I have been told that a company called Loyalty Direct Pty Ltd terminated the services of 35 employees on Friday of last week without redundancy or accrued benefits paid. I have also been told that another group of Loyalty Direct employees were terminated and immediately offered contracts with a business called Payroll Express which provides the same services as Loyalty Direct.
Loyalty Direct is registered at the Eaglemont address of Bill Express’ Head Office. An ASIC search shows that Loyalty Direct is under “external administration and/or controller appointed. My understanding is that Loyalty Direct is a private company delivering some services to On Q and or Bill Express. I am not able to verify the location and ownership of Payroll Express.
I note the irony of the Loyalty Direct name.
after the treatment newsagents have received from bill express, all newsagents should refrain from paying the rental bill as a form of protest.
stop payment is one of the way to protest EXP.
I suspect if you read your contract, stopping payment may not be a smart idea…..
You might find you suddenly owe a lot of money…..
I read with interest the number of newsagents entangled in whether or not to terminate or not pay BE rental.
I am not sure what your Newsagency federations and/or your legal advice is on this matter.
I may be behind the times here but (please correct me if I am wrong) some newsagents are not terminating their contract with BE but they are turning to a new terminal user system called http://www.ezipass.com.au/
That leaves the matter of monthly invoicing from BE. Has anyone ben updated with the latest from the various federations or proposed legal proceedings on the rental from BE
Derek,
FYI, eziPass is point of sale software based. I own the platform.
Mark
Found this info on a website that I visit from time to time. An exerpt FYI
I have just returned from an ANF meeting in Newcastle tonight. The main topic of discussion was BillExpress/DialTime. A few of the major points that I took away from the meeting were:
) The $495 per month that Newsagents are paying now, has been sold off as a debt to a finance company. This means, that no matter what happens with BillExpress, the Newsagents will still have to pay the $495 per month to the finance company for the remainder of their contract period.
) It was suggested that BillExpress/DialTime owe up to $80 million to Optus alone.
) The ANF have been negotiating with alternative suppliers of phone credit, and will be making an announcement soon on other options for Newsagents.
) There are up to 9 different contracts out there that people have signed with BillExpress/DialTime
A lot of Newsagents agreed to install a new advertising screen from BillExpress over the last couple of years, with the promise of increased revenue from signing up other local businesses to advertise on the screen. When this new screen was installed, the BillExpress contract was extended by BillExpress by 12 or 24 months. Quite often, the Newsagent was unaware of this, and are only finding out when they make inquiries about canceling the service at the end of their contract. At this point, they are being informed that they have up to 24 months more on their contract than they expected.
) The general consensus from the agents at the meeting, after hearing all of this, was that they are stuck with the $495 p/m no matter what happens, and they want to look to the future, and make sure that they have an uninterrupted system for selling phone credit.
Bob
Don’t scare yourself and others. This contract was a unfair contract, misleading contract, I am sure it won’t stand the legal test in the court.
If you have enough money for BX to take, it is your own choice. If I were you, I will pay the whole lot based on your contract.
If you are not a newsagent, you must be the rep. of BXP
bob if you are from bill express you are nothing but scum that are ripping off people trying to make an honest living .
We earned $32 this month and had to pay $495 to get it!!!
This whole thing is just not fair. BE is un-Australian?
We have made a decision that we will only use Bill Express if we have no other alternative. We use Ezipass for most things, and have bought Optus prepaid cards from Yes Distribution. Except for EFTPOS, bill payments and BOPO topups we now barely use Bill Express.
When our contract expires, we will not be renewing it, and will swap our EFTPOS over to the new deal offered by Ezipass.
We thought about stopping the monthly $495 charge being debited from our account, but decided against it. I don’t want any possibility of it ruining our credit rating. I still want to fight it though. If anyone knows of any actions being taken in Victoria, can you please let me know the details and I will gladly look at joining.
I joined Bill Express when I bought my business in August last year. I was sitting in a training course at VANA when the state manager for Bill Express promised that it would not cost anything, so I am disappointed to be in this position less than one year later. I now don’t have any faith in Bill Express, and won’t be tempted by their special offer to rejoin when my contract expires. Unfortunately, I have 3 years left.
If I purchase another newsagency in the future, I will be inserting a clause in the contract to ensure that I have anything to do with Bill Express, or that the purchase price is reduced accordingly. While this may not be fair on the vendor, you must protect yourself, and not pay for a service you know you won’t receive.
I wouldn’t purchase a newsagent that had one either, not now we know what a liability the whole thing is.
wonder how the bill express reps sleep at night now after having pitched the “at no cost” to newsagents .
hope they do the right thing and clear their conscience if they are called to face court proceedings.
we have joined forces with other newsagents with NANA (NSW) helping out to start court proceedings against Bill Express.
Work on this is already in the pipeline and there should be submissions going out soon.
For anyone interested and not having heard of this group action by NANA (NSW), you can contact NANA on (02) 9744 0400 for details.
Shame on the outcome of the ANF Newcastle meeting with the saying that newsagents are stuck with the monthly rental. I do not believe that we should take things sitting down being easy targets for scams.
At least do something about it, complain to ACCC or other jurisdictions for what it’s worth. some might say nothing much will come out of these complaints but if you do nothing then nothing will happen!!!
If there’s enough people complaining then the authorities would not likely ignore us.
VANA (Vic)I believe is with ANF so they are not likely to take any action on behalf of the newsagents at all.
Again shame on newsagent associations who have not come up with any suggestions for possible relief/actions against BillExp.
can someone please remind me, why i should pay $2000 +, to stay with vana,they say alot but do little. sure the contracts of bill express come back to newsagents, but why do we pay the anf/vana,they have to take some responsabilty, or cover some expense. were they the ones who recomended bill express
I purchased a newsagency back in April and right from my first expression of interest the vendor was clear that I had no interest in taking over the Billexpress equipment, nor was I obliged too. The vendore wrote to Billexpress stating this, and the equipment was packed up upon settlement and stuck in the storeroom. Almost 2 months later, Billexpress still refuse to acknowledge correspondence, and indeed, are still sending out “change of ownership” forms to me. Mind you, the contract they have offered me requires the $495 monthly payment, with ZERO rebates. The previous owner of my business tells me he was accepting about 30 – 40 bill payments per month on average.
The equipment is still sitting in my storeroom taking up space. Soon, it will go to the tip.
Does anyone know where they get the $495 per month figure for rental?
We could each buy the equipment within a year at that rate and have some left….
BE could have offered us a deal like that and we still could have kept going.
Too late though.
What a waste of time, electricity and money…
Bill Express only told newsagent that after market subsidies the cost of rental is ‘0’. But never told newsagent those market subsidies can be removed any time.
Bill Express clearly knew that at lot of newsagent are not from English background, Bill Express did not give a suggestion for independent legal advice.
Bill Express did not mentioned that the contract we signed was two contracts one is for Bill Express and another is for rental company (Technology Business International).
Bill Express also mislead us by saying “Bill Express will ensure you are in break even or in a better position”.
There is an unfair term in the contract with merchant (newsagent) ‘Terms and conditions set out in this document as amended or replaced by On Q from time to time’. It only allows On Q to change the terms and condition, not the merchant (newsagent). There is also an unfair term in the contract with Rental company as well. ‘It is agreed by the parties that the terminals Rental Fee will continue to be payable in all events in the manner and at the times agreed. In the event that services or any other breach of this agreement by the Equipment Rental Company, the Merchant shall not be entitled to terminate this Agreement and the Merchants’ sole remedy under this Agreement and shall be to make a claim for damage against the Equipment Rental Company.
Every BXP newsagency should lodge formal complain to http://www.accc.gov.au
Hi there,
If there are any Victorian Newsagents considering legal action against Bill Express, or have commenced legal action I would be keen to hear from you/join forces to share legal costs etc.
you can email me at: scott@thesourceonline.com.au
The future of Bill Express…
My sources tell me that Bill Express only has “weeks left” (if that) “until the plug is pulled”, and that it’s best just sit tight for the moment…
Bill Express Newsagents who only have 1 EFTPOS terminal (through their Bill Express terminal) should contact their merchant provider immediately and make contigency plans, as if Bill Express cease operation, the machines will not work and they will not be able to process EFTPOS payments.
Bill Express merchants, if they are still processing bills/dial time should check their bank statements very closely as there have been reports of newsagents not being reimbursed for the sale of dial time products.
Secondly, competitors are currently preparing offers to newsagents for phone products etc … which will be revealed over the coming weeks.
I’m not sure where this leaves us with Bill Express terminal fees though. I have just under a year left with my contract and i’m currently seeking legal advice. If anyone else has done this already I would be keen to hear their feedback.
Bill Express has experienced the same problem as the other failed companies (MFS, Centro, RAMS, ABC Learning etc) due to its high debt and the sub-prime mortgage crisis. When the credit market has tightened its belt last year, Bill Express has already found itself in the insolvency position and with severe cash flow problem. It can’t refinance its debt and can’t repay its outgoings. That’s why now it’s desperately collecting the ‘rental payment’ from the newsagency. I don’t think BXP could survive the debt crisis. No one would lend money to such a bastard company in current market.
Finally, the rootcause why BXP fails is the business model it built on hasn’t produced enough revenue to even cover its cost. BXP borrowed miliions of dollars to establish the network through ANF, but its business model is flawed and can’t survive in reality. Newsagencies are the falling victims of the BXP experiment.
Now we can only start legal action against BXP and I believe justice is in our side. Using misleading statements and con salesman to get people sign the contract, the contract should be deemed void. I have already joined the legal action through NANA.
As Newsagents, Can we invoice Bill Express for the amount of the discontinued rental subsidy? thus sending it to the administrators for them to deal with, then after a disignated term (3-months in my business) sell the equipment for the monies owing