13 July: Customer Service?

Phone bill from BT - it's actually very small, as most of our communication is done by computer or mobile phones.

Now they are charging us £4.50 a quarter to pay by cheque.

I always pay the bill promptly, usually by return of post, and they never have to send us a reminder. But we don't pay by Direct Debit, which they prefer, as they can take what they want when they want. It's our money - we prefer to control it ourselves. And if we pay bills individually, it makes sure we know exactly what we are paying. Old-fashioned, but then being clear of debt is. And do they get the Direct Debit payments anyway when people have no funds in the account?

But now they see a way to penalise us, good quiet customers that we are. So they whack on a charge that is over 10% of our actual bill.

And the argument that chasing bad payers is expensive for them won't wash either - that cost is already built into the charges.

Other utilities we deal with - gas and electricity - give us a small discount for prompt payment. Much better customer service than charging you extra for totally unjustifiable reasons .

If we didn't need the land line for the computer, we would stop dealing with BT straight away.