You can now pay your Telstra bill via credit card on direct debit and avoid the 1% (or 2% if you paying with Diners)
You can use this method to pay via credit card to get your reward points and you don't need to pay it with PayPal each month.
From the Telstra website:
Credit Card Payment Processing Fee:
If you pay your bill by Direct Debit from a registered credit card and you have a 13 digit account number, the payment processing fees will not apply.
When Telstra started accepting PayPal it was posted as a "deal" so I thought it I would post it "deal" again.
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/95660
More people will see it here than the forums anyway :-)
Actually more people will see it when they get their next Telstra bill.
Setting up Direct debit for bills isn't very smart because the company basically can deduct money whenever they want & it's very hard for you to stop it. It's even harder to get your money back if you've been over charged.
People tend to get lazy & don't check their bills when they have direct debit set up.
You also out of pocket if you need to dispute a bill.
Only if you're using a bank account for the direct debit.
If you're using a credit card (i.e. what this deal is about) you can phone up your credit card company and ask for a chargeback with lots of different justifications, including:
that's not necessarily true
it was a 'bargain' on the site when they accepted PayPal payments if you remember.
So do other telco companies like Optus, VF, Virgin, etc. charge the 1%? If not, then surely this is not actually a bargain, it's just Telstra succumbing to meet competition standard practices!
What the hell does service, free sms or any of that $#!t have to do with this 'bargain'? This is about payment charges and method of payments! And I know that both VF and Optus have never charged me a DD CC fee!
Get up, turn the lights on and take a good look in the mirror!!! Telling me am I alright!!!
Hey Snoop, Optus charge 1% for credit cards.
No they don't - they abolished fees some time ago
they abolished fees only if you direct debit from a credit card. Make a one-off payment by credit card, and you'll still pay the 1% fee.
I for one am glad it was posted here instead of the forums.
I'm glad he posted it here. I wouldn't have seen it otherwise
So adhoc payments by Credit Card still attract a 1% (or 2%) fee. Why?
they are encouraging direct debits.
Will you earn cc points?
Yes you will.
Be warned that this offer is only supposed to apply to 13 digits account.
So you have to register the credit card with Telstra to avoid the fee. I think Ill stick with paypal
Also- paypal on Amex issued Amex earns 1 point per dollar, the direct payment only earns 0.5 points as it is a utility.
Thanks for the tip, how about Bank-issued Amex? Do they earn the normal points? I'd rather have a direct debit setup instead of Paypal
Bank issued Amex will depend on the individual bank. I do not know if any with the reduced utilities points so you should be ok.
Thanks, I checked through the terms from my bank and seems to be fine.
Going by their past history with customer data, I'd still go with PayPal
I'm sure they would factor this 1% fee in their next round of price hike
This is not a bargain, a major rip off company stops imposing a credit card tax and it's posted as a bargain. Pull the other one.
Absolutely agree. They already charge so much in comparison to their competitors and yet still making you pay this. NOT a bargain.
Totall agree. No bargain here, move along, keep moving.
Then, What's the point of negging the deal? Less people can benefit from free direct debit if no one sees it?
Agree.
About time, I'm with Optus and they stopped doing this not too long ago.
Not defending Telstra, or any other company here, but the CC fee is just the fee being passed on from the Banks.
And I quote "banks charge retailers an average merchant service fee - the cost to accept card payments for Visa and Mastercard - of about 0.86 per cent." (Article date: August 18, 2012)
Source: http://www.news.com.au/finance/money/credit-card-surcharges-…
Take home message: Not unreasonable to get hit with 1% surcharge, but it's important to understand where the fee is actually coming from (The Banks). I, too, prefer it gets absorbed into cost of product/services. But ignorance will always be bliss, right? ;)
I am a small time retailer with a CBA POS machine at our warehouse, what the banks don't tell the public when they ramble on about merchants ripping the public off by charging more than 1% (or 0.86% per above) is that the bank has a MINIMUM monthly fee collection per machine and they also charge for equipment hire(ie the eftpos machine), we have a 2.2% C/Card charge and customers often get very worked up about it, what they don't realise is that if our machine only gets used once per week - our cost to process the 1 transaction is about $20 !
Get rid of the machine some may say ? - Well we need that merchant facility to be in place, so that we can pay the CBA an additional $30 per month to link that facility to our website - or we wouldn't be able to accept online C/Card payments.
I'm not whinging because its a service and if we want it we have to pay for it - I am just advocating the facts on behalf of small businesses who charge c/card processing fees.
As a big time consumer (mainly due to this website) I don't pay credit card fees on top of purchases, period.
My advise to retailers is incorporate the fees into your product/services, that way it's diluted between the other 50% of your customers.
Fair comment, but when a customer is presented with the option of EFTPOS (zero fee) or Credit Card 2.2% - about 50% choose EFTPOS and about 50% choose credit card so they can "earn points" - 0% so far in 3-4 years have walked off - so I think our strategy is working so far.
If a value proposition is there, ie We still provider a cheaper price or a better service (AND) have a C/Card fee - we'll still win the business.
I too like this approach but eventually we get to the question of what should be charged to those who benefit and what shouldn't (e.g. carparking in a shopping mall). After all, someone who pays cash is a more attractive customer and hence should receive a discount (whatever happened to TGG "pay less pay cash"- since cash = visa apparently!).
since cash = visa apparently
Distinction should be: credit vs debit
Credit = surcharge. Debit = no surcharge.
o_O? But I was paying with my Visa credit card. Same with AMEX. I just find it interesting that TGG just mean not using a financing facility nowadays and don't differentiate between cash and different credit cards.
I don't know how much you put through your EFTPOS, and whether by dropping the surcharge, you may end up getting more transactions to make it worth your while not worrying about the minimum monthly fee collection. Obviously it's to do with your average transaction amounts too. If all you do and sell is low margin, then it sucks big time.
Thanks for sharing. It's good to hear the other side of the story sometimes.
Look up PayPal Here. Would be more cost effective for low volumes.
I doubt a company the size of Telstra would pay the average fee.
Telstra probably pay closer to 0.42% using the ATO rate as a guide.
http://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Payments-to-ATO/How-to-pay/#C…
Certainly not a deal, but not worth neg. Perhaps should have been in discussion forum.
I think that's the real issue here… Agreed!
Yes Not a bargain. But
maybe we need somewhere else to put those announcements/Deals/News that is popular a lg amount of people and people can also vote(as many do not read the forums)
Thanks for posting this OP. (It's a deal for me, as was the Pay Pal option.)
Thanks OP for posting this. This saves me a little bit of time every month because now I no longer have to login to pay with PayPal for the AMEX points.
I followed this up with telstra today, as I am being charged,. I have a 13 digit acct, number. They stated it was a provider direct debit charge. So they have just rebranded the charge . You are still being charged, just a different name.
I'm still waiting for my next bill. Does it actually appear on your Telstra bill, or just on your bank statement?
good news but not a bargain, this is a forum thread