Hi Susan
I know I am a bit late to the party but at Waverley we have only just introduced direct debits for quarterly rates instalments. This transaction may only be undertaken by credit card as it was seen to be a more reliable payment method rather than cash. At this time it is running at around a 10% declined factor of the total, however, we do not charge a fee, although a dishonour fee is applied to cheques.
My advice is to be very careful with applying a charge as class actions against ANZ Bank and other banks now require the fee to be reasonable and not excessive. Just make sure there is a fee incurred for the direct debit decline from your bankers. I have tried to make the process administrative easy as possible but I appreciate that you sick of the lame reasons from the ratepayers.
That said, John Towers, has stated I am soft and he has said it for many years.
Cheers Brett
