Archived press
release.
The latest service improvement at Suffolk Coastal means that
people can now pay bills from the Council either by using their
telephone or their computer.
The new system has been running for two weeks now and already
nearly 200 people have taken the chance to pay their Council Tax,
Business Rates, car park excess charge notices, housing benefit
invoices, or other Council invoices.
“Even without any publicity as we have been fine tuning the
software, in the first few days since it has gone live it has
already proved a very useful additional service to our residents.
It means that at any time of the day or night, every day of the
year, people can make a payment to us,” said Cllr Robert Whiting,
Cabinet Member for Fiscal and Democratic Services.
“It is all remarkably simple to use and you do not even have to
have internet access as we have introduced an automated telephone
system which you only need a push button phone to operate. The two
things you need to have with you are your invoice or excess charge
notice, and your debit or credit card – armed with those you can
pay us any time any day.
"We recognised that not everyone has access to the internet
which is why we have worked hard to introduce a new improved
payment service which is available to as many people throughout our
largely rural district as possible, in line with our Customer
Access Strategy," added Cllr Whiting.
An automated telephone payment can be made by dialling 0845 880
1312 and calls are charged at local rates. The online payment
service can be found on
http://www.suffolkcoastal.gov.uk/yourcouncil/contactus/payments/
where there is also full information on all the other ways of
making payments to the Council.
The Council currently accepts Delta, Mastercard, Solo, Switch,
Maestro, Visa and Visa Electron. Any payments made by debit card
are free, but the Council does charge an additional fee of two per
cent of the total transaction value on all payments made by credit
card, except for car parking tickets and housing benefits
overpayments.
"We reluctantly took this step because the charge imposed on us
for dealing with a credit card payment has increased to as high as
2.6 per cent. Until now customers paying by credit card over the
phone or in person have cost us about £11,000 a year, but this
would inevitably soar as more people switch to the convenience of
our improved computerised payment services.
“I would emphasise that we cannot legally make any profit from
this move. It will just cover the banking charges that we are being
levied and will end the situation whereby the vast majority of
Council Taxpayers are subsidising those who pay by credit card.
“For those people who make regular payments to us and do not
have a debit card, I would recommend them switching to direct debit
which remains the cheapest way to pay. It just requires a
simple form to be filled out, which can either be downloaded from
our website or can be obtained from our offices,” added Cllr
Whiting.
Any member of the public wanting more information about the new
improved payment services can email
epayments@suffolkcoastal.gov.uk
or call 01394 444541 during office hours (Monday to Friday - 8.45am
to
5.15pm).