Telstra Overdue Bill Charges

Telstra are charging $15 overdue fee (regardless of whether it is one day or one month overdue) which I believe is an excessive charge.

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Telstra are rolling out a Survey by email at the moment which asks their customers "for 10 minutes of your time so we can improve things " Take advantage of it and voice your displeasure at the overcharge amount . /

I know I will add it to my list of grievances now when I complete the survey .

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Concerning the Survey as rolled out by Telstra on email . It clearly states that they are looking for input to help them improve their service . All it is is a hard sell for Telstra Air .:sob: Waste of time .

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Could pay your bill on time to avoid this one!

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That is spot on.
The charge is not new it has been in place for a while.

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Yes they do but if I believe It a little late I have negotiated with Telstra not to pay I. Worth a try if you are struggling financially

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Yes it is - especially when paying online - delays etc. for the payment to get it through. Complain to the manager and have it waived.

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Telstra do not seem to know what customer service is.

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Still sounds excessive - they should offer better service and send out reminders - bills can get lost in the mail.

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But if one includes say time for an overdue bill to be confirmed (namely checked that it has not been paid when overdue notice is issued), additional cost of producing and posting a letter and potentially having staff respond to enquiries from customers with overdue accounts, $15 could be seen as reasonable.

Many businesses now offer incentive ‘discounts’ if bill paid on time. This in reality is no different to a late fee …namely no discount or a late charge imposed when payments are made by due date.

For example, many utilities provide 5-10% discount on usage costs when a bill is paid on time through direct debits. In Brisbsne, ratepayers get a $15 discount if rates or paid on time (noting that late rates also incur a 11% intetest for late payments)

Nothing that Telstra does to alienate its customers would surprise me…

I gave up being one of their suckers twelve years ago, and haven’t regretted it for a moment.

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Telstra did this to me a year or two back. Luckily for me, I watched an episode of ‘The Checkout’ on ABC where they discussed late charges. It’s not actually a legal charge that Telstra and other companies can enforce. Upon finding this out I telephoned Telstra and pointed this out to them. The person on the phone then agreed to remove the charge but stated it was because I had previously had a good payment record.
My advice to anyone receiving any sort of dubious charge would be to do your research - through legitimate websites (consumer rights/ fair trading/ombudsman etc) and find out exactly what’s legal and what’s not. Then don’t be afraid to challenge the charges with the company that’s trying to enforce them.

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I closed all my Telstra services earlier this year and rather than refund me the twenty dollars they owed me they continued to send me monthly bills with a negative balance. After several months I sent them a request for my $25 dollars plus a late payment fee! My money arrived 7 days later.

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Given Australia Post’s current appalling delivery “service” times, surely it is time for companies to allow a longer ‘grace period’ for payment?

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I’ve been on direct debit for 35 years, have not missed a bill yet>

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It is very easy to be a day or so late paying, especially if one is on a pension, Newstart etc. I do believe that it has been found that it is not legal for Telstra (or any organisation) to charge a late fee.

I have on occasion been unknowingly late by a day or two and Telstra have applied the $15 to my next bill. I called them and complained and the charge was reversed. If you know however that you may not be able to make a payment on time just call Telstra and they will grant you an extension.

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I think if Telstra do not review and restructure much of their operational procedures , including billing methods , in the next decade or so they will become noncompetitive and irrelevant within the industry . They don’t seem to grasp the idea that a standard must be attained and then lived up to . Consumer service to them often seems a secondary concern and in some cases the customer seems more like a hindrance than a user of their services .

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With the advent of the NBN and the rise of the personal smartphone the landline business which Telstra was built on will in time become defunct.
But Telstra is by far and away the biggest mobile network and data supplier both in terms of their footprint and customer base. Optus and Vodaphone were sleep at the wheel for many years and just looked for ways to cherry pick the easiest profits and this affectively allowed Telstra free rein on pricing.

Telstra due to its customer base and footprint has pricing power and a technological edge in bandwidth and is almost exclusive supplier of remote comunications.

Optus and Vodaphone have both woken up finally and are starting to invest big time in their networks and working harder to close the bandwidth and comms availability gap they will in the next few years as their networks expand and improve put significant pricing pressure on telstra.

Interestingly telecoms in Australia has not evolved into a cosy duopoly that seems to evolve quickly in other Australian industries and so real competition will continue to push downward on prices. Telstra in my opinion will not disappear but they will get a lot leaner and they adopt more automation and use less human capital to do the job, and unless they make a dumb technology decision in the future they will likely remain the major market share player for the foreseeable future.

Yes it is. I suggest you take it to the top until you get your money back.

They are hopeless. One problem is that they do not address complaints - I am waiting for my complaints to be dealt with - they seem to delete them and hope you go away.