Council fees and charges

[Seymour]

What sort of fees do you guys run into when doing a property file search at a council office?
I went with a friend the other day and it cost 15 bucks to look at his own property file. wtf?
Oh and if a copy of any document in the file was asked for, it was $4 a page/ jees they must have very expensive copy machines.
Then if payment by credit card was offered a convenience fee aka council rort was charged of some percent that I don't remember.
Do all council have the same motto - we're here to screw you for all we can get away with.

[eri]

i see you location is

out of space

frankly i think you're probably very lucky to have a council office there at all

[Seymour]

Well my friend lives in New Zealand firma. He pays rates for the place to fund the councils record keeping then has to pay again to see the information they got off him or about him and about his place. What a rip off.

[eri]

which council is what i'm trying to say...

[Seymour]

wailkato or hamilton? yeah it mustve been the hamilton city outfit doing the stealin. i since heard some places wont even let a look in you have to pay for a cd with it all on.

[eri]

auckland will sell you the complete property file on a CD for $65?

but for minor questions i think? they will try to answer your question over the phone, or in person, by calling up the file on their computer and looking through it there....

probably they will print a page off for a few $ if you wanted something in hard copy

[Seymour]

a thief by any other name is a council eh. well it was 4 bucks for a copy of the code of com[pliance certificate. he just made a notte of teh number instead. thieven scumbags.wonder if a he couldve taken a pic of it with his cellfone

[klauster]

For paying rates online I paid more than $10 for the transaction. Count that by 4 transactions annual:

City Council calls that on their website - Online convenience fee - EFTPOS New Zealand Ltd charges a convenience fee of 2.1 percent per transaction for this service. There is a minimum fee of $3.

[Perry]

I suspect that there may be a difference between
credit card and debit card in such cases. Can you
qualify that a bit?

When a plastic card is proffered, one of the nasty
and ignorant idioms in NZ is for thick-as-two-short-
planks counter service staff to say:

Is that EFTPOS or Credit?

Both a bank/debit card and a credit card use
the EFTPOS network for their e-transactions. Say
after me:

Electronic Funds Transfer- Point Of Sale.

And that e-transfer is totally independent of the
card being used.

However, back to pocket-picking Councils. What
they call a 'convenience fee' is the percentage
deduction on the total amount that the Council
would pay on the transaction if they operated
in the real world.

But as their phantasy-world operational environ-
ment is one of a non-competitive, statute-backed
monopoly with captive payers, Draconian enforce-
ment powers plus being terminally afflicted with
groupthink, then folk like Seymour's friend get
screwed in the way described.

It doesn't work that way down at the local
service station or supermarket, of course. No
prize for guessing why.

[speights boy]

Regulator probes Air NZ credit card fees

http://tvnz.co.nz/business-news/regulator-probes-air-nz-credit-card-fees-5337591

[Bob Kane]

For paying rates online I paid more than $10 for the transaction. Count that by 4 transactions annual:

City Council calls that on their website - Online convenience fee - EFTPOS New Zealand Ltd charges a convenience fee of 2.1 percent per transaction for this service. There is a minimum fee of $3.

Get yourself a chequebook and pay no online fees.

[Maccachic]

One Council I deal with charges: $15 to request the property file then $20 for each 15 mins scanning the documents to file and then $45 for each CD.

When I asked about sending my own CD and what the $45 charge was for I was told no can't accept CDs/Memory sticks and the $45 is for someones time to scan the files, huh Im already paying for that! - but no still have to pay $45 for a CD.

[Perry]

Get yourself a chequebook and pay no online fees.

Interesting point. What would the labour costs be to the Council
to manually process a piece of paper (cheque), plus the clearance
fees when banked and so on?

Also, what's it cost in fixed and variable costs to keep a cheque
account these days? Plus postage, unless one drops it off when
passing - in itself a time 'cost.'

I haven't had a cheque account for many years.

[Seymour]

no competitrs like perry said thats why they get away with it.