Paying Cash? That'll Cost Extra

Originally posted by scepticsRus
Do what i do.

When ever they send any advertising stuff with a pre-paid envelope, i fill it up with other junk mail and send it back to them (making sure that anything with your name and address is removed of course).

Why not just stop the junk mail at the source? I don't know what the laws are where you live but in my city if you write a simple "No junk mail" on a piece of paper and stick it to your mailbox it is ILLEGAL for the postman to deliver you any form of junk mail.

I did this about a year ago and have never received a single piece of junk mail again.

I read this article and just HAD to post.

For the record. It is annoying to have to PAY to pay a cash bill. It's even ridiculous. We get it. (We being the "company")

I work for a T-Mobile authorized dealer. We are NOT owned by t-mobile, therefore to be able to take everybody's cash payments, we ourselves had to PAY an outside company to install software on our computer, set us up an account, and set up a linked account with us and t-mobile direct. That alone cost us hundreds, not to mention a monthly fee. On top of that everytime a transaction goes through our store to t-mobile, we are ALSO getting charged one dollar. Everytime. No matter what. Thats hundreds and hundreds of dollars per month that this business is putting up just so we can take your payments. So we charge a convenience fee of 2 dollars. We arent trying to rip you guys off, and as a matter of fact, the corporate retail store in town charges NOTHING to take your cash. You walk up to a machine, enter your mobile number and insert your cash. Free.

Chances are this AT&T store this person visited was only an authorized agent, and had a system similar to ours. The store just has to charge to make up for lost profit. Its business folks.

As well, there are plenty of free alternatives that will ALWAYS be free.

Online bill payment using a one time EFT or credit/debit transfer. All of us could pay bills online faster and easier than driving to the store, waiting in line, paying cash, etc.

If you dont have/dont beleive in credit cards, go to walmart or if your against walmart which most of you are, go to a gas station and put cash into a pre-paid Visa. Its free and you can use it anywhere visa is accepted... which includes bill payments. It may take more time, but its free.

To put it bluntly, cash is cumbersome. There's a greater risk with cash. Somebody could come into the store and rob me blind of all my cash. Not to mention the mountains of paperwork and reciepts we go through daily. And cash payments dont even post immediately! True its our job to make sure customers get the best service possible, and honestly, cashless payment is the best option. Its instant, its free.

In short, we get it. It sucks, but we have a business to run too.

reply to post by CPYKOmega


My parents have done this but they still seem to post it anyway. There is also something called the Mail Preference Service where you can register not to recieve any more junk mail and its supposed to be illegal if they send it to you .... but the junk mail still comes.

the postal system here in the uk is close to useless anyway, so im not really suprised.

why is it that all the big corporations feel there should be no overhead for them t operate?hey dont get me wrong ,i would love to do business with no operating fees, but accepting the cost for facilities and personel is part of doing business.
this keeps the circle of money flowing,keeps people earning.
i have a comment and a question. first---tax all outsourcing to other countries 300%
the question...what happens if you put the same address and return address on a piece of mail,and dont apply postage? think about it

Ah, the land of the fee and the home of the slave. Cashless society, here we come. Just think, you can be free of all these fees and the awful chore of keeping your checkbook balanced. We’ll do all that for you, just make sure you do just as you’re told or you may be subject to ‘economic sanctions’.

There is one reason, plain and simple, why they are doing this to us:

We're allowing them to do so, meekly forking over our money. We have become complacent, cowardly and conformist to big corporate greed and control, with government support.

If all of us united and told big companies -- and especially big banks -- that we're not going to cooperate any further, they would be forced to deal with us in good faith.

If we all stopped paying for a couple of months, their cash flow would be severely interrupted.

So it's really up to us.

reply to post by hdchop


You had more than one sack of pennies if you paid off a $500 bill. Pennies are normally sacked in $50 increments ... so I'll assume you paid it off in quarters as those come pre-rolled in $500.00 sacks.

My least favorite "Charge the customer fee" Fuel Environmental Recovery fee
that's on my garage bill ... its an additional $6.17 for 3 months of service.

I suspect we can blame this situation on the advent of the FBI, after all those notorious bank robberies during the 1930's. That was the beginning of interstate police and banking.

[edit on 27-4-2008 by Skydancer]

We have all seen those credit card ads pushing their touch and go features where the person who tries to pay with a check or cash slows everything down to a screeching halt. Thats what they want... they want to do away with cash transactions all together. For what reason? better control thats why. Not the government but the credit industry wants to control everything we do and charge us as well.

Who'd have thought using cash could become a revolutionary act?

i don't see what is disturbing here ?

if you pay online you don't need to pay extra because there is no people on the other side serving you.
but paying with cash there is a person dealing with you and he need to be paid.. that's where his salary come from

don't see conspiracy here at all

reply to post by silencee


And what about those people who for whatever personal economic situation don't have access to either plastic-payment or internet? Is it fair to penalise those at the bottom of the economic ladder who live on a cash-based economy?

2 dollars she got by cheap at mt att wireless store they charged me 5 dollars for paying in person and a 9.99 charge keeps showing up to motricity no one can explain. its the same way at banks before m y company went to manditory direct deposit if i went to their bank to get my check cashed the bank would charge me a 5 dollar fee because i didn't have an account with them how is this stuff legal]

My credit union gives bill paying service free either by electronic payment or in person at the wicket.
They will accept my electric or phone bills and whatever other ones i designate (credit cards etc)
all the payments can be made at the branch , ot other branches or on line, or at the bank machine.
I believe a credit union is one of the stroingest weapons we have against the corporate banks....
Though they are not a panacea.
Fact of the matter is they tend to be very conservative lenders.
But thats another story.....
bergle

It gets ridiculous for mortage payments too. If you set your payments to an automatic payment, where money is withdrawn from your account every month, they still charge you.

Why are they charging us for automated payments, when none of their employees are doing the transactions?

This reminds me of my last phone company.

When I was going through the list of charges, there was a 4$ charge for... wait for it... TOUCH TONE SERVICES.

I was floored.
Charged for the use of a Touch Tone Phone Line?

I called and asked if they expected me to use a rotary phone to avoid the $4 charge. The girl on the phone didn't remember what a rotary phone was (too young and stupid), so she checked into it... after being on hold for 5 minutes, she came back and told me if I want to use a rotary phone on their network, it would be a $50 charge to set up the phone lines properly.

Needless to say I ditched that phone company faster than a flaming back of fecal matter.

On a slight tangent to the OP; In light of the recent legal challenges between consumers and the banks over unfair charges, it would seem that Credit Unions are indeed the way forward

From today's Independant:

C onsumers scent victory in the battle over charges. But they could still lose the war

The first round of the battle to recover billions of pounds in unauthorised-overdraft bank charges for consumers has gone in favour of the man on the street.

Last week, the High Court ruled that the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) had the right to decide whether the charges levied by banks on people who go into the red without permission are legal. If the OFT decides the fees break consumer contract law, it should clear the way for customers to reclaim charges, plus interest. In the past two years more than 300,000 people have either taken their banks to court or threatened to do so to get back the charges they've paid.

Unsurprisingly, the banks are expected to appeal against the ruling and fight tooth and nail to keep hold of the £3.5bn every year, or £400,000 every hour, they make from these fees. But they aren't expected to win.

This all seems good news for customers, but experts believe the banks could have a nasty surprise in store for them, through the imposition of fresh fees. In effect, the UK system of free banking could be brought to an end.

Let's hope that this action extends from the banks to companies who levy unfair charges for cash transactions

[edit on 27-4-2008 by citizen smith]

We need a law which ligitimizes charging double fees for services to a vendor as the vendor charges for the same service. Plus equivalent penaltys for late payments.

STORE
I am sorry, there is a two dollar surcharge for paying cash, and a five dollar fee for doing that in person. Seven for occupying the services of a live human for ten minutes! Ten if you use any method of immediate payment other than cash. That comes to 19 dollars plus the original 5 dollars you owed us for this months phone use. That is a total of 24 dollars.

CUSTOMER
That's OK dear, Here is my bill for the equivalents. There is a 4 dollar fee for my having used cash.
It comes to 10 dollars for doing this in person.
14 dollars for ten minutes of my time.
Four dollars if you pay cash now, a 50 dollar penalty if you fail to pay immediately, plus 25 percent interest compounded weekly, of course.
Plus twenty dollars if you pay immediately using any method other than cash.

So how would you like to pay for that?
If you use cash immediately it comes to 32 dollars, but I am having a special this week, and can let you have the immediate cash payment package for only 30 dollars.
Not ready to make a decision, that's all right. Although immediate payment is a requirement. You can go ahead and think it over for a couple of weeks. There are no additional late payment penaltys after the first one, for the first 30 days; only interest!

[edit on 30-4-2008 by Cyberbian]

Originally posted by silencee
if you pay online you don't need to pay extra because there is no people on the other side serving you.

That is not 100% true. There are sites that will charge you to make an online payment.

I guess this is their justification for not raising prices...oh wait...they do that too.

Where does it stop?

Boston is a great band I like the song Dont Look Back but anyways I pay my stuff online also but if you need to pay a last minute bill because sometimes it takes 4 to 5 days to deliver than you need to pay online or in person. This disgusts me and I recently told my cell phone company sprint when I tried to pay them in person if they charge me a fee then Im not going to pay the bill Im going to switch companies and they took the fee off.

True, i second this approach. certainly made me go "umm no, i don't think so" paying to pay your bills just isn't right. make a standing order or have a one click payment system with your banks website.
You should always question this when this happens and make a fuss! others will notice and in shame they will usually accept it without the service charge just to get rid of you for kayface purposes.

Funny thing in a non relevant but related point i went to a restaurant for a meal with the partner. at the end of the meal when it came to paying, which i decided to pay for by card. She gave me device and said "type in chip and pin" I looked at the display on the chip and pin screen by please enter amount for service. (im betting people have typed PIN in here by mistake) considering we waited ages to get seated, we had the wrong meal given to us, the waitress wasn't hardly polite and said no ice in the pepsi and they came to us with ice. I didn't want to pay a service charge she said it was unskippable and that i'd have to put something in...i did 0.00 and pressed enter then i could enter my PIN.

She then became very how to you say "funny" with me and muttered under her breath. always check what youre typing and read properly first


[edit on 5-5-2008 by KristianTNA]