Contest a Cash advance fee on a BPAY payment? Vicroads

Money
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I don’t think it is fair that my card provider has lobbed me $30 cash advance + interest because I opted to use BPAY to pay my car registration as I do every previous year.

Name of fee/charge AmountCash advance fee
What you need to know

Applies to cash withdrawals from your account, or if you make a BPAY payment to a biller who doesn’t accept credit cards (we will ask you whether you want to make the BPAY payment as a cash advance before you make the payment). This fee cannot be avoided if you make a cash advance.

  1. Vicroads invoice that BPAY will incur CC surcharges was not disclosed
  2. The CC Company also failed by not offering the the promised option to opt out from the BPAY payment if it demands cash.

Who should I get to fix this Vicroads or the CC provider?

BPay
Pay via internet or phone banking using the
details below.
Biller code: 216291
Reference number: 4826

Call 1300 086 314 to pay over the phone with
Mastercard or VISA.

Direct debit
Sign up to myVicRoads to set up direct debit payments.

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A few vendors are going this way - remember VicRoads are revenue collectors, not a service organisation :slight_smile:
This thread from WhingePool (https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2534826) indicates it has been the case for a couple of years … and some possible reasons …

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If I understand what you did, and correct me if I got it wrong.

You have a credit card.
You paid your rego by Bpay and funded the Bpay with the credit card

I trolled a few banking PDS and they generally state one or the other of a) if the biller accepts credit cards the transaction is treated as a card purchase, or b) the transaction is treated as a card purchase. But there are exceptions and not all PDS call them out very clearly.

https://www.bpay.com.au/Help-Centre/Personal-User/BPAY-Services-FAQs.aspx

shows a FAQ

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If that is the case, you essentially got a cash advance on your card because your Bpay was a cash transfer, not a credit transfer. The web screen warning you about this would be appropriate.

Vicroads is not culpable. To use your credit card to pay your rego you need to do it online with Vicroads or by phone to Vicroads, and they disclose a small credit card surcharge on the rego renewal form.

It appears Vicroads does not make the ‘credit card exception’ clear, although Vicroads just wants its money and does not much care how - but since they note a fee on cards, their not showing the exception to Bpay could be considered bad form.

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Some more information here: https://www.creditcard.com.au/how-to-make-bpay-payments-from-a-credit-card/

Noting they have one thing wrong about Bpay - settlement date is the date you pay so long as it is within normal banking hours, not the date the funds arrive at the destination …

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I think they where saying in the second part of their issue that the screen did not display the previously advised warning screen which should have been displayed that the payment was treated as a cash advance ie “failed by not offering the the promised option to opt out from the BPAY payment if it demands cash”.

If that was the case then the fix should be done by the financial business.

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I am not confident that is everything presented to @carlos as he wrote, because

this transaction is not being done by the credit card issuer, it is being set up by the bank to send a Bpay, and the card was apparently selected as the funding source. If there was no cancel option shown after the ‘warning’ and it became an automatically completed fait accompli I agree it should be taken up with the financial institution.

In my experience that is not necessarily the same as @carlos, there is not always a way to ‘back up’ but there is always a way to ‘cancel’ whereby you can start over. Sometimes how that is presented is not obvious, such as going back a screen or few instead of pressing ‘confirm’. One time changing an order from the payment screen (not Vicroads) became so convoluted I just closed the browser and started all over, such are the failures of some ‘programmers’ to make customer friendly processes that do not follow the shop->pay w/no changes scenario.

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I took it as being the Financial institution as anytime I wish to do a BPay I must go through my Bank/CU and I think that is who said they will present the warning. I may be wrong and perhaps @carlos needs to clarify that so we know the exact steps they took to create the BPay payment and then we might be able to give better advice??

I understand your take on it as well.

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6 posts were merged into an existing topic: When is a bill paid using BPAY actually considered settled?

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A couple more references re Credit Cards …

CommBank - How do I make a BPAY payment?

Credit Card payments using BPAY:

Payments made to BPAY billers who accept Credit Card payments will be treated as normal Credit Card purchases. Some billers however, do not accept payments made with a Credit Card via BPAY. To make the payment you will need to pay with another transaction account. If your other account has insufficient funds you may choose to make a cash advance transfer Credit Card to a non-credit account.

NAB example - BPAY® - fast, secure and trusted bill payments - NAB

Which account can I pay bills from?

You are able to pay bills from any of your transaction or credit card accounts*.

*Selected billers do not accept credit card payments. If you select an account that a biller will not accept, NAB Internet Banking will reject the payment.

For periodic and future dated payments, NAB Internet Banking cannot verify whether the account is acceptable to the biller until the due date. You should therefore refer to your bill to confirm that the biller does accept payments from credit cards prior to creating the payment.

Westpac - BPAY - How to Register and Pay Bills | Westpac

If your bill displays the BPAY ® logo, you will be able to pay it directly from your cheque, savings or credit card 2.
[…]
2. Not all billers accept payments from a credit card.

ANZ - https://anz.com.au/internet-banking/help/pay-transfer/bpay/

Bill payments from your ANZ Credit Card can be processed as either a purchase or cash advance. This is dependent upon how the biller is set up with the BPAY® billing service. The biller has the option of accepting a credit card as a method of payment.

If the biller chooses to accept, the bill payment is processed as a purchase
If the biller does not accept credit card payments, ANZ may allow you to make the payment from your ANZ Credit Card (if sufficient funds are available)
If you choose to proceed with the credit card payment, it will be processed as a cash advance, a fee may be charged and interest will accrue accordingly.

ANZ is the only one of the big four that I noticed who obviously stated the possibility of the transaction being interpreted as a cash advance … the other three seem to indicate it will either be credit or you cant use a credit card … (CommBank do mention you can cash advance to another account then use the other account, but that’s a different kettle of fish).

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In the end Vicroads on the phone indicates they do not accept Credit Card by BPAY at all.

However a computer error at the CC company did not warn or prevent the payment so on this occasion they waived the interest and fees.

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Thanks
I did contact the financial institution
Their first reaction was to blame Vicroads accusing them of filling the BPAY vendor registration incorrectly or something.
Contacted Vicroads billing and no one there could help with that presumably that task is outsourced.

I returned to the Financial Institution and directed them to their own PDS.
As result they reverse the fees to waived the interest,

"Cash Advance : Applies if you make a BPAY payment to a biller who doesn't accept credit cards **(we will ask you whether you want to make the BPAY payment as a cash advance before you make the payment).** This fee cannot be avoided if you make a cash advance. You can access cash from any ATM around Australia. Simply select "credit" and then enter your PIN. Using Westpac ATMs will help reduce your fees. You won't pay the industry wide ATM operator fee when you use a Westpac ATM."

from what I can tell we identified a bug where the immediate BPAY payment option blocks payments to non CC accepting BPAY vendors.

However using the scheduled future BPAY payment option their system does not

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