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You Call That a Small Amount! THIS is a small amount...

November 30th, 2006 at 02:35 pm

Consumerism commentary had a post today about getting a student loan refund cheque for $1.57 in the post. I can do better than that - for the past SIX MONTHS I've been getting a monthly bill from our Telecom company for $0.06 owing (This wasn't even due to a payment error - the charge was actually $0.06 for a particular service!). It also has a printed message that, due to the small amount, I don't have to pay it this month - but they keep sending a bill each month! As they don't charge any interest on such small amounts (well, maybe they do, but what is 6%pa of 6c each month?), I haven't bothered paying the bill. I could make the payment electronically via B-Pay, so it wouldn't cost me anything more than $0.06, but I haven't got around to it.

As a shareholder of this particular Telecom, I should ring them up and tell them what a stupid idea it is to mail out bills for less than $1 - especially ones that say they don't have to be paid! But I think I'll wait a few more weeks until after the T3 float goes through - at the moment the Telecom is still 51% owned by the Australian government, so I probably wouldn't get anywhere appealing to common sense.

Has anyone got a cheque, or bill, in the mail for less than six cents? (Bills that show a previous payment don't count).

money

Posted in miscellaneous | 3 Comments »

3 Responses to “You Call That a Small Amount! THIS is a small amount...”

  1. tinapbeana Says:
    November 30th, 2006 at 02:53 pm 1164898419
    1164898419

    no, but i've been sent to collections over 10 cents... couldn't get a phone because of that same 10 cents past due bill...

  2. kashi Says:
    November 30th, 2006 at 03:06 pm 1164899208
    1164899208

    Wow, that is ridiculous. What a waste of paper, postage, time, and money.

  3. mbkonef Says:
    November 30th, 2006 at 04:05 pm 1164902752
    1164902752

    My accountant told me a story about a client of his who takes everthing very literally. (Apperently he did not realize quite how literally.) In his instructions to clients for US income tax, he has a statement saying please send the Internal Revenue Service a check in the amount of ______. He fills in the blank if they owe money, or writes 0 if no money is due to be paid. His very literal client wrote a check to the IRS for Zero dollars and zero cents, mailed it and it was actually processed by both the IRS and his bank.

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