EZ link card with Giro

[Virgo]

Let me give you a suggested reply:

Thank you for your reply. I am writing to seek further clarification on the S$0.25 convenience fee.

Please do not forget that with with each cent incurred on the electronic handling of money and topping up, EZLINK saves multiples of that amount in terms of costs associated with hiring staff to man top-up counters, production and maintenance costs of top-up machines, hiring of staff to bank in cash collections at the end of each day etc.

With this savings resulting from GIRO (which is the reason why many organisations are going towards GIRO billing) which far outweight the costs, can EzLink still legitimately charge this "convenience fee"? Who is this convenience really for?

Lastly, temporary waiver of the 6 month fee application fee has been viewed by some as a clever marketing strategy to get people to rush for the waiver, and hence, locking themselves into a perpetual lifetime of paying S$0.25 in convenience fees. At an average topup of once a week, EZlink will recover the waiver in application fees, in less than 3 months. That is aside from the fact of savings generated by the GIRO system.

I look forward to hearing from you.

EZLink Reply:
Thank you for your email.

The $0.25 convenience fee as well as the application and admin fee of $2.00 is not just to cover the bank charges but also to include the overall processing costs incurred by EZ-Link for the provision of this service. However in the first 6 months, the application fee will be waived to help facilitate the sign up for this new service offered by EZ-Link by cardholders who were previously on the TransitLink Bank GIRO facility.

EZLink probably have thousands to reply per day. Templates are easy. In another words, they're telling us, not happy, there's nothing they can do!

 

[NovJoe]

Well, that's one of the reasons now I have to go back to manual top-up liao. Previously, all my inter-GIRO transaction do not have "handling fee" at all and it really saves alot of my time. Now, with 25 cents per transaction is really high for a regular salaryman like me, and for me to revert back to manual top up + waste time, I'll just suck thumb and top up manually bah. No choice.

 

[Virgo]

well, that's one of the reasons now i have to go back to manual top-up liao. Previously, all my inter-giro transaction do not have "handling fee" at all and it really saves alot of my time. Now, with 25 cents per transaction is really high for a regular salaryman like me, and for me to revert back to manual top up + waste time, i'll just suck thumb and top up manually bah. No choice.

ezlink sucks!!!!!

 

[harrynkl]

My online feedback sent to EZLink:
Dear Sir/Madam, I would like to find out what is the reason for implementing a 25 cents "convenient fee" for the new CEPAS card Giro top up. As a consumer, it seems like EZLink is discouraging consumer to apply for Giro. Furthermore, the Giro application process seems like a pre-computer era task back in the 1980s. Not to mentioned a badly planned launch of the giro application (only 1 month left before old card expires). From my understanding, EZLink is the only billing oragnisation who charges a convenient fee for giro. It may be a "convenient" million dollar revenue stream for EZLink, but it is not justifiable. If every billing organisation starts to collect "convenient" fee for giro, consumer will be paying a huge fee on giro transactions every month. I hope EZLink can give consumer a satisfactory reply on this. Else, it seems like we are moving 1 step forward and 2 steps backward. Thank you.

EZLink Reply:
Thank you for your email.

The $0.25 convenience fee as well as the application and admin fee of $2.00 is not just to cover the bank charges but also to include the overall processing costs incurred by EZ-Link for the provision of this service. However in the first 6 months, the application fee will be waived to help facilitate the sign up for this new service offered by EZ-Link by cardholders who were previously on the TransitLink Bank GIRO facility.

Thank you for taking time to provide us with your valuable feedback. We will forward your feedback to the relevant department for their consideration and action if necessary.

Once again, thank you for taking time to share your views with us.

If you have further queries, please feel free to email us at customerservice@ezlink.com.sg or call us at 6496 8300 between 8.00am to 6.00pm daily except public holidays. In case you need to call outside these hours, you could leave a voicemail with us and we will get back to you by the next working day.

Conclusion: I am still not convince, I will followup.

ok got their reply

Dear Harry,

Thank you for your email.

The $0.25 convenience fee as well as the application and admin fee of $2.00 is not just to cover the bank charges but also to include the overall processing costs incurred by EZ-Link for the provision of this service. However in the first 6 months, the application fee will be waived to help facilitate the sign up for this new service offered by EZ-Link by cardholders who were previously on the TransitLink Bank GIRO facility.

Thank you for taking time to provide us with your valuable feedback. We will forward your feedback to the relevant department for their consideration and action if necessary.



Once again, thank you for taking time to share your views with us.


If you have further queries, please feel free to email us at customerservice@ezlink.com.sg or call us at 6496 8300 between 8.00am to 6.00pm daily except public holidays. In case you need to call outside these hours, you could leave a voicemail with us and we will get back to you by the next working day.



Thanks and regards,



Siti Rafidhah Mohamed Ali

EZ-LINK PTE LTD

www.ezlink.com.sg

same reply same template and they still not reply my second email

 

[Virgo]

same reply same template and they still not reply my second email

So stereotype. They really all out to suck money from us Singaporeans. :angry:

 

[CSlye]

Sad cases ... may be there will be improvement if there is greater free market competition ... which is gonna be tough lah ... unless ...

 

[night86mare]

Sad cases ... may be there will be improvement if there is greater free //market competition ... which is gonna be tough lah ... unless ...

singapore is too small a market to introduce "free competition", at least in this area; unfortunately the glories of optimal economics and perfect competition are only possible in the textbook sometimes.

any competition, if present, will be artificial.

 

[CSlye]

singapore is too small a market to introduce "free competition", at least in this area; unfortunately the glories of optimal economics and perfect competition are only possible in the textbook sometimes.

any competition, if present, will be artificial.

No need perfect competition, to be realistic some balances in competitive forces could do. Constant claims that we are too small for more competition will only undermine service qualities (like these cases) and stifle innovation ...

 

[night86mare]

No need perfect competition, to be realistic some balances in competitive forces could do. Constant claims that we are too small for more competition will only undermine service qualities (like these cases) and stifle innovation ...

let's be honest here,

add 1 or 2 more companies, you will probably end up creating a duopoly or triopoly. this is what i meant by "artificial competition"

let me ask you - would you want to start a transport/card company, and try to undermine prices? just look at the number of petrol companies present in singapore - other than the occasional "breakaway" that lasts temporarily when it does appear, they are almost always in tandem. that said, of course this does not mean that i'm saying that the two (or three) industries are entirely similar.

 

[CSlye]

let's be honest here,

add 1 or 2 more companies, you will probably end up creating a duopoly or triopoly. this is what i meant by "artificial competition"

let me ask you - would you want to start a transport/card company, and try to undermine prices? just look at the number of petrol companies present in singapore - other than the occasional "breakaway" that lasts temporarily when it does appear, they are almost always in tandem. that said, of course this does not mean that i'm saying that the two (or three) industries are one and the same.

agree ... but although a bit "synthetic" in nature, there is at least still some degree of counter balance due to competitive forces ... unlike these cases ...

 

[night86mare]

agree ... but although a bit "synthetic" in nature, there is at least still some degree of counter balance due to competitive forces ... unlike these cases ...

i would like to think that rather than reliance on "competitive forces" which can be a very iffy thing when companies pakat, and it is not that hard, even undiscussed sometimes can just settle for comfortable price matching..

regulation is the way to go.

 

[CSlye]

i would like to think that rather than reliance on "competitive forces" which can be a very iffy thing when companies pakat, and it is not that hard, even undiscussed sometimes can just settle for comfortable price matching..

regulation is the way to go.

its a bit tough to regulate when the referee is also part of player team rite? So, perhaps a combination of "free-er" market plus regulation will help

 

[Virgo]

Sad cases ... may be there will be improvement if there is greater free market competition ... which is gonna be tough lah ... unless ...

This is the problem when such public services are privatized. It's all about making money now. They don't care who is using it, neither do they care whether it will be used or not. No money, don't use!

Still remember TransitLink? I'm not sure if that TransitLink is privatized then, but since when do we need 21 days for Giro approval? You go to the TransitLink machine, tap your TransitLink card, choose Giro service, insert your ATM card, and boom, Giro approved! This shows that they're going behind, not improving on services. Even if we decided in the end to pay them for such a 'convenient' fare (which I'm definitely not for obvious reasons), we still need to wait 21 days, whereas it's instant approval before.

So it's pay them money, get CRAP SERVICE! You think you want to do that?

 

[vince123123]

You are correct, different industries differ. In the case of telcos and isps, competition drove down the prices significantly from the pre-competition days.

let's be honest here,

add 1 or 2 more companies, you will probably end up creating a duopoly or triopoly. this is what i meant by "artificial competition"

let me ask you - would you want to start a transport/card company, and try to undermine prices? just look at the number of petrol companies present in singapore - other than the occasional "breakaway" that lasts temporarily when it does appear, they are almost always in tandem. that said, of course this does not mean that i'm saying that the two (or three) industries are entirely similar.

 

[johnlim]

25 cents per top-up? That's a lot of money to make in a single day for LTA! :sweat:Never ending revenue since everyone has to travel and make purchases.

They are very smart in making money. :devil:

It's the government that is always making the money first. Don't talk about competition.

 

[Virgo]

25 cents per top-up? That's a lot of money to make in a single day for LTA! :sweat:Never ending revenue since everyone has to travel and make purchases.

They are very smart in making money. :devil:

It's the government that is always making the money first. Don't talk about competition.

I can understand if they charge, say, $1 per Giro card per year. It's for their maintenance of the whole system. That's already A LOT of money.

But 25 cents per top-up, and a deposit equals to the top-up amount for such a service, is just pure absurdity!

 

[night86mare]

You are correct, different industries differ. In the case of telcos and isps, competition drove down the prices significantly from the pre-competition days.

yes, competition has worked for them

but it remains to be seen if it will work so for transportation/card services. i don't think it will, actually, but anything's possible in this time and age.

 

[Lenscapes]

2 person wrote in to today's TODAY :


Every cent counts
Letter from Wong Pui Yee
Updated 06:00 AM Sep 3, 2009
Paying the utility bill, phone bill, season parking, HDB conservancy charge, etc, by Giro, is all free of charge. So, why is there a charge for the new ez-link card? Of course, we can top up in the train stations, at AXS machines, bus interchanges or even at an ATM, but isn't Giro about convenience? I am very unhappy about this unfair charge. his should be done away. Every cent counts in these bad economic times.
==========================================
Ez-link fees a hassle
Letter from John Tan
Updated 06:00 AM Sep 3, 2009
I do not understand why there is so much hassle when it comes to topping up the new ez-link card by Giro. For this new card, I need to fill up a form and pay a $1.50 fee. Worse still, there is a transaction charge of $0.25 every time the card is topped up automatically. The charge has been termed a ''convenience fee''. If all passengers top up their cards using Giro, fewer staff would be needed to man the counters. The machines would be used less often; the wear and tear would be reduced. So, who is this "convenience fee" for?

 

[Virgo]

Thanks for sharing with us bro. I think there will be more to come.

Remember there's also a deposit with amount equals to the top-up value!

2 person wrote in to today's TODAY :


Every cent counts
Letter from Wong Pui Yee
Updated 06:00 AM Sep 3, 2009
Paying the utility bill, phone bill, season parking, HDB conservancy charge, etc, by Giro, is all free of charge. So, why is there a charge for the new ez-link card? Of course, we can top up in the train stations, at AXS machines, bus interchanges or even at an ATM, but isn't Giro about convenience? I am very unhappy about this unfair charge. his should be done away. Every cent counts in these bad economic times.
==========================================
Ez-link fees a hassle
Letter from John Tan
Updated 06:00 AM Sep 3, 2009
I do not understand why there is so much hassle when it comes to topping up the new ez-link card by Giro. For this new card, I need to fill up a form and pay a $1.50 fee. Worse still, there is a transaction charge of $0.25 every time the card is topped up automatically. The charge has been termed a ''convenience fee''. If all passengers top up their cards using Giro, fewer staff would be needed to man the counters. The machines would be used less often; the wear and tear would be reduced. So, who is this "convenience fee" for?

 

[CYRN]

2 person wrote in to today's TODAY :


Every cent counts
Letter from Wong Pui Yee
Updated 06:00 AM Sep 3, 2009
Paying the utility bill, phone bill, season parking, HDB conservancy charge, etc, by Giro, is all free of charge. So, why is there a charge for the new ez-link card? Of course, we can top up in the train stations, at AXS machines, bus interchanges or even at an ATM, but isn't Giro about convenience? I am very unhappy about this unfair charge. his should be done away. Every cent counts in these bad economic times.
==========================================
Ez-link fees a hassle
Letter from John Tan
Updated 06:00 AM Sep 3, 2009
I do not understand why there is so much hassle when it comes to topping up the new ez-link card by Giro. For this new card, I need to fill up a form and pay a $1.50 fee. Worse still, there is a transaction charge of $0.25 every time the card is topped up automatically. The charge has been termed a ''convenience fee''. If all passengers top up their cards using Giro, fewer staff would be needed to man the counters. The machines would be used less often; the wear and tear would be reduced. So, who is this "convenience fee" for?

I can almost see the standard reply as stated previously in this thread. :devil: