Restrictive bill-paying with NTL

"Corporate financial kneecapping" appears to be the best term to describe the decision of the NTL cable service company to impose financial penalties on its bill-paying customers.

In NTL leaflets, we read that from 1 April, customers who do not pay their bill by direct debit will find another €2 added to their cable bill. One could ask, is NTL treading legal quicksand if they force a one payment type system on their customers even though other non-direct debit payment methods exist? In effect, a corporate organisation is setting out to remove a person's right to financial freedom of choice.

A downstream effect of this diktat is that post offices will lose the NTL bill-paying facility of which many people avail. With the post office network under severe pressure to stay afloat, can the removal of paying your NTL bill via the post office be seen as aiding the demise of this vital social service?

It is a fair view that people in the main pay a weekly amount at the post office to reduce their NTL cable bill so that when it arrives, most, if not all of, it is already paid.

We read that the other charge to be imposed is a late payment charge of €7.68 after 'Payment due date'. Given that cable prices are expensive, it is a bit rich for a company to expect all of its customers to pay their bill on time. Who among us has not missed a payment due date by a day or two? And in the end, the bill gets paid.

The reported response by NTL on this matter is that other companies are using the same methods of payment collection and that NTL must follow. Whatever happened to thinking outside the box? Surely a company would be onto a customer attraction policy if they offered unlimited ways to pay for services.

Never forget, despite all the technological advances, people still prefer to pay their bills in hard cash and by handing their payment over to an actual person.

I urge every NTL customer to contact the company and outline their objections to these new bill-payment penalties. As a customer of any corporate company, your freedom to pay bills by whatever method you wish must never be deleted. We need to tell NTL its time to switch to a customer-friendly channel.

John Tierney, Waterford