The following excerpt is from a letter that we received in the mail from Telstra:
This letter is to let you know that on and from 14 September 2009 there will be some changes to our bill payment fees.
We offer a range of ways to pay your bill. Some of these options incur higher administration costs for Telstra so we're introducing the below fees for their use:
a) A new $2.20 payment administration fee will apply for each bill payment sent through the mail or made in person at a Telstra Shop or Australia Post. This fee also applies to bill payments made using Electronic Funds Transfer. Electronic bill payment options which will not incur this fee are highlighted below.
Let me get this straight by me paying a bill, Telstra is going to charge me a fee for the "privilege" of paying my bill. This is essentially a penalty for keeping within the boundaries of the contract. Has anyone else in the world come up with such a blatant rip off?
An "administration fee"? Come on, seriously. If we pay via the net, surely it is us doing the administration for you. Or if we pay at the post office, then it's the Post Office who does the administration, not Telstra. Besides which, isn't administration one of the implied overheads of any business?
And if the "administration fee" is as a result of the mess left behind by that farty trumped-up little smeghead Sol Trujillo, then why are we the customer forced to pay the bill? Wasn't it his fine management which saw the share price (and ergo people's investment in the company) fall from $5.68 to $3.08 under his tenure? How come Telstra don't make him pay the "administration fee".
And since we're on the subject of fees grounded in the most tenuous, and shallow ground of justification, where do the Commonwealth Bank, the National Australia Bank (of whom it seems strangely appropriate that they should have on their documentation "nab"), Westpac and the ANZ get off in charging so called "account service fees"? Just what is the service they provide?
Firstly they take our money on deposit and then invest it which means that they already make money from our money. Secondly the interest they pay back is covered ten-thousand fold by the interest they charge on mortgages and lending. Thirdly, with them closing branches and in effect forcing us to do "internet banking" doesn't that mean that we're actually servicing our accounts ourselves?
But the fee that really got my feckles, hackles, schmeckles up and tingling were two fees which we got from a legal firm. They owed us a fair amount of money for the work we had done from them, and they charged us a "postage fee" and a "late payment fee". They charged us for them handling our demans to be paid and them being late in paying us. Not surprisingly, I took this directly to the principal of the law firm and refused to pay them, and also consequently refused to ever do any work for them again... except now they have a court order, ordering us to do work for them in the case.
I think I should start mailing out my own fees and charges for frivolous things, like waiting time in the post office queue, charging fees to companies like Harvey Norman for putting annoying adverts on the telly, and a congestion charge for those people who crowd out the doors on train carriages.
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