Hey, I want to share with you my recent experience of bill payment. It goes something like this.
I got a message that I am having an outstanding bill for my post paid bill of mobile phone. And I need to make the payment. I was like, ‘OK’ ! I will make the bill payment.
But, when I got down to making the bill payment, I noticed that I have received the bill for amount that’s more than 100/- Rupees. As I am using an unlimited plan and I have been the same fixed amount until there were some revision in tax rates.
I called up the Contact Centre and asked them the reason why I got the inflated bill. She looked into my account and replied that I have delayed my payment. As a result, they are now charging me a late payment fee.
I asked them if they can do something about it. She was kind enough to listen to my grievance and given the relationship of more than 12 years with the same service provider, I was confident of getting the waiver. And so, I got it.
This is the benefit of making bill payments every time you receive them. And not simply automating them. When you automate your payments, you don’t what’s going on with the charges you may be paying without knowing.
Here it was a delayed payment fees so you could tell me that my automation would have avoided the late fees. But, that’s not the point. Paying late fees is just one of the many scenarios I am quoting.
Sometime ago, I had received a bill with an amount 20% higher. I called the customer service and they informed that the charges have been revised under the plan. I was upset as I was already paying an amount that should not be increasing any further. Moreover, I have been their loyal customer so they could have accomodated me at the same rate or cares to inform.
Initially they were unrelenting. So, I decided to port my account to some other service provider. They realised that they will be losing a very loyal customer so they called me just 4 ours before the final stage of porting. I wasn’t surprised.
I stuck to my guns. I refused to give in and pay the increased amount. Finally after realising that they would be losing a regular paying customer, they offered me the discount and also decided to give me waiver of 1month bill.
This seemed like a good reason to stick with my long standing relationship. And they also gave me the 6 months extention of waiving the extra amount. So, I ended up with the condition of same bill amount for my loyalty.
Had I automated the bills to my service provider, I would have never got the chance to look at my bill and they would have happily enjoyed at my expense.
So, I would say to you as well. Do not automate your Bill Payments. Instead automate your investments. Because, there you are paying to yourself.
Did you like my post? Please do let me know.
