Historically we’ve offered a choice of three payment methods for invoiced services (such as number rental);
- Deduction from prepay credit
- Credit card
- Direct Debit (for GBP accounts in the UK)
If none of these were specified, we defaulted to expecting a bank payment.
The problem with this approach was that a very small number of customers would select prepay credit even when they didn’t have any, did not notice the message added to invoices saying payment hadn’t been possible, and didn’t receive the multiple reminders sent for unpaid invoices. This caused heartache when services stopped working and was an unnecessary waste of time for all involved.
As we gear up to taking a larger proportion of customer payments from invoices (e.g. mobile packages) it is vital all round that settlement is working efficiently.
Therefore, effective today, in the portal you can configure settlement by either card or Direct Debit (as before), but if you wish to attempt payment from prepay first, there is option to do so. Thus, in the event of there being insufficient prepay credit on the day the invoice is generated, payment will be taken subsequently by card or Direct Debit as preferred.
We’d be really grateful if you could check your account and configure payment methods as you would like them. Please note, that effective mid-May the API will fail for actions that result in chargeable events (e.g. allocating a number) and the portal will routinely nag for you to configure them, where [backup] payment methods have not been configured.
Naturally, some customers routinely pay by bank transfer and have never paid late. We’re very grateful to you and do notice. Therefore if you have not missed a payment due date in at least 12 months, and for whatever reason do not want to use Direct Debit or have payments taken on invoice generation by card or balance deduction, then please contact us for an exception to be applied to your account. We will not make this exception where payments have been made late and a backup payment method will be required.
If you already have card payment or Direct Debit specified for invoice settlement then we’re equally grateful and no action is necessary.
Finally, if you presently settle from balance and have never had an issue, thank you too. We would, however, ask for you to add an alternative payment method just in case, for whatever reason, payment may be missed.
