-foil hat type and won't store my card details anywhere, ISPs are particularly juicy targets. These are feelings only and not backed up by anything but I get the feeling PAN numbers aren't fantastically secure. Would be more than happy to retract that should someone from PN be able to say how they address PCI (in ways other than "Yup, we're fine"). I.e. tokenisation, encryption? etc
4) No automated method to make payment over phone. I'm a business customer paying the highest package and had to wait around 10 minutes on the phone earlier just to pay my bill. Sure, I get PN are busy and they are training up more people on the business team (not heard that before have we?) but an automated system would help in these situations. Of course, if number 2 was solved, this would be even less required.
PN has dedicated development teams, but I haven't seen any new features or shiny upgrades for anything customer facing for a while? I appreciate there are many backend systems that keep a complex network running, but seriously, every time I chat to a CSC about this, they make the promise of a new billing system. When I pressed the last one for info, it appears PN are still in the phase of determining requirements.
So many things make me love PN, yet so few critical things really bug and affect me. You really aren't doing me proud sometimes Sad
I would love to hear an official response to this. If I'm mistaken with the above, PLEASE correct me, I would love to be corrected (this isn't sarcastic in the slightest!). Compared with other suppliers, I love PN. But common guys, show the love (other than shiny marketing campaigns).