It is good to see Mark Hawthorne continue coverage of the Bill Express saga in the Full Disclosure column in The Age today. There is plenty more yet to surface on the Bill Express story. I would like to see some digging into the companies associated with Bill Express / OnQ. Here is what I wrote last month about one such company, Loyalty Direct:
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.
Since writing this I’ve been told that Payroll Express is not the name of the phoenix company, it is Express Payroll Solutions Pty Ltd (ABN 12 113 484 432). The terminated employees have not, as I understand it, been paid their entitlements.
The ANZ has more at stake than the Bill Express indebtedness. It has merchant terminals across the Bill Express retail network. These generate excellent fees for the bank on every transaction processed. I’d expect that this is a key consideration in its efforts to find a resolution to the Bill Express mess.
Too late, my terminals have been unplugged, like everything else that belongs to BXP, My Eftpos is now with St George.
I intend to terminate my arrangements with BXP and associated companies although are holding for a short while in the vain hope that a good result may eventuate. ie return of subsidy to Newsagents. At present we are forced to procure hard recharge cards from other parties. Thank goodness for them !!. As all our patients are running out I would hope that ANZ and other majority stakeholders clearly understand the impact the business loyalty has had on the BXP model. It will likely never recover.
Not just the major stakeholders of BE, newsagents in general are getting a bad name for not being able to supply products on a regular basis, this mess has driven a large number of our younger customers out of our channel into the larger stores and it will cost us a packet to get them back at all
Luke is spot on the money; thanfully we have averted such a disaster by putting all phone cards through Ezipass; say that, products that are bought through the Bill Express Terminal still suffer ‘outages’ and as such customers walk away and don’t come back!
HOOKED UP WITH SUNCORP TODAY I USE EZIPASS FOR PHONE CARD AND BILL EXPRESS has been retired under the counter