A report on Page 62 of today’s Australian Financial Review suggests that the company is close to sorting its woes out. I am interested that the key quotes from Ian Christiansen, CEO of Bill Express, relate to newsagents and that the company compensates us for non performance. Hmm, Bill Express established the terms around which it acquired newsagent locations and it was through these terms that it trained newsagents on the compensation model for taking the Bill Express equipment.
The AFR article tales about possible legal action by newsagents against Bill Express. I am aware of five groups of newsagents working with lawyers and at least another fifteen working individually with lawyers. I’d expect ASIC, the ACCC, the NSW CTTT and several other statutory bodies to be looking closely at Bill Express and, in particular, how newsagents were recruited.
Mobile phone recharge is the largest volume product category sold in newsagencies through the Bill Express equipment. I’d expect that the troubles of the company over the last two months have resulted in a considerable fall in mobile recharge revenue. Many newsagents have gone elsewhere – to ePay, banks and our own eziPass – regardless of the continuing cost of their Bill Express equipment.
Mark, this is very true on the mobile phone recharge. we have not used dialtime as our major supplier and will not be reliant on it anymore for the odd recharge by next 2 weeks.
there is no way we would give BillExp any more revenue other than the rental it draws from us every month.
We stopped doing any bill payments as well and tell the customers to go to Aust Post/elsewhere.
Again all newsagents should do this as a protest. This will again stop the income stream which I’m sure BillExp desperately need.
we know from a source that BillExp gets paid $1.70 for each bill payment and out of this only rebate us 70cts.
So stop helping BillExp get any other income .
It does not deserve it and even though it does a “Lazarus” and come back, we would not touch it with a bargepole or even if it is offered for free.
It has lost our trust for good!!!!
Helen we to have boxed up the Bill Express termials,
And use Ezipass but we went with Xpos for Vodaphone and Optus the 2 work fine,
Like you said no more money from me for B\E
Cheers Lewis
Ian should look in his own backyard before he talks about “non performance”.
1. Types of Billers he has – They really only attract 1% of customers
2. The amount of problems the system has caused newsagents with it being down every second day because they are “upgrading the system”
3. No credit available for recharges
4. The performance of his call back centre.
5. They wanted newsagents to advertise their product – Cheap marketing. How much money was spent on real advertising by Bill Express?
I am very interested to read BXP CEO’s comments on his company and the relationship with the newsagents on AFR today. Warren Buffet said you only know who is swimming naked when the tide retreats. BXP has been caught in the recent credit squeeze caused by U.S. sub-prime mortgage crisis. BXP is awashed with cash and borrowed millions of dollars when it lauched its network accross the country five years ago. But now it find itself between the rock and a hard place. I believe it can’t refiance its debt at the current market, if you look at its partner Allco Finance Group. The share price of Allco has dropped from yearly high of $11.65 to .365. That tells you any company uses excessive debts to finance its growth has got into big trouble now. Bill Express has failed on its business model and its cash flow. It’s only time for BXP get into liquidation.
Were going to stop using BXP as well, we have organised our eftpos through St. George which has Touch for the recharges. Has anyone stopped the Direct Debit with BXP or notified them, or just gone ahead and done it.
I’m looking around for another supplier as, like all of you, am not at all happy with BXP. Can anyone advise what are the legal ramifications if I cancel the direct debit for hire payment of BXP equipment. This is why I’m not sure which way to go. Can anyone also recommend a good replacement for the BXP voucher/eftpos system? There’s one called e-pay which claim to be in supermarkets etc. – has anyone heard of it – any others?
It’s called Ezipass
Just do it
Hi Dianne,
I unplugged my Bill Express 6 weeks ago, cancelled my direct debit authority.
I have e-pay and its excellent.
Why pay your monthly fee to bill express. The worst senario is you have to pay out the contract which will be the same amount. The only difference is they will have to take me to court which I will defend and when you consider all their blunders i could not even imagine them doing that. How embarrasing would it be for them and if the just lost one case eveyone would unplug the next day. STOP LETTING THEM TAKE MORE OF YOUR HARD WORKED MONEY. They are nothing less than criminals.