The Sydney Morning Herald has a good report on the Bill Express situation this morning. The Age has a smaller report. The reports miss these details:
- Bill Express unilaterally changed contract terms for its 3,500 small business newsagents, resulting in most facing an additional $495 (+GST) a month in costs to offer the service.
- At least one company housing staff which provide IT services to Bill Express has gone into liquidation and another started in its place with less then half the staff. It has been reported that the staff not taken up by the phoenix business were not paid redundancy payments.
- Newsagents have commenced class action against the company having notified them ten days ago that they are to be a respondent in a planned Federal Court action.
- The Bill Express liability to newsagents is growing at the rate of more than $1 million a month.
- The mobile phone recharge component of the Bill Express network is a day to day proposition with out of socks occurring every couple of days either network-wide or significant pockets.
- The data room referred to in both reports was established by the business seven weeks ago.
- The ANZ, somewhat cynically I suggest, doubled its eftpos break fees shortly after Bill Express got into trouble -my speculation is that they wanted to stop newsagents migrating to other eftpos providers.
- I estimate that one third of Bill Express phone recharge revenue has moved elsewhere – ePay, Comm Bank Xpos, Suncorp, St George and our own eziPass.
- The national newsagent association, the ANF, stood by and let Bill Express get to this point because it contracted away its rights to act as an association for its members in return for around $200,000 a year in fees from Bill Express.
- Bill Express did a deal with Swish group over the advertising screens in newsagencies – after it took away from newsagents the”guaranteed” funding which underscored the economic value of the screens to newsagents.
Now that the Bill Express story has hit mainstream media I expect to see quick action around the future of the business.
Yes I noticed these things were missing. Why worry about the many small business owners being royally shafted when poor old Gerry Harvey might lose some money.
Mark maybe you could write a letter to the editor, I would do so myself but I believe that you have a better understanding of the whole bill express issue
Copy of Text from Business Day Article.
“At the centre of an accounting investigation being conducted by ANZ and other interested parties is the role of a private company called TBS Group in the combined Bill Express/On Q empire, and one St George bank account held by TBS.
TBS is a private company based at The Boulevard in Eaglemont, which is also the head office address of On Q.
According to company documents, TBS is a sub-contractor to Bill Express and provides call centre services and technical support.
Ian Christiansen and Hal Christiansen are the founders of the original technology company Dial Time, which was renamed Bill Express when the company floated in 2004. The brothers are directors of both On Q and Bill Express, and are both former directors and shareholders of TBS.
On Q director Sandro Di Donato is also director and company secretary of TBS.
On Q’s chief financial officer, Peter Couper, works at the Eaglemont office and is chief financial officer of TBS.
Tania Bianchin, wife of Ian Christiansen, and Chris Christiansen, wife of Hal Christiansen, are both former or current employees of TBS and its subsidiary companies.
In a signed affidavit before the Supreme Court former On Q chairman and managing director Peter McDougall claims that ”I am aware that at all material times Ian Christiansen and his wife Tania Bianchin have been signatories to TBS bank accounts at St George.
”Among the bank accounts at St George into which Bill Express collections were paid and offset by St George against moneys owing by TBS on its own account. I amaware that all banking transactions of TBS are under the control of Peter Couper, who apparently gives authority for transfers of funds.”
In documents lodged with the Supreme Court, Mr McDougall claims that a loan to TBS by Bill Express soon after the company was listed in 2004 was not disclosed to the board.
Mr McDougall is embroiled in a legal dispute with On Q and its directors over the alleged non-repayment of a loan to him by the company.
The Christiansen brothers, Peter Couper and Sandro Di Donato all deny the claims made in Mr McDougall’s affidavit to the Supreme Court.
”I have no comment to make on that matter, other to say that the court case is about debt owed by Mr McDougall and he is doing what he can to be in a position to not pay that debt. He is making it as difficult as possible,” Ian Christiansen said.
A confidential report from Bill Express and On Q auditor Pitcher Partners, to the board of On Q in 2005, has been provided to The Age. It was drafted after Pitcher Partners refused to signoff on the annual accounts of Bill Express until a series of questions had been answered.
These included:
* Why a cash bank signatory of ANZ bank accounts was Sandro Di Donato, not an officer or employee of of Bill Express, but an employee of TBS.
* Why a cash account at St George Bank, held in the name Dial Time and a sub-bank account of TB Group, was not legally owned or controlled by Bill Express.
Pitcher Partners also raised ”concerns about related party transactions between TBS and Bill Express”. It said that these transactions ”must be reassessed every year”.
Peter Couper refused to comment when contacted by The Age.”
with a bit of luck, these scum-sucking parasites will end up in jail; then they’ll really know what it’s like to be shafted.
Newsagents may recall that there once was a company called Ezipin Australia who provided mobile recharge and other prepaid products electronically. The business model was simple; no fees and a percentage of the recharge kept by newsagents.
This worked well for everyone but then in their wisdom the ANF, for whatever reason, endorsed the Bill Express service with its attendant terms and conditions which now appears to be causing considerable concern.
This pushed Ezipin Australia into selling to Bill Express leaving no viable options for Newsagents.
Just to let you know, St. George and NAB eftpos based phone vouchers come from Dialtime (aka Bill Express) under the guise of Ezi Pin. Also alot of Tower systems are running Ezi Pin thus again with Dialtime.
After speaking with someone who works at bill express as an operator , alot of Dialtime Merchants are reversing their cancellations because the other major supplier of terminal based products can’t supply them. The rumour is an 10 week wait, because they gave all their spare terminal to 2 of the large groups in QLD and NSW that left Dialtime, and now have an order back log.
Hopefully Esipass can get it product out there quick and pick up the market
I have heard from a dialtime rep, treat this as “hear say”, that one or both of the directors are in UAE at the moment and have taken a lot of cash with them.
I hope this isn’t the “exciting news” were going to hear this week!
It’s hear say at the moment I stress.
Anon, You’re inaccurate in your post. Two years ago Tower provided a Dialtime interface. This was taken up by some newsagents. Many times more have, instead, gone for the Tower eziPass initiative – this does not access product from Dialtime. Mark