Ocean Grove Voice - Your Local Newspaper

IT’S a fairly commonplace experience, you open a letter or an email to find that you have forgotten to pay last month’s phone bill. The red writing spells out the overdue amount to be paid immediately. Stefanie Szlapa had this very experience in June of this year with Telstra adamant that she pays an overdue account for just one cent, writes Carly Helweg.

Stefanie received her regular bill in May and paid the full amount to Telstra over the phone. In June, the next month’s bill arrived as usual but with an overdue notice for one cent. Thinking nothing of it Stefanie paid the usual amount, ignoring the one cent.

Incredibly only a week later Stefanie received an email from Telstra demanding she pay the overdue one cent immediately. Stefanie said she could not believe it when she received the bill.

“I was gobsmacked. I couldn’t stop thinking is this for real,” said Stefanie. “I’ve never had an overdue bill in my life, I always pay them on time. I thought it was hysterical.”

After taking the bill to the post office she was advised to go to the bank for a one cent piece.

Even though one and two cent pieces have been out of circulation since 1990 the bank still had one they could give Stefanie.

The bill has now been posted with the one cent piece to Telstra. Stefanie admits that the one cent mistake must boil down to a technical fault, however one can’t help being just a tad cynical.

“Every cent must count towards their multimillion dollar profits, literally every cent,” she said.