ESB bill need to pay by credit card

[Black Sheep]

Kirvos
I agree totally with your attitude to DD. The only DD I have ever considered is for my mortgage which thankfully will end this year. All other bills are paid by methods of my choice. I refuse to give anybody open access to my finances

 

[soy]

You have complete control over the payment as the utility is obliged to provide you with advance notice of the amount and date of payment. If you are unhappy with the detail of the notice you can instruct your bank not to pay the DD.
With most utilities you you can set up your DD over the phone and they will confirm the details to you in writing.
You are offered full protection by the Direct Debit Scheme Guarantee and your Bank will refund you if a DD on your account is not drawn in accordance with your insrtuction.

Not in my experience. I avoid DD as much as possible.

 

[so-crates]

Direct Debit is the most popular way to pay Utility Bills. Over 100 million DD's were processed by DD Originators in 2007.
You have complete control over the payment as the utility is obliged to provide you with advance notice of the amount and date of payment. If you are unhappy with the detail of the notice you can instruct your bank not to pay the DD.
With most utilities you you can set up your DD over the phone and they will confirm the details to you in writing.
You are offered full protection by the Direct Debit Scheme Guarantee and your Bank will refund you if a DD on your account is not drawn in accordance with your insrtuction.

All well and good but direct debits load the advantages in favour of the payee and not the payer. The only advantage from a payer's perspective is the convenience of not having to actively generate the transaction yourself, with the advent of online banking this convenience is largely redundant. From the payee's perspective, as all the utility companies show, it is highly desirable way of payment. Until the scale is rebalanced so that the payer has more genuine control of the DD, I will continue to think that they are no good to me.