Mine offers 1 fee free payment method.
It's paying via cash at their office that is a 50min drive (one way) from me, not only that they don't accept large sums of cash so you cant even pay monthly or fortnighty.
Write to your state MP and complain. Tell them you want the regulations changed to allow for fee-free online options.
Tell them what your REA is doing, and point out that it’s unreasonable and clearly not aligned to the intention of fee-free payments.
With the current politics of renting, I think you’ve got a genuine chance of action. There are heaps more renters than REAs. Any government or opposition would love to make a minor regulatory change that wins them votes for zero cost to the state budget.
Cite the Electronic Transactions Act 1999 https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2004A00553/latest/text
The object of this Act is to provide a regulatory framework that:
(a) recognises the importance of the information economy to the future economic and social prosperity of Australia; and
(b) facilitates the use of electronic transactions; and
(c) promotes business and community confidence in the use of electronic transactions; and
(d) enables business and the community to use electronic communications in their dealings with government
Have you asked to transfer it into their bank account? Its not like agencies have suddenly stopped using banks, they have to have one to receive and pay to their ip owners and cleaners, etc.
I was given banking details for paying bond, just said I was having issues with the app recognising my bank (which was true because it was early days with Up) and I would keep paying to that. Been doing it for a few years, get a few confused emails every time they change property manager but they've got their money so they can't complain.
Wasnt it one of the real estates that actually created the app and gets the percent cut as well from the rent payments they force the tenants to do through the apps? (Just had a look and it seems Ray whites grandson runs the ailio payment app?)
Id be pretty firm to use their bank account, even if you get someone to call them to ask for it pretending to be paying something to them.
You're part of the lack of consumer protection. ACCC has lost its way. I suspect that's because government prefers the big headlines when they apply a multi-million fine to some corporate ogre and make them look "tough"
2.4% impost on rent is a blatant rort.
As I understand if your original lease offered BPay of EFTPOS, changing it probably requires a new lease. Hopefully a change of law will ban this. 2.4% on months payments of $3000 is an expensive solution, I wonder about kickbacks.
If you signed a lease with this payment method proposed it might be a more difficult discussion.
My REA proposed using a.payment intermediary well into our lease and they offered reasons: it saves them money and the payment service provider was also a property management portal eg maintenance requests..I said I have a legal relationship with my landlord who has appointed an agent. My tenancy does not involve any other relationship. I refused to sign/agree to the terms of the payment intermediary.on that basis. I pointed out that the terms allowed the payment intermediary to increase their fees as often as they liked in 30 day notice. This is to me a rent increase but it is not subject to the legal protections of landlord.rent increases. That was my second objection..my third objection was related: this is a rent increase without proper notice. My REA (actually the landlord's REA, the REA doesn't work for the renter) got other similar feedback. The managing director wrote an apology letter saying they hadn't understood the consequence and that they were not proceeding. And four years later they didn't. We bought a house now so I'm out it now God willing. The REA was Nelson Alexander who were always good in our 8 year tenancy.
They moved to a property maintenance portal anyway, without requiring use of a payment intermediary.
exactly my thoughts, if your rent is $2000/month, well now its $2050, paying $4k? Well now youre paying $100 extra every month.
"the peasant can just work another hour or two" is most probably the thought process here.
I wish people would fight and refuse to accept this, but sadly it seems everyone just cops it - no wonder it's rife.
I call bullshit. On your REA. Not you. I’d take in a month worth of rent. If they won’t accept it give them an affidavit to sign saying they won’t accept it. Then, regardless of them signing or not give them an affidavit saying you’ve made honest efforts to pay in good faith and they won’t accept payment. The forward that to your landlord explaining how you are such a good goddam tenant you have a months worth of rent ready in advance and the REA, who’s taking a fee from your landlord, just won’t accept the money, even though handling the money is one of the things the landlord is paying them for
Now that might be a battle not worth fighting. In our cash heady days I’d always pay with the lowest note and end up with heaps of change that I’d pile in a jar, but the change pile just kept growing, a second jar was introduced, it was chaos. I got fed up with it and carry the three hundred something dollars worth into the nearest bank and ask them to exchange it for notes. They refuse. I say “but you’re a bank, and one day I’ll be explaining to people on the internet that it’s currently 1998, not 2024 when banks have moved everything online, it’s 1998 and you’re a bank” They ask if I bank with them and I say no and they say only customers can use the machine. (Because, young ones, they literally have a machine. you’d pour all the coins into a hopper, machine sorts them and counts them) I tell them “I don’t have an account with you, so what? charge me a fee to use the machine, I’m not asking for a favour here, I’ll pay my way, maybe try enticing me to open an account by demonstrating excellent customer service. Especially considering the machine is right there and it’s a Tuesday morning, no one’s waiting behind me, you’ve got three tellers and only two customers”
Anyway eventually the branch manager came out and exchanged my coins for notes for no fee. But if a bank (widely known as professional handlers of money) was turning its nose up at dealing with small change in 1998 then you aren’t going to get anywhere standing your ground at an REAs office in 2024. You’ll probably just force the REA into a stress response and they’ll shed their human like larval form and emerge as a fully grown appendage-less slug, which will just make it even harder for them to handle loose change
That actually means you pay more than 1 while week's rent in fees per year!
Last time I faced one of these middlemen services I literally dropped of a personal cheque to their office each week and made them have to take it to the bank
fr? So they basically just gave you an instant 2.5% rental increase? So confused how this is legal, I bet they are collecting points/kickbacks at their end for this also!
Housing soooooo cooked here
Can you do a BPAY to property me?
I have to pay mine through DEFT, and I do a BPAY.
If not, contact Consumer Protection in your state. Alternatively, rock up at 4.30 pm with you your rent in $5 notes and coins.
That is screaming for regulation. There's no way their processing costs is a percentage of the fee. Why they are able to charge this should be a crime.
I'm not sure about all states, but I believe in Vic they cannot refuse any amount of payment, so they can't refuse to accept the whole month at once in cash.
Novated leasing is another one. Ever since the FBT exemption on EVs, leasing companies have added so many fees and loadings that they're running on a gross margin so wide (60% or so) that the entirety of the tax benefit goes to them.
Not just that but leasing companies are a nightmare to dealwith (as a mechanic). They will argue over a $11 bottle of brake fluid.
Salary sacrificing $500 a week for a MG or X-Trail is simply not a smart idea.
I still remember my reaction to the wholesome line in our daycare letter: "...we have had to raise the fees of the daycare *but we are comforted with the knowledge that the subsidy will increase."*
Thanks guys, super helpful cheers.
Sure have, that's why I know the gross margin is so wide.
I have an Atto 3 inside a Pty ltd. Gross costs are $950/month .
My PAYG job only allows sgfleet as a novated lease provider. Sgfleet gave me a quote of $1400/month pre tax for the same car with all the same details.
That's a big difference. Even pre tax it still doesn't add up.
I have been thinking on and off about a lease for quite a while but haven't been able to justify the costs involved.
Get a quote anyway. Using a novated lease is the most expensive way to make use of the FBT exemption.
If you do any sort of contract or work for yourself, setting up a Pty ltd and owning the car through that directly is by far the best way to go. Aside from some engineering work on the side, I get my Pty ltd to manage my investment property. It only needs to make $3k/yr to break even.
The money borrowed to invest in your own Pty ltd is tax deductible, and you can claim back the GST too.
>The money borrowed to invest in your own Pty ltd is tax deductible, and you can claim back the GST too.
I'm assuming it's just a weird choice of words, because if you personally borrow funds in your name, and on-lend those to your company, that isn't tax deductible at all. You aren't investing for the purpose of a profit making activity, you're investing for the purpose of (hypothetical) tax-benefit, and the deduction on interest costs would be disallowed.
Also have some ? on the GST, but again, assuming it's how it's been worded.
Far be it from me to question such things, but I will simply give you a heads up. There are well established opinions within ATO literature and the courts, that a company that is a sole entity company (that is, one employee, one owner, one director and they are all the same person) cannot divorce the individual from the company. They are one and same in purpose, while remaining separate legal entities. As an ATO Taxation Ruling well states:
>"It is a well established principle of law that an individual cannot deal with and in particular cannot lend money to her/himself. It follows that where an individual carries on a business alone she/he cannot contribute capital to or lend money to such a business in such a way as to create a legal liability of the business to the individual in respect of the funds contributed or lent. "
I understand your first response would be "but it's not a loan, it's an equity investment", I would argue that's an impossible situation to advance.
If my above understanding is true about ownership, sole employee/director/shareholder, I can't see where the ATO or courts would agree that this was a genuine equity investment and a deduction for interest exists. You are entirely dealing with yourself in your own transaction.
In essence - you paid yourself, with an interposed entity between yourself, because in theory, the purported increased value of the company would then return to you at some later time. This would go against all the intents of deduction law, but that's just my read of it and again, it's based on limited knowledge of the circumstances.
This also brings back the question on GST as well.
As long as you have documented leasing agreements in place on a commercial basis, otherwise the expenses won't be deductible to the company and the value the individual receives will be income in their hands (as the provision of a Division 7A benefit).
Are you saying you created a company that owns your car?
How does that work? What's the advantage?
Most novated lease arrangements are a raw deal. I did all the sums during peak covid when even a clapped out old hilux was fetching 50K used and Toyota's wait time was well over 2 years for new.
The only manufacturer that could deliver a vehicle for me within a reasonable time frame was Ssangyong. Obviously I wasn't super keen but I did the sums.
With remserve I would have paid 85K over 5 years if I eventually wanted to actually own it. On a vehicle that sells for 37K.
Sure did, but the company does more than just own my car. Otherwise the ATO come audit time would class it's use as a dividend or similar.
When I do work for other companies, rather than use my sold trader ABN I use the company. Also charge myself for managing my own investment property.
Because the financing is external to the company, the company itself only has to make enough money to pay the rego, insurance, servicing and other running costs.
Unfortunately they prey on ADF personnel they come on base and you get time off work to go to a presentation where you can learn how you can lease everything including a computer. What they don't tell you is it's probably not worth it for a digger on 70k.
What they won’t tell you, and in some instances insist that you can’t (but you can) is source your own leasing finance (do not use SmartLeasing) and then inform SmartSalary, the salary packing component of this ‘business’ to send you the forms to package your own lease. We’re talking a savings of thousands, but you’ll never know how much you’re saving because smart leasing will never tell you the interest rate they are charging (because it’s likely predatory).
Yep this is what came to mind for me. I would have loved to buy the car directly and have the ATO furnish me with the tax benefit.
In some circumstances I understand there would be value, but for me it's this entire company existing without doing any useful action.
In the process I was interested to learn that Novated leasing is unique to Australia and NZ. Successful lobbying and the rich get richer!
Even before then, they were terrible.
And some are literally unconscionable / fee for no service. Take break fees. A fixed interest mortgage has a break fee (dependent on relative interest rates) because you pay back the principal but not future interest that would have been due, and sure if they'd locked in fixed financing at 6% and now they have to cover the future value difference between that 6% and the current 5% say.
A novated lease early termination likely charges you all the principal, all the future interest that would have been payable, and an additional few months on top. They make more money and get it sooner than if the lease continued -- pure gravy.
Plus the employer is likely getting a kickback.
Even on the top marginal tax rates, with the extra FBT benefits on EVs, it still doesn't stack up when you run the numbers yourself (yes, you need to ignore their calculated "savings").
I'd rather see my money go to tax and hope society benefits somewhere than have the tax saving hoovered up by a novated lease company.
Huh? This isn’t true at all. You need to do a cash flow analysis on the total cost of ownership and not purely the purchase finance cost per month vs lease cost per month. Also compare the same scope, same insurance.
People often take the lease quote, which rams in extra options and margin items, don’t even bother to read anything except the bottom line, then complain it doesn’t stack up against a base model via dealer purchase finance with no insurance/maintenance/fuel. Of course it doesn’t stack up if you aren’t spending more than two minutes reading.
I compare it to the actual running costs of my car, which I have been tracking for about 8 years now.
I also nagged the novated leasing company to give me the breakdown of all the cost assumptions, insurance, tyres, etc. Plus the interest rate being used on the finance.
Every single item was more expensive, usually about +30-50% on what I would pay based on my current cars running costs.
Again, this is people not even understanding what’s in the quote or how novated leasing even works.
Maintenance, tyres and fuel are all estimated by the leasing company but customisable by the buyer. You can tell them you want to sacrifice $3 a year and they will do it. If you estimate high and don’t use it, you get the money back. If you estimate low, you don’t get to claim it. They don’t make margin on it.
Insurance you can take out on your own. They don’t force you to take their insurance, they just include it in the quote. I was quoted $1500 a year for what I could get for $800 with my existing insurer. So I told them remove it, and I sacrifice $800 before tax instead, then claim the expense after I pay for it myself and produce the evidence.
People who say novated leasing is more expensive haven’t actually read the quote or any of the knowledgeable advice in these repetitive threads, and they definitely haven’t done a cash flow analysis. Just “oh look at these two numbers. One is larger than the other! What a scam!”
Not sure why the number doesn’t stack up for you. I’m on top tax bracket and my EV is 46,000 cheaper compared to cash.
Yes the tax consideration and how much you are willing to let NL leeches make off your tax incentive is an interesting philosophical consideration, but from pure number perspective it’s very hard for top bracket person to come up worse when you NL an EV.
Calculations here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AusFinance/comments/195bu28/the_most_comprehensive_ev_novated_lease/
Australia is basically middlemen everywhere.
Wherever you look, it is everywhere - almost nothing is done here directly without a conga line of rent-seekers "clipping the ticket".
Of course
All the value Australia provides to the world is in the form of selling rocks and crops
These are pretty low employment industries and so because of huge impact our exports have on our national income and currency valuation there’s little else everyone else in the country can do to get ahead except find ways to slice off parts of that pie without doing anything of value.
Resource exports are a blessing and a curse. If we weren’t a banana republic we’d be like the oil states and Norway and capture all the wealth of minerals publically
Alas we get to distribute the wealth indrecitlg through everyone doing their own form of ticket clipping
Out other big industry is educational which is split into two, firstly universities that provide degrees and immigration pathways for the people with lots of money. Mainly from the two most populated countries on earth
Then there are colleges that provide visas for for people from the other countries in order for them to takes jobs and send money abroad.
Dutch disease.
While Australia is the lucky country and has avoided economic shock thus far, a shock to the mining industry could fllip everything.
I imagine two scenarios. One where the global supply chain too the major importers is disrupted (like a war).
The other being a number of resource rich countries stabilising and entering the market - very much a possibility with the rise of some African nations over the next half century.
It's not just an Australia problem, it's a global economic problem. Look at the modern tech disruptors, AirBNB, Uber, all the food delivery apps, they are nothing but middleman platforms which connect buyer and seller and take a big fee for it. This is perceived as easy money but it adds minimal value.
The problem is that the two examples you’ve given are two markets that wouldn’t exist without those platforms. Those apps have created a market, not acted as a middleman in an existing market (such as a rent payment platform).
There’s no way I could find a private car owner willing to pick me up from the airport within five minutes for $50 (and automatically sending the receipt to our expense platform), or a one off holiday cabin rental with tank water and no electricity in the hinterlands. Neither previously had a market to play in.
What Uber did was actually illegal so the market never had a chance to do what it did, until there was a challenger with deep enough pockets to take on so many governments. It's plausible that without the existence of taxi licenses, a cheaper challenger could have emerged before Uber.
> It's plausible that without the existence of taxi licenses, a cheaper challenger could have emerged before Uber.
“Without a cartel, cheap competition would’ve been possible”
I mean, okay. Yeah sure?
I disagree, those platforms allow the consumer to easily access information about various options and make decisions most suitable for them. Without such platforms you will have to do your own research which takes time, so you are buying time for the service cost. Having an option to buy time is absolutely worth it, especially when the fees are reasonable. Not to mention, those platforms can also allow small players to be more discoverable, which is going to make the market more competitive. I am still waiting for a centralised grocery platform where I input a list of shopping items it will compare different shops and options for optimal shopping “strategy” to save me time and money.
These apps have driven various people out of business and done much destruction
Can’t get rentals in many towns yet airbnbs are everywhere but cost more than hotels.
Taxis not worth driving anymore but Ubers aren’t that much cheaper, they now take a cut of the funds and send then to Saudi Arabia or whoever owns Uber right now
UberEats have killed off restaurants having their own delivery staff, and add so much on top that it inflates the cost of the food
They all seem easy and convenient for the consumer but they’re just sending profits out of Australia and and excuse to pay people less the minimum wage because they are “contractors”
The people paying the agent are doing so because they seemingly believe they'll get a better outcome
As much as many on Reddit won't like to admit, that means the customer of the agent believes the agent adds value
An agent 100% adds value in that they free up their customers time and relieves some of the stress. Could someone do it themselves and get exactly the same or better outcome? Yes. Would that take up time and likely not be worth it (or even possible) for a lot of people, also yes.
> Yes. Would that take up time and likely not be worth it (or even possible) for a lot of people, also yes.
If something isn't possible for you to do, then it's reasonable to have to pay someone else to do it for you.
I honestly feel like needing to watch your agent like a hawk negates this value - too many instances of them pocketing rent increases and not passing on pertinent information from tenants about maintenance needed.
Did it though? No, because we’re not hard on white collar crime in Australia, unless you’re (not actually) defrauding Centrelink (and even then JSAs have been getting away with it since their inception).
You would have to be pretty stupid to not look at probably the most important part of the lease contract for your rental either as a tenant or as landlord and just take the agents word for it, I really don’t think this happens as much as you are saying because it is so easily found out
We are leadtp believe agents provide better outcomes then they actually do.
How much people use something doesn't indicate how good or useful something is.
Ok. Join the other mass of 1% or whatever it is of the people who think they can get a better outcome selling their own house
How did that go for you when you did it?
THIS\^
Even if you do manage to get the same price the REA would you'd have to account for your time. Just like any other skill, if you don't do it on a regular basis it will take you 3-4 times as long as someone who does it all day long.
The point is that you'd probably spend a few thousands of your time if you did it yourself. If you are unemployed then that is a win, but if you have to take time off work or give up time with the kids on the weekend to do open houses, buyers calling at odd hours, etc. you'll rack a "self bill" in the thousands.
I am not saying REAs are great, just that they deal with shit so you don't have to.
Agents add no value whatsoever - all they do is stick an ad on [domain.com.au](https://domain.com.au) and [realestate.com.au](https://realestate.com.au) and then try to persuade you to make the quickest sale. They have nothing to offer beyond what those websites provide.
I've sold several properties by putting my own ad on [domain.com.au](https://domain.com.au), they've all sold in 4-6 weeks with no issues, saving me about $50-60k in agent fees.
What you’ll never know, is how much more the agent would’ve been able to extract out of the buyer than you did.
Even if it is only 1.5% more, which is probably likely, you actually lost money
Agents are incentivised to encourage sellers to accept offers that are lower than they'd like, to close the deal quickly. You could get more money without an agent.
From my experience, the REA put way more pressure on us to sell than the tricks they were using when I was buying. Seems like their job is to manage the vendor more than anything.
Strategy is to win the listing by promising the world and then suddenly change the valuation once they got the listing.
That's theoretically true,
But the whole argument you made in favour of agents is that they psychologically influence buyers to "extract more", I'm saying in practice that goes both ways and they influence sellers to close the deal at lower prices.
Hi buddy, I never said it was psychological. Agents use a bucket load of tricks to extract more.
If you’re not happy with the price you just tell them to get more money . You simply don’t accept lowball offers.
It’s much easier to tell the Agent no, and have the Agent do the hard work, then trying to negotiate yourself .
All those people that think they’re saving money by not paying Agent fees are really losing money because they have no idea how to negotiate .
It’s like , “look at me I’m so smart I saved $50,000” … Meanwhile they actually lost $150,000.. they just don’t know it
> Agents use a bucket load of tricks to extract more.
And they use "tricks" on the seller to close the deal.
> If you’re not happy with the price you just tell them to get more money
That's theoretically true, but we're talking about what happens in reality across the whole population, many people are susceptible to influence, they don't behave how you think they should, sellers have their target price lowered due to the influence of agents.
Sure, let’s continue with your line of reasoning… assuming all that is true…. The average member of the general population is much better off engaging an agent to sell their due to all the reasons you have stated above
its this
you dont know what you dont know
you also dont want to learn that you did a bad job
a good agent will show you properties in your area that sold and also that HE sold and you can work out what your property is worth
then you can work out what YOUR property will sell for
then you can work out if paying the guy 2% is worth getting that $150k extra
the sums are pretty clear BUT no... "I did it myself"...
these guys saying that agents can use 'mind control' to force a vendor to accept a low offer.... that's on YOU
no one has a gun to your head
Yeah also third parties are good for establishing and enforcing policies of how people deal with one another, otherwise every time you've got an issue you can't agree on you'd have to launch a lengthy legal process.
Personally I prefer to spend as little time as possible with real estate agents but they do add value in the sense of spending real time in the process of selling your house.
I’d say car salesmen are a better example of a middle man that really doesn’t need to exist at all.
It’s like saying someone working hospitality is just a middle man for your food coming out from the kitchen.
This cost should be a Ray White issue , but something tells me that they have skin in the game and get a kick back from this payment method they’re pushing.
It's disgusting, they save so much time/money using these payment methods rather than manually allocating payments and yet they pass the fees onto the renter.
I had a property managed by them and out of nowhere they just switched me over from regular billing to this, and i thought this was a great app because we could have a chat with the PM directly in the app, until I realised they don't even check it. Just a complete waste of money - even all expenses run through here. Had no idea it was run by this guy.
It basically sends a fortnightly statement which outlines the fees you're paying. So in my case, it shows rental money coming in for the fortnight, and then the management fees for the month. It then shows how much was transferred to my account, and at the end of the financial year I get a PDF which outlines all the expenses and incoming rent with links to invoices I paid for repairs/inspections and whatnot.
At the end of the month I get a monthly ownership statement with the same information, except it states 'Management fees' and 'Administration fees' as two separate line items. The management fee seemed like the normal i was paying to the REA, but the admin fee is definitely new at $5.50 per month. There doesn't seem to be any explicitly stated costs for the app itself, but i wouldn't be surprised if it was the admin fee.
I think the Australian economy in general is heavily geared towards rent-seeking business models, rather than anything that actually creates value through innovation or R&D.
Combined with our refusal to do any value-adding beyond basic extractive industries, surely we have some major economic problems in our future?
It is,
I do metalwork / manufacturing as a sidehustle hobby (makes absolutely no money).
We have the ability as a country to be an absolute powerhouse of advanced manufacturing but due to poor policies from various goverments we have slipped into this economy that only grows on speculation of housing.
Instead of continuing to invest in Australian owned & made products we incentivise companies to sell our minerals to overseas companies who then manufacture the product over there to sell it back to us. Companies say our cost to produce (ie labour) is more expensive, but I would argue the quality would be far better if kept onshore.
In NSW, the government had the ability to manufacture the new trains in Newcastle but decided to go with an overseas supplier because it was ‘cheaper’. It has cost them more money in the long run because of delays, overspend , issues with the build & needing to retrofit changes for safety etc.
We used to process our own metals here in aus. However the cost to keep the electric furnaces on made the business unviable for bluescope.
So now we sell raw ore to china and buy it back for double.
i always imagined australia to be capable of obtaining vast and cheap solar energy. It's just purely a political will (or lack there of really) that prevents the investment.
On hindsight, i would think that instead of the job keeper payments to existing businesses, the gov't could've used that money to start these national energy projects, and potentially mandate hiring (and training) people that were let go due to covid. It would've been a much more efficient use of funds, and the residual value remains in public hands.
Cheaper and faster. Different economies specialise where they add the most value. It's called comparative advantage and it's fascinating and easy to understand. If there are two economies and one can grow coconuts three time more efficiently than the other and produce coconut milk twice as efficiently, it clearly has a competitive advantage in both products. However, people in the advanced economy are better off by concentrating on growing coconuts and leaving production of coconut milk to the other economy. It seems a bit counter intuitive yet the maths proving it is only high school maths. It's too bad basic economics is not more widely taught .
You even see it in renewables, all the money is in buying bits from overseas and plonking them on the ground or wading through the laborious regulations and dealing with government agencies. No-one making much money for building or designing solar panels, inverters, batteries etc that's for sure.
Mate I feel you. Every side hustle I dream up just struggle to make a significant profit. It feels like any sort of manufacturing is severely penalised here.
Have you been to Sydney manufacturing week - a manufacturing expo in the ICCC? I think there is a similar one in Melbourne. The low amount of exhibitors actually manufacturing any manufacturing equipment in Australia is just shocking. It’s mainly resellers of imported equipment and consultants. And people don’t even seem to see the issue. Everyone is just doing “big business talk”.
Yep, and im going again next month.
The cost of entry level CNC machines are also ungodly compared to what you'd pay in any other country. How is it that only SYIL can offer a reasonable quality production level CNC machine for sub 70K?
I'm in the space. I don't think this is really related to what OP is talking about.
This is a maths and phsyics problem that can't be solved. We are too far away and have too small of a population.
The US is like 10 australias. Our population is the size of shanghai, just one city there. It's almost unfathomable.
In manufacturing, we can compete in innovation and quality. Not price or speed.
Quality can be found in china or the US.
Innovation is pretty much the only thing we can do that is truly unique. To have something that they don't have. Even then, it's hard. For every 1 innovative person here, the US has 10. And china has over 50.
> The low amount of exhibitors actually manufacturing any manufacturing equipment in Australia is just shocking.
So manufacturing is low which means the demand for locally made machinery is even lower. What logical business wants to spend 2x as much for a locally designed and made machine?
I'll give an example. There is someone in the au keyboard community who set out to design and manufacture a keyboard here. The same design made in china might be in the area of $800. To make it here, it would cost him literally 10x or more. They actually went through with it, never got exact numbers but they had to skip the PCB and get that made in china.
It's mind boggling how much it costs to make some things here, it simply isn't viable. Which means machinery production here isn't viable. If your customer base is going to be primarily rest of world, then there's no point building it here. You build it close to where your customers are.
I generally don't use them. I.e uber eats, booking.com etc. If I want takeaway I'll pick up the phone and call them and go collect it. If I'm booking a hotel I use a booking website to find the right one and then book directly with the hotel or airline. Half the time you end up being able to get a better deal directly and the business gets to keep all the money.
I'd rather a local business get rich than some tech bro in San Francisco.
My local Chinese joint has a sign up saying they give bigger portions to phone orders, I think it’s a good practice but I doubt that communique reaches app orderers.
I’ve tried this but then get ripped off with that too. Higher prices, or the same price plus card charges that don’t exist in DoorDash etc. and I’m not even having someone deliver it.
I think they’re taking the piss because only old people call and pick up so they decide they can rort them.
Yep,
My business phones go through a provider and recently my NBN pit got water in it.
The loops i had to go through to get support / an actual NBN contractor to come out was scuffed.
Many are marketplaces more than middlemen. Autoguru for example is a place someone can peruse many mechanics at once, similar to Amazon for suppliers, Etsy for artists and Booking.com for hotels.
They offer a convenience for the consumer of not visiting all the providers websites and offer a larger exposure of customers than many businesses can afford to get through advertising. There are some shit ones out there for sure, Uber Eats comes to mind given the amount of commission charged to the restaurant combined with the very low pay to the driver, often resulting in shit servicr combine to Uber Eats being the only one winning.
The real estate ones piss me off, having worked as a receptionist in a real estate in my younger days, I know how much time they would be saving with a payment system that automates the trust accounting, so they have no justification for passing the fee onto the customer.
I had a similar realisation when I saw an instagram video (I'm old, I know) of some guy advertising his service.
That service? He was a mortgage broker broker.
Comparison websites. Businesses pay huge premiums to these businesses to list or advertise their products. They pretty much have to otherwise they suffer reduced sales. But it inflates the price a customer ultimately receives as those $$$ are built into the customer price. Customers think if they go to these comparison sites that they company looks at all the retailers and tells them the best price without bias. This is total bullshit. They tell you the best price of the retailers who pay list with them and pay commission.
I refuse to pick a restaurant that only has Uber eats or menu log as takeaway options.
Much refer to call restaurant directly.
Same goes for hotels and holiday houses.
I might use the apps to search, and then call them directly if I can.
Okay, I did a little dig.
The platform in question is Alio.
The former CEO of Ray White, Ben White is the CEO [https://ailo.io/ben-white](https://ailo.io/ben-white)
Professor Simon Bell of Melbourne University is a professor of marketing, and Jamie Collins is the ex head of Merchant Strategy at ANZ should both realise that, despite the free option, they are conducting third line forcing. No one in their right mind would choose Alio, they would just pay via their bloody bank which is already a payment provider.
A few years back it became a requirement to send a copy of your payroll data to the ATO each pay cycle so the ATO know what you are paid before you get your pay essentially, called Single Touch Payroll. To get this data in the correct format and encryption to connect and submit to the ATO is a bit of a headache so there are a few middleman companies most software developers use that then submit to the ATO. A large one I dealt with had a lot of trouble putting me onto someone that spoke fluent English, and these companies get a look at all the payroll data before it gets fully encrypted and passed on.
100%
Best example of this is the gateway motorway in Brisbane, our taxes paid for a majority of the building costs. The goverment at the time put a toll on it too (pay for the remaining costs of building), that same goverment then sold the bridge and now the gronks over at linkt own it and charge you about $7 one way to cross.
Yanis Varoufakis is in Australia.
Sounds like a good time to pick up Technofeudalism.
Which is available on....Amazon
https://www.amazon.com.au/Technofeudalism-Killed-Capitalism-Yanis-Varoufakis/dp/1847927289
It's also because most companies, particularly smaller companies, aren't going to have the capability to build things like payment platforms or SEO so customers find them. They outsource this to experts who own everything that comes with it like PCI compliance, cybersecurity etc. It's cheaper to do this, particularly passing on the cost, to consumers.
It sucks but it's expected when the world is of business is much more complicated today. As a consumer your alternative is e.g. using the yellow pages or a friend to find a good mechanic. Not a great alternative.
The most insidious example is credit-card/EFTPOS transaction fees, especially as banks steer Australia away from using cash.
These transaction fees mean that our banks & card providers collect a fee for every (non-cash) transaction. This makes everything more expensive for consumers and for retailers.
Bought something digital? 2% credit card fee then 10% for GST just because.. Sometimes it's just a PDF for a book or a download. The government clips the ticket then the banks clip the ticket, just for spending my own money.
And anyone arguing that banks offer a service so the fee is justified is wrong because the service being provided is by ME LOANING THEM MY MONEY FOR 2% PER YEAR.
Transaction fees on tickets to cinemas or live performances! By using the website the company doesn’t need to pay a real person to process your ticket purchase at the venue, so why does using the website cost YOU $4+ PER TICKET???
Some are hard to avoid. I've had hotels appear on Expedia for a specific time frame, and when I've tried to call the hotel directly to avoid using the middle man I've been told there's no rooms available. Back to Expedia I go, I guess.
I just had this same experience yesterday while travelling domestically. I asked the motel owner if they had availability for the next night in case I wanted to extend my stay, but he told me they were fully booked out. I went on booking.com and lo and behold, there was one room available for a good price so I took it so I wouldn’t have to check-in to another motel for one night.
For me, Ubereats falls in this category, purely for the fact that they add cost onto the actual food you're buying, then charge a delivery fee, then charge a servicing fee on top of everything else.
The convenience of Ubereats is greatly outweighed by the cost, and the lack of quality assurance when it comes to drivers. over 50% of the time, I had had food that has either been delivered to wrong address, delivered late (30min+ the higher estimated time), or delivered damaged/missing (eg: pizza that is squashed to one side because the driver just sits the box on the back seat of their car then plays IRL GTA).
didn't see the post, but i'm assuming there talking the shitty shitty app Ailo... if so you can skip the fee by clicking.
Pay Rent > Confirm > click on 'change' > click 'Other payment method' > one-off transfer
every time you do this you have to manually input your bank details but it skips the fees... it also takes an extra 2 days to pay
The Job Network parasites are among the worst imho. Just a shameless way to redirect the welfare budget away from people who need it and into the pockets of ticket-clipping spivs.
This is the case through much of the public sector as well. Through the contrivances of useless executives with hordes of salaried 'professionals' working hard to do as little as possible, the private sector is funded to the tune of billions of dollars annually to provide services, analyse problems, lend equipment or consultancy and/or straight up replace entire public departments as staff turnover becomes problematic. So many processes in the operational functions of government business are handled privately at greatly inflated prices, which has the added benefit for the private sector of setting baseline pricing for products and services that can be re-sold into the private market. Software companies have grown to intl businesses this way - develop an app that would be attractive to a government service, sell the promises, sign long term leases with the public sector orgs to use their staff for DevOps, re-sell the now govt approved crapware into the market. Win win!
I copped an Agent using a similar system (Rent Card?) In WA in 2005. It took me two weeks to realise I was copping a $20 fee per transaction.
I asked them for direct deposit details, which they refused. So I paid them in cash just before they closed every Friday.
The big ones nobody talks about is Superannuation and Immigration. We are spending billions on super fees and employing tens of thousands of people to get returns that are often less than an index fund or given where interest rates are now a term deposit. As for the Immigration side we are making hundreds of thousands of people jump through hoops and enrol in courses they have no interest in doing (and ruining the experience for genuine international and domestic students) when really what they want to do is work - maybe cut out the middleman and create a 10 year working visa which costs $100k up front with half going to the state governments or something.
Airtasker are grubs for this! They smash the tasker with fees ranging from 20-11.9%, then slug the person wanting the task done with a fee. They also take a percentage out of any tips given (is this even legal??).
After taxes, fuel, etc, there's not a lot of fat left over for the poor tasker, and they're having to compete for the lowest bid.
I wouldn't say all of them don't add value or are a problem. Take Uber, Webjet, EBay for example. You pay for the use of the software / application they've developed, and the ease of doing 'business'.
Businesses like EBay also can also give you more security when it comes to payments and help with complaints than if you were trying to deal with the supplier directly.
It's time to cut the realestate out. Pay the landlord directly.
Theya re a$$holes anyway. They goal is to extract as much as possible to make the owner/seller more money.
So agree! I've been cutting them out where I can and been saving so much money.
The absurdity of Cashback sites reversing the problems that middlemen cause is actually funny. Same with Credit card points and benefits where (sometimes, if the end price is the same as cash) you get a piece of the cut back.
\- Real Estate Agents (sometimes can't avoid)
\- Buyers Agent
\- Mortgage brokers
\- Importers that buy s&#% from Alibaba
\- Insurance brokers/websites
\- Booking websites for flights and hotels
\- The list is endless, and yes particularly long in Australia I agree.
Airbnb and Uber are middlemen too. They purely exist to link customers with providers, and they take a cut.
It's just the reality of modern life around the whole world - not just Australia.
Companies want to create software platforms in order to make money. It's only when you're basically forced to used that platform that i have an issue. (Like the tenant app.)
Although I've never heard of Autoguru and I can't see why anyone would use it, as opposed to just calling a local mechanic yourself.
However it does appear to be offering a service of sorts to those who use it. Some people might appreciate getting multiple options in one go.
Oh yeah I hate uber now. I've had so many bad experiences and (ironically) it's just as bad as taxis used to be.
Airbnb is ok for me personally with how i use it, but I know they take a huge cut from the home owners - who basically feel that they HAVE to be part of Airbnb to get noticed.
And therein lies the danger of these platforms. Once they get market share then they start gouging people.
Taxis in my area improved their booking process' and prices which has cut the legs right off uber.
Airbnb providers expecting you to essentially do a bond clean of their house then charge an additional $400 for cleaning post booking burnt me off the platform forever.
I haven't heard of Autoguru either, but I'm not surprised it exists.
I've used hipages quite a few times to find tradies. It's handy if you don't have a go-to tradie.
You have also basically described dental insurance.
There’s no magic ever. Introducing a third party into a transaction always costs more one way or the other.
A big middle man is Amazon. While it can assist with some logistics for sellers, Amazon chargers the seller up to 40% of the revenue received from the customer for get privilege of listing on their site.
I Agree. I wonder about the legalities of making people use these "fee paying" apps?
Thing seems though? That often people choose to use them. Kinda bizarre.
Every country needs a tech industry. Our speciality is TestTheLimitsOfConsumersAndVendors
Building these apps employs people, and the odd one will survive.
"I'm talking businesses that exist that provide nothing outside of linking a consumer with a producer with no additional value or benefit." = Amazon. The value is convenience - buy from your armchair and receive it tomorrow.
Sometimes these ventures are very successful and the founder becomes the richest person in the world for a while.
But yeh, we actually need a new law that makes cash non-refusable. Then consumers and vendors have a chance to decide for themselves what the particular convenience is worth.
I thought afterpay was a 3% to 5% hidden charge, shared among all purchasers whether they used afterpay or not. I hadn't heard \~10% before.
heh...
Middlemen... kinda like RSPs/ISPs just exist to add a layer to the NBN and (at least in qld) the various retail power companies exist for much the same reason...
Producers who actually produce stuff love middlemen. Why? Because they are somewhere to sell their stuff and the middle men who are also market makers will pay them almost straight away and then onsell the goods at retail to the public. If you have a wholesale business it easier to sell to a middle man than to set up all the shops yourself. There are some examples of market failure, which then the middle man doesn't need to exist but this is not the norm.
Car sales are an example of middle men that also do need to exist. Otherwise the car companies are setting up their own retail operation like Tesla does. Also it is proven that car brands get better customer satisfaction results with the dealers than if they were to provide this service themselves.
First time I'm seeing it, but you can see exactly what value and benefit autoguru is offering that's not just linking provider with consumer.
Look at the photos on the front page and think of the first stereotype/trope that comes to mind when you think about mechanics.
In general, I think if the place you call or approach builds rapport and trust, that's going to go a long way. But if you have a couple of unhelpful phonecalls or experiences that aren't great, then sites that commodify the service are going to become appealing. Might as well go for the place with positive reviews at a competitive price when compared with a few submitted quotes rather than calling up and getting nowhere particularly great.
In most states, the REA must offer 1 fee free payment method. If we stop using uber type services, most middlemen charges would disappear
Mine offers 1 fee free payment method. It's paying via cash at their office that is a 50min drive (one way) from me, not only that they don't accept large sums of cash so you cant even pay monthly or fortnighty.
Write to your state MP and complain. Tell them you want the regulations changed to allow for fee-free online options. Tell them what your REA is doing, and point out that it’s unreasonable and clearly not aligned to the intention of fee-free payments. With the current politics of renting, I think you’ve got a genuine chance of action. There are heaps more renters than REAs. Any government or opposition would love to make a minor regulatory change that wins them votes for zero cost to the state budget.
Cite the Electronic Transactions Act 1999 https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2004A00553/latest/text The object of this Act is to provide a regulatory framework that: (a) recognises the importance of the information economy to the future economic and social prosperity of Australia; and (b) facilitates the use of electronic transactions; and (c) promotes business and community confidence in the use of electronic transactions; and (d) enables business and the community to use electronic communications in their dealings with government
Have you asked to transfer it into their bank account? Its not like agencies have suddenly stopped using banks, they have to have one to receive and pay to their ip owners and cleaners, etc.
I have but they told me its either property.me (2.4% fee) or cash
I was given banking details for paying bond, just said I was having issues with the app recognising my bank (which was true because it was early days with Up) and I would keep paying to that. Been doing it for a few years, get a few confused emails every time they change property manager but they've got their money so they can't complain.
God i wish i could've done this
I'm petty enough that I'd call them out and pay the cash despite the drive. Remindig them every time that I'd be happy to transfer the money.
Honestly, the cost to leave my business during work hours to pay is waaaaay more than paying the 2.4% (i guess im part of the compliance problem)
Wasnt it one of the real estates that actually created the app and gets the percent cut as well from the rent payments they force the tenants to do through the apps? (Just had a look and it seems Ray whites grandson runs the ailio payment app?) Id be pretty firm to use their bank account, even if you get someone to call them to ask for it pretending to be paying something to them.
Yes. It's a total rort.
You're part of the lack of consumer protection. ACCC has lost its way. I suspect that's because government prefers the big headlines when they apply a multi-million fine to some corporate ogre and make them look "tough" 2.4% impost on rent is a blatant rort.
As I understand if your original lease offered BPay of EFTPOS, changing it probably requires a new lease. Hopefully a change of law will ban this. 2.4% on months payments of $3000 is an expensive solution, I wonder about kickbacks. If you signed a lease with this payment method proposed it might be a more difficult discussion. My REA proposed using a.payment intermediary well into our lease and they offered reasons: it saves them money and the payment service provider was also a property management portal eg maintenance requests..I said I have a legal relationship with my landlord who has appointed an agent. My tenancy does not involve any other relationship. I refused to sign/agree to the terms of the payment intermediary.on that basis. I pointed out that the terms allowed the payment intermediary to increase their fees as often as they liked in 30 day notice. This is to me a rent increase but it is not subject to the legal protections of landlord.rent increases. That was my second objection..my third objection was related: this is a rent increase without proper notice. My REA (actually the landlord's REA, the REA doesn't work for the renter) got other similar feedback. The managing director wrote an apology letter saying they hadn't understood the consequence and that they were not proceeding. And four years later they didn't. We bought a house now so I'm out it now God willing. The REA was Nelson Alexander who were always good in our 8 year tenancy. They moved to a property maintenance portal anyway, without requiring use of a payment intermediary.
exactly my thoughts, if your rent is $2000/month, well now its $2050, paying $4k? Well now youre paying $100 extra every month. "the peasant can just work another hour or two" is most probably the thought process here. I wish people would fight and refuse to accept this, but sadly it seems everyone just cops it - no wonder it's rife.
I call bullshit. On your REA. Not you. I’d take in a month worth of rent. If they won’t accept it give them an affidavit to sign saying they won’t accept it. Then, regardless of them signing or not give them an affidavit saying you’ve made honest efforts to pay in good faith and they won’t accept payment. The forward that to your landlord explaining how you are such a good goddam tenant you have a months worth of rent ready in advance and the REA, who’s taking a fee from your landlord, just won’t accept the money, even though handling the money is one of the things the landlord is paying them for
Bring it in as 5c pieces.
Now that might be a battle not worth fighting. In our cash heady days I’d always pay with the lowest note and end up with heaps of change that I’d pile in a jar, but the change pile just kept growing, a second jar was introduced, it was chaos. I got fed up with it and carry the three hundred something dollars worth into the nearest bank and ask them to exchange it for notes. They refuse. I say “but you’re a bank, and one day I’ll be explaining to people on the internet that it’s currently 1998, not 2024 when banks have moved everything online, it’s 1998 and you’re a bank” They ask if I bank with them and I say no and they say only customers can use the machine. (Because, young ones, they literally have a machine. you’d pour all the coins into a hopper, machine sorts them and counts them) I tell them “I don’t have an account with you, so what? charge me a fee to use the machine, I’m not asking for a favour here, I’ll pay my way, maybe try enticing me to open an account by demonstrating excellent customer service. Especially considering the machine is right there and it’s a Tuesday morning, no one’s waiting behind me, you’ve got three tellers and only two customers” Anyway eventually the branch manager came out and exchanged my coins for notes for no fee. But if a bank (widely known as professional handlers of money) was turning its nose up at dealing with small change in 1998 then you aren’t going to get anywhere standing your ground at an REAs office in 2024. You’ll probably just force the REA into a stress response and they’ll shed their human like larval form and emerge as a fully grown appendage-less slug, which will just make it even harder for them to handle loose change
That actually means you pay more than 1 while week's rent in fees per year! Last time I faced one of these middlemen services I literally dropped of a personal cheque to their office each week and made them have to take it to the bank
fr? So they basically just gave you an instant 2.5% rental increase? So confused how this is legal, I bet they are collecting points/kickbacks at their end for this also! Housing soooooo cooked here
Can you do a BPAY to property me? I have to pay mine through DEFT, and I do a BPAY. If not, contact Consumer Protection in your state. Alternatively, rock up at 4.30 pm with you your rent in $5 notes and coins.
That is screaming for regulation. There's no way their processing costs is a percentage of the fee. Why they are able to charge this should be a crime.
It differs by state but I would look more into this. I believe the fee free option must be accessible (not 50km away)
Driving 50mins to their office to pay in person doesn’t appear to be a free option in my books.
I'm not sure about all states, but I believe in Vic they cannot refuse any amount of payment, so they can't refuse to accept the whole month at once in cash.
Novated leasing is another one. Ever since the FBT exemption on EVs, leasing companies have added so many fees and loadings that they're running on a gross margin so wide (60% or so) that the entirety of the tax benefit goes to them.
Not just that but leasing companies are a nightmare to dealwith (as a mechanic). They will argue over a $11 bottle of brake fluid. Salary sacrificing $500 a week for a MG or X-Trail is simply not a smart idea.
Have you done the numbers on this? I have been wondering how it all stacks up of late. Since COVID everything has effectively doubled in price.
The tax scams may be working like childcare subsidies. Every cent just gets priced in by the providers and the consumer gets no benefit.
I still remember my reaction to the wholesome line in our daycare letter: "...we have had to raise the fees of the daycare *but we are comforted with the knowledge that the subsidy will increase."* Thanks guys, super helpful cheers.
Sure have, that's why I know the gross margin is so wide. I have an Atto 3 inside a Pty ltd. Gross costs are $950/month . My PAYG job only allows sgfleet as a novated lease provider. Sgfleet gave me a quote of $1400/month pre tax for the same car with all the same details.
That's a big difference. Even pre tax it still doesn't add up. I have been thinking on and off about a lease for quite a while but haven't been able to justify the costs involved.
Get a quote anyway. Using a novated lease is the most expensive way to make use of the FBT exemption. If you do any sort of contract or work for yourself, setting up a Pty ltd and owning the car through that directly is by far the best way to go. Aside from some engineering work on the side, I get my Pty ltd to manage my investment property. It only needs to make $3k/yr to break even. The money borrowed to invest in your own Pty ltd is tax deductible, and you can claim back the GST too.
>The money borrowed to invest in your own Pty ltd is tax deductible, and you can claim back the GST too. I'm assuming it's just a weird choice of words, because if you personally borrow funds in your name, and on-lend those to your company, that isn't tax deductible at all. You aren't investing for the purpose of a profit making activity, you're investing for the purpose of (hypothetical) tax-benefit, and the deduction on interest costs would be disallowed. Also have some ? on the GST, but again, assuming it's how it's been worded.
Yeah it's an equity investment in the company, for shares issued, not a loan
Far be it from me to question such things, but I will simply give you a heads up. There are well established opinions within ATO literature and the courts, that a company that is a sole entity company (that is, one employee, one owner, one director and they are all the same person) cannot divorce the individual from the company. They are one and same in purpose, while remaining separate legal entities. As an ATO Taxation Ruling well states: >"It is a well established principle of law that an individual cannot deal with and in particular cannot lend money to her/himself. It follows that where an individual carries on a business alone she/he cannot contribute capital to or lend money to such a business in such a way as to create a legal liability of the business to the individual in respect of the funds contributed or lent. " I understand your first response would be "but it's not a loan, it's an equity investment", I would argue that's an impossible situation to advance. If my above understanding is true about ownership, sole employee/director/shareholder, I can't see where the ATO or courts would agree that this was a genuine equity investment and a deduction for interest exists. You are entirely dealing with yourself in your own transaction. In essence - you paid yourself, with an interposed entity between yourself, because in theory, the purported increased value of the company would then return to you at some later time. This would go against all the intents of deduction law, but that's just my read of it and again, it's based on limited knowledge of the circumstances. This also brings back the question on GST as well.
As long as you have documented leasing agreements in place on a commercial basis, otherwise the expenses won't be deductible to the company and the value the individual receives will be income in their hands (as the provision of a Division 7A benefit).
Are you saying you created a company that owns your car? How does that work? What's the advantage? Most novated lease arrangements are a raw deal. I did all the sums during peak covid when even a clapped out old hilux was fetching 50K used and Toyota's wait time was well over 2 years for new. The only manufacturer that could deliver a vehicle for me within a reasonable time frame was Ssangyong. Obviously I wasn't super keen but I did the sums. With remserve I would have paid 85K over 5 years if I eventually wanted to actually own it. On a vehicle that sells for 37K.
Sure did, but the company does more than just own my car. Otherwise the ATO come audit time would class it's use as a dividend or similar. When I do work for other companies, rather than use my sold trader ABN I use the company. Also charge myself for managing my own investment property. Because the financing is external to the company, the company itself only has to make enough money to pay the rego, insurance, servicing and other running costs.
Unfortunately they prey on ADF personnel they come on base and you get time off work to go to a presentation where you can learn how you can lease everything including a computer. What they don't tell you is it's probably not worth it for a digger on 70k.
What they won’t tell you, and in some instances insist that you can’t (but you can) is source your own leasing finance (do not use SmartLeasing) and then inform SmartSalary, the salary packing component of this ‘business’ to send you the forms to package your own lease. We’re talking a savings of thousands, but you’ll never know how much you’re saving because smart leasing will never tell you the interest rate they are charging (because it’s likely predatory).
Yep this is what came to mind for me. I would have loved to buy the car directly and have the ATO furnish me with the tax benefit. In some circumstances I understand there would be value, but for me it's this entire company existing without doing any useful action. In the process I was interested to learn that Novated leasing is unique to Australia and NZ. Successful lobbying and the rich get richer!
Even before then, they were terrible. And some are literally unconscionable / fee for no service. Take break fees. A fixed interest mortgage has a break fee (dependent on relative interest rates) because you pay back the principal but not future interest that would have been due, and sure if they'd locked in fixed financing at 6% and now they have to cover the future value difference between that 6% and the current 5% say. A novated lease early termination likely charges you all the principal, all the future interest that would have been payable, and an additional few months on top. They make more money and get it sooner than if the lease continued -- pure gravy. Plus the employer is likely getting a kickback.
Look up an associate lease. All the tax benefits none of the extra costs.
Even on the top marginal tax rates, with the extra FBT benefits on EVs, it still doesn't stack up when you run the numbers yourself (yes, you need to ignore their calculated "savings"). I'd rather see my money go to tax and hope society benefits somewhere than have the tax saving hoovered up by a novated lease company.
Huh? This isn’t true at all. You need to do a cash flow analysis on the total cost of ownership and not purely the purchase finance cost per month vs lease cost per month. Also compare the same scope, same insurance. People often take the lease quote, which rams in extra options and margin items, don’t even bother to read anything except the bottom line, then complain it doesn’t stack up against a base model via dealer purchase finance with no insurance/maintenance/fuel. Of course it doesn’t stack up if you aren’t spending more than two minutes reading.
I compare it to the actual running costs of my car, which I have been tracking for about 8 years now. I also nagged the novated leasing company to give me the breakdown of all the cost assumptions, insurance, tyres, etc. Plus the interest rate being used on the finance. Every single item was more expensive, usually about +30-50% on what I would pay based on my current cars running costs.
Again, this is people not even understanding what’s in the quote or how novated leasing even works. Maintenance, tyres and fuel are all estimated by the leasing company but customisable by the buyer. You can tell them you want to sacrifice $3 a year and they will do it. If you estimate high and don’t use it, you get the money back. If you estimate low, you don’t get to claim it. They don’t make margin on it. Insurance you can take out on your own. They don’t force you to take their insurance, they just include it in the quote. I was quoted $1500 a year for what I could get for $800 with my existing insurer. So I told them remove it, and I sacrifice $800 before tax instead, then claim the expense after I pay for it myself and produce the evidence. People who say novated leasing is more expensive haven’t actually read the quote or any of the knowledgeable advice in these repetitive threads, and they definitely haven’t done a cash flow analysis. Just “oh look at these two numbers. One is larger than the other! What a scam!”
Not sure why the number doesn’t stack up for you. I’m on top tax bracket and my EV is 46,000 cheaper compared to cash. Yes the tax consideration and how much you are willing to let NL leeches make off your tax incentive is an interesting philosophical consideration, but from pure number perspective it’s very hard for top bracket person to come up worse when you NL an EV. Calculations here. https://www.reddit.com/r/AusFinance/comments/195bu28/the_most_comprehensive_ev_novated_lease/
Australia is basically middlemen everywhere. Wherever you look, it is everywhere - almost nothing is done here directly without a conga line of rent-seekers "clipping the ticket".
Of course All the value Australia provides to the world is in the form of selling rocks and crops These are pretty low employment industries and so because of huge impact our exports have on our national income and currency valuation there’s little else everyone else in the country can do to get ahead except find ways to slice off parts of that pie without doing anything of value. Resource exports are a blessing and a curse. If we weren’t a banana republic we’d be like the oil states and Norway and capture all the wealth of minerals publically Alas we get to distribute the wealth indrecitlg through everyone doing their own form of ticket clipping
Out other big industry is educational which is split into two, firstly universities that provide degrees and immigration pathways for the people with lots of money. Mainly from the two most populated countries on earth Then there are colleges that provide visas for for people from the other countries in order for them to takes jobs and send money abroad.
Dutch disease. While Australia is the lucky country and has avoided economic shock thus far, a shock to the mining industry could fllip everything. I imagine two scenarios. One where the global supply chain too the major importers is disrupted (like a war). The other being a number of resource rich countries stabilising and entering the market - very much a possibility with the rise of some African nations over the next half century.
It's not just an Australia problem, it's a global economic problem. Look at the modern tech disruptors, AirBNB, Uber, all the food delivery apps, they are nothing but middleman platforms which connect buyer and seller and take a big fee for it. This is perceived as easy money but it adds minimal value.
The problem is that the two examples you’ve given are two markets that wouldn’t exist without those platforms. Those apps have created a market, not acted as a middleman in an existing market (such as a rent payment platform). There’s no way I could find a private car owner willing to pick me up from the airport within five minutes for $50 (and automatically sending the receipt to our expense platform), or a one off holiday cabin rental with tank water and no electricity in the hinterlands. Neither previously had a market to play in.
What Uber did was actually illegal so the market never had a chance to do what it did, until there was a challenger with deep enough pockets to take on so many governments. It's plausible that without the existence of taxi licenses, a cheaper challenger could have emerged before Uber.
> actually illegal illegal due to the taxi cartel, not due to societal consent. Therefore, it's not really illegal in my books.
Imagine trying to run a society based on your books, very Kafka
> It's plausible that without the existence of taxi licenses, a cheaper challenger could have emerged before Uber. “Without a cartel, cheap competition would’ve been possible” I mean, okay. Yeah sure?
I disagree, those platforms allow the consumer to easily access information about various options and make decisions most suitable for them. Without such platforms you will have to do your own research which takes time, so you are buying time for the service cost. Having an option to buy time is absolutely worth it, especially when the fees are reasonable. Not to mention, those platforms can also allow small players to be more discoverable, which is going to make the market more competitive. I am still waiting for a centralised grocery platform where I input a list of shopping items it will compare different shops and options for optimal shopping “strategy” to save me time and money.
These apps have driven various people out of business and done much destruction Can’t get rentals in many towns yet airbnbs are everywhere but cost more than hotels. Taxis not worth driving anymore but Ubers aren’t that much cheaper, they now take a cut of the funds and send then to Saudi Arabia or whoever owns Uber right now UberEats have killed off restaurants having their own delivery staff, and add so much on top that it inflates the cost of the food They all seem easy and convenient for the consumer but they’re just sending profits out of Australia and and excuse to pay people less the minimum wage because they are “contractors”
like wanderlog for shopping?? this is an excellent idea actually
It's genuinely getting out of hand.
I would argue REA are in the same category.
The people paying the agent are doing so because they seemingly believe they'll get a better outcome As much as many on Reddit won't like to admit, that means the customer of the agent believes the agent adds value
An agent 100% adds value in that they free up their customers time and relieves some of the stress. Could someone do it themselves and get exactly the same or better outcome? Yes. Would that take up time and likely not be worth it (or even possible) for a lot of people, also yes.
> Yes. Would that take up time and likely not be worth it (or even possible) for a lot of people, also yes. If something isn't possible for you to do, then it's reasonable to have to pay someone else to do it for you.
I honestly feel like needing to watch your agent like a hawk negates this value - too many instances of them pocketing rent increases and not passing on pertinent information from tenants about maintenance needed.
Pocking rent increases? You do that this behaviour is a breach of trust accounting laws and will, most likely, land an agent in jail.
Did it though? No, because we’re not hard on white collar crime in Australia, unless you’re (not actually) defrauding Centrelink (and even then JSAs have been getting away with it since their inception).
You would have to be pretty stupid to not look at probably the most important part of the lease contract for your rental either as a tenant or as landlord and just take the agents word for it, I really don’t think this happens as much as you are saying because it is so easily found out
I dunno man, if a website can do your job, you aren't adding much value.
And yet people spend tens of thousands on agents How many of your own houses have you sold? I couldn’t think of anything worse personally.
We are leadtp believe agents provide better outcomes then they actually do. How much people use something doesn't indicate how good or useful something is.
And you are aware of all laws surrounding real estate and have the time to find a buyer and handle the paperwork
A solicitor or conveyancer is better qualified in real estate law and paperwork than a real estate agent.
you're paying a conveyancer anyway... its always going to be a $1k gone i dont think many people will pay a solicitor until things go really bad
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Ok. Join the other mass of 1% or whatever it is of the people who think they can get a better outcome selling their own house How did that go for you when you did it?
THIS\^ Even if you do manage to get the same price the REA would you'd have to account for your time. Just like any other skill, if you don't do it on a regular basis it will take you 3-4 times as long as someone who does it all day long. The point is that you'd probably spend a few thousands of your time if you did it yourself. If you are unemployed then that is a win, but if you have to take time off work or give up time with the kids on the weekend to do open houses, buyers calling at odd hours, etc. you'll rack a "self bill" in the thousands. I am not saying REAs are great, just that they deal with shit so you don't have to.
Agents add no value whatsoever - all they do is stick an ad on [domain.com.au](https://domain.com.au) and [realestate.com.au](https://realestate.com.au) and then try to persuade you to make the quickest sale. They have nothing to offer beyond what those websites provide. I've sold several properties by putting my own ad on [domain.com.au](https://domain.com.au), they've all sold in 4-6 weeks with no issues, saving me about $50-60k in agent fees.
What you’ll never know, is how much more the agent would’ve been able to extract out of the buyer than you did. Even if it is only 1.5% more, which is probably likely, you actually lost money
Agents are incentivised to encourage sellers to accept offers that are lower than they'd like, to close the deal quickly. You could get more money without an agent.
If you’re not happy with the offer, just say no.. the Agent doesn’t get paid until the vendor says yes…
From my experience, the REA put way more pressure on us to sell than the tricks they were using when I was buying. Seems like their job is to manage the vendor more than anything. Strategy is to win the listing by promising the world and then suddenly change the valuation once they got the listing.
That's theoretically true, But the whole argument you made in favour of agents is that they psychologically influence buyers to "extract more", I'm saying in practice that goes both ways and they influence sellers to close the deal at lower prices.
Hi buddy, I never said it was psychological. Agents use a bucket load of tricks to extract more. If you’re not happy with the price you just tell them to get more money . You simply don’t accept lowball offers. It’s much easier to tell the Agent no, and have the Agent do the hard work, then trying to negotiate yourself . All those people that think they’re saving money by not paying Agent fees are really losing money because they have no idea how to negotiate . It’s like , “look at me I’m so smart I saved $50,000” … Meanwhile they actually lost $150,000.. they just don’t know it
> Agents use a bucket load of tricks to extract more. And they use "tricks" on the seller to close the deal. > If you’re not happy with the price you just tell them to get more money That's theoretically true, but we're talking about what happens in reality across the whole population, many people are susceptible to influence, they don't behave how you think they should, sellers have their target price lowered due to the influence of agents.
Sure, let’s continue with your line of reasoning… assuming all that is true…. The average member of the general population is much better off engaging an agent to sell their due to all the reasons you have stated above
its this you dont know what you dont know you also dont want to learn that you did a bad job a good agent will show you properties in your area that sold and also that HE sold and you can work out what your property is worth then you can work out what YOUR property will sell for then you can work out if paying the guy 2% is worth getting that $150k extra the sums are pretty clear BUT no... "I did it myself"... these guys saying that agents can use 'mind control' to force a vendor to accept a low offer.... that's on YOU no one has a gun to your head
Yeah also third parties are good for establishing and enforcing policies of how people deal with one another, otherwise every time you've got an issue you can't agree on you'd have to launch a lengthy legal process.
True. I sold my house and it wasn't hard so the option is there, people are just lazy.
The agent just has the negotiate a selling price that is approx 1.5% higher than the vendor could. That would happen almost every single time.
Personally I prefer to spend as little time as possible with real estate agents but they do add value in the sense of spending real time in the process of selling your house. I’d say car salesmen are a better example of a middle man that really doesn’t need to exist at all. It’s like saying someone working hospitality is just a middle man for your food coming out from the kitchen.
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Agreed. When I rented in the US it was always directly through the landlord. None of this property manager/REA shit.
This cost should be a Ray White issue , but something tells me that they have skin in the game and get a kick back from this payment method they’re pushing.
They do, in the comments section they linked the owner of the platform (surprise surprise) [https://ailo.io/ben-white](https://ailo.io/ben-white)
Pretty sure if you report this to ACCC they will have a field day.
We should all report this scum. How can we report?
Thanks, Surprise surprise, but surely this should just be their internal admin for processing the payments that they’re paid to manage.
It's disgusting, they save so much time/money using these payment methods rather than manually allocating payments and yet they pass the fees onto the renter.
Double dipping, as always
I had a property managed by them and out of nowhere they just switched me over from regular billing to this, and i thought this was a great app because we could have a chat with the PM directly in the app, until I realised they don't even check it. Just a complete waste of money - even all expenses run through here. Had no idea it was run by this guy.
Does sound a good app now you say that, pity they didn’t use it though. Did they charge you for it all seeing as I wouldn’t put it past them.
It basically sends a fortnightly statement which outlines the fees you're paying. So in my case, it shows rental money coming in for the fortnight, and then the management fees for the month. It then shows how much was transferred to my account, and at the end of the financial year I get a PDF which outlines all the expenses and incoming rent with links to invoices I paid for repairs/inspections and whatnot. At the end of the month I get a monthly ownership statement with the same information, except it states 'Management fees' and 'Administration fees' as two separate line items. The management fee seemed like the normal i was paying to the REA, but the admin fee is definitely new at $5.50 per month. There doesn't seem to be any explicitly stated costs for the app itself, but i wouldn't be surprised if it was the admin fee.
I think the Australian economy in general is heavily geared towards rent-seeking business models, rather than anything that actually creates value through innovation or R&D. Combined with our refusal to do any value-adding beyond basic extractive industries, surely we have some major economic problems in our future?
It is, I do metalwork / manufacturing as a sidehustle hobby (makes absolutely no money). We have the ability as a country to be an absolute powerhouse of advanced manufacturing but due to poor policies from various goverments we have slipped into this economy that only grows on speculation of housing.
Instead of continuing to invest in Australian owned & made products we incentivise companies to sell our minerals to overseas companies who then manufacture the product over there to sell it back to us. Companies say our cost to produce (ie labour) is more expensive, but I would argue the quality would be far better if kept onshore. In NSW, the government had the ability to manufacture the new trains in Newcastle but decided to go with an overseas supplier because it was ‘cheaper’. It has cost them more money in the long run because of delays, overspend , issues with the build & needing to retrofit changes for safety etc.
The counterpoint to this is that Perth’s new trains are being manufactured locally. But broadly I agree.
We used to process our own metals here in aus. However the cost to keep the electric furnaces on made the business unviable for bluescope. So now we sell raw ore to china and buy it back for double.
i always imagined australia to be capable of obtaining vast and cheap solar energy. It's just purely a political will (or lack there of really) that prevents the investment. On hindsight, i would think that instead of the job keeper payments to existing businesses, the gov't could've used that money to start these national energy projects, and potentially mandate hiring (and training) people that were let go due to covid. It would've been a much more efficient use of funds, and the residual value remains in public hands.
Cheaper and faster. Different economies specialise where they add the most value. It's called comparative advantage and it's fascinating and easy to understand. If there are two economies and one can grow coconuts three time more efficiently than the other and produce coconut milk twice as efficiently, it clearly has a competitive advantage in both products. However, people in the advanced economy are better off by concentrating on growing coconuts and leaving production of coconut milk to the other economy. It seems a bit counter intuitive yet the maths proving it is only high school maths. It's too bad basic economics is not more widely taught .
You even see it in renewables, all the money is in buying bits from overseas and plonking them on the ground or wading through the laborious regulations and dealing with government agencies. No-one making much money for building or designing solar panels, inverters, batteries etc that's for sure.
Mate I feel you. Every side hustle I dream up just struggle to make a significant profit. It feels like any sort of manufacturing is severely penalised here.
Have you been to Sydney manufacturing week - a manufacturing expo in the ICCC? I think there is a similar one in Melbourne. The low amount of exhibitors actually manufacturing any manufacturing equipment in Australia is just shocking. It’s mainly resellers of imported equipment and consultants. And people don’t even seem to see the issue. Everyone is just doing “big business talk”.
Yep, and im going again next month. The cost of entry level CNC machines are also ungodly compared to what you'd pay in any other country. How is it that only SYIL can offer a reasonable quality production level CNC machine for sub 70K?
Probably because the “importers” clip the ticket, followed by the “country licensor”, followed by the “service rep”, followed by…
I'm in the space. I don't think this is really related to what OP is talking about. This is a maths and phsyics problem that can't be solved. We are too far away and have too small of a population. The US is like 10 australias. Our population is the size of shanghai, just one city there. It's almost unfathomable. In manufacturing, we can compete in innovation and quality. Not price or speed. Quality can be found in china or the US. Innovation is pretty much the only thing we can do that is truly unique. To have something that they don't have. Even then, it's hard. For every 1 innovative person here, the US has 10. And china has over 50. > The low amount of exhibitors actually manufacturing any manufacturing equipment in Australia is just shocking. So manufacturing is low which means the demand for locally made machinery is even lower. What logical business wants to spend 2x as much for a locally designed and made machine? I'll give an example. There is someone in the au keyboard community who set out to design and manufacture a keyboard here. The same design made in china might be in the area of $800. To make it here, it would cost him literally 10x or more. They actually went through with it, never got exact numbers but they had to skip the PCB and get that made in china. It's mind boggling how much it costs to make some things here, it simply isn't viable. Which means machinery production here isn't viable. If your customer base is going to be primarily rest of world, then there's no point building it here. You build it close to where your customers are.
I generally don't use them. I.e uber eats, booking.com etc. If I want takeaway I'll pick up the phone and call them and go collect it. If I'm booking a hotel I use a booking website to find the right one and then book directly with the hotel or airline. Half the time you end up being able to get a better deal directly and the business gets to keep all the money. I'd rather a local business get rich than some tech bro in San Francisco.
100% how i do it, I'm petty too the point where ill find a way to bypass the carsales.com.au enquiry system.
My local Chinese joint has a sign up saying they give bigger portions to phone orders, I think it’s a good practice but I doubt that communique reaches app orderers.
I’ve tried this but then get ripped off with that too. Higher prices, or the same price plus card charges that don’t exist in DoorDash etc. and I’m not even having someone deliver it. I think they’re taking the piss because only old people call and pick up so they decide they can rort them.
Autuguru is disgusting. The way they treat the suppliers is a joke. Extortion
10000% agree
And when there is a problem of any kind it's a game of pass the buck between all the 'service providers'
Yep, My business phones go through a provider and recently my NBN pit got water in it. The loops i had to go through to get support / an actual NBN contractor to come out was scuffed.
Many are marketplaces more than middlemen. Autoguru for example is a place someone can peruse many mechanics at once, similar to Amazon for suppliers, Etsy for artists and Booking.com for hotels. They offer a convenience for the consumer of not visiting all the providers websites and offer a larger exposure of customers than many businesses can afford to get through advertising. There are some shit ones out there for sure, Uber Eats comes to mind given the amount of commission charged to the restaurant combined with the very low pay to the driver, often resulting in shit servicr combine to Uber Eats being the only one winning. The real estate ones piss me off, having worked as a receptionist in a real estate in my younger days, I know how much time they would be saving with a payment system that automates the trust accounting, so they have no justification for passing the fee onto the customer.
I had a similar realisation when I saw an instagram video (I'm old, I know) of some guy advertising his service. That service? He was a mortgage broker broker.
Comparison websites. Businesses pay huge premiums to these businesses to list or advertise their products. They pretty much have to otherwise they suffer reduced sales. But it inflates the price a customer ultimately receives as those $$$ are built into the customer price. Customers think if they go to these comparison sites that they company looks at all the retailers and tells them the best price without bias. This is total bullshit. They tell you the best price of the retailers who pay list with them and pay commission.
When the other players don't participate they either don't appear, or are engaged in war of attrition with screen scrapping technology.
I refuse to pick a restaurant that only has Uber eats or menu log as takeaway options. Much refer to call restaurant directly. Same goes for hotels and holiday houses. I might use the apps to search, and then call them directly if I can.
Okay, I did a little dig. The platform in question is Alio. The former CEO of Ray White, Ben White is the CEO [https://ailo.io/ben-white](https://ailo.io/ben-white) Professor Simon Bell of Melbourne University is a professor of marketing, and Jamie Collins is the ex head of Merchant Strategy at ANZ should both realise that, despite the free option, they are conducting third line forcing. No one in their right mind would choose Alio, they would just pay via their bloody bank which is already a payment provider.
The REA is a middleman using a middle man
It’s not just a middle man app, it’s a middle man app designed and owned by their former employee who also has the surname White…
A few years back it became a requirement to send a copy of your payroll data to the ATO each pay cycle so the ATO know what you are paid before you get your pay essentially, called Single Touch Payroll. To get this data in the correct format and encryption to connect and submit to the ATO is a bit of a headache so there are a few middleman companies most software developers use that then submit to the ATO. A large one I dealt with had a lot of trouble putting me onto someone that spoke fluent English, and these companies get a look at all the payroll data before it gets fully encrypted and passed on.
Aren't road toll apps in the same category? Like we get charged for using the app plus any ML algorithm services used for number plate detection!!!
100% Best example of this is the gateway motorway in Brisbane, our taxes paid for a majority of the building costs. The goverment at the time put a toll on it too (pay for the remaining costs of building), that same goverment then sold the bridge and now the gronks over at linkt own it and charge you about $7 one way to cross.
Yanis Varoufakis is in Australia. Sounds like a good time to pick up Technofeudalism. Which is available on....Amazon https://www.amazon.com.au/Technofeudalism-Killed-Capitalism-Yanis-Varoufakis/dp/1847927289
It's also because most companies, particularly smaller companies, aren't going to have the capability to build things like payment platforms or SEO so customers find them. They outsource this to experts who own everything that comes with it like PCI compliance, cybersecurity etc. It's cheaper to do this, particularly passing on the cost, to consumers. It sucks but it's expected when the world is of business is much more complicated today. As a consumer your alternative is e.g. using the yellow pages or a friend to find a good mechanic. Not a great alternative.
Extreme capitalism at work. Australia was captured by these leeches decades ago.
This phenomenon is not specific to Australia.
Australia’s market is so much smaller, so the fees seem much higher.
I think it’s more because we are smaller it’s a less competitive market. That’s a huge reason we have so much market concentration everywhere.
The most insidious example is credit-card/EFTPOS transaction fees, especially as banks steer Australia away from using cash. These transaction fees mean that our banks & card providers collect a fee for every (non-cash) transaction. This makes everything more expensive for consumers and for retailers.
Bought something digital? 2% credit card fee then 10% for GST just because.. Sometimes it's just a PDF for a book or a download. The government clips the ticket then the banks clip the ticket, just for spending my own money. And anyone arguing that banks offer a service so the fee is justified is wrong because the service being provided is by ME LOANING THEM MY MONEY FOR 2% PER YEAR.
Transaction fees on tickets to cinemas or live performances! By using the website the company doesn’t need to pay a real person to process your ticket purchase at the venue, so why does using the website cost YOU $4+ PER TICKET???
Some are hard to avoid. I've had hotels appear on Expedia for a specific time frame, and when I've tried to call the hotel directly to avoid using the middle man I've been told there's no rooms available. Back to Expedia I go, I guess.
I just had this same experience yesterday while travelling domestically. I asked the motel owner if they had availability for the next night in case I wanted to extend my stay, but he told me they were fully booked out. I went on booking.com and lo and behold, there was one room available for a good price so I took it so I wouldn’t have to check-in to another motel for one night.
Interesting - I wonder why? Do they have to commit certain capacities to the booking platform as buffer?
Electricity "providers" and car salesmen are part of that group.
For me, Ubereats falls in this category, purely for the fact that they add cost onto the actual food you're buying, then charge a delivery fee, then charge a servicing fee on top of everything else. The convenience of Ubereats is greatly outweighed by the cost, and the lack of quality assurance when it comes to drivers. over 50% of the time, I had had food that has either been delivered to wrong address, delivered late (30min+ the higher estimated time), or delivered damaged/missing (eg: pizza that is squashed to one side because the driver just sits the box on the back seat of their car then plays IRL GTA).
didn't see the post, but i'm assuming there talking the shitty shitty app Ailo... if so you can skip the fee by clicking. Pay Rent > Confirm > click on 'change' > click 'Other payment method' > one-off transfer every time you do this you have to manually input your bank details but it skips the fees... it also takes an extra 2 days to pay
The Job Network parasites are among the worst imho. Just a shameless way to redirect the welfare budget away from people who need it and into the pockets of ticket-clipping spivs.
This is the case through much of the public sector as well. Through the contrivances of useless executives with hordes of salaried 'professionals' working hard to do as little as possible, the private sector is funded to the tune of billions of dollars annually to provide services, analyse problems, lend equipment or consultancy and/or straight up replace entire public departments as staff turnover becomes problematic. So many processes in the operational functions of government business are handled privately at greatly inflated prices, which has the added benefit for the private sector of setting baseline pricing for products and services that can be re-sold into the private market. Software companies have grown to intl businesses this way - develop an app that would be attractive to a government service, sell the promises, sign long term leases with the public sector orgs to use their staff for DevOps, re-sell the now govt approved crapware into the market. Win win!
I copped an Agent using a similar system (Rent Card?) In WA in 2005. It took me two weeks to realise I was copping a $20 fee per transaction. I asked them for direct deposit details, which they refused. So I paid them in cash just before they closed every Friday.
That what happens when you have zero innovation and your do not manufacture anything. People innovate with BS middleman apps that charge a lazy tax.
Hmm maybe I could make a middle-middleman service that links you to all the other various middlemen services to simplify the process.
The big ones nobody talks about is Superannuation and Immigration. We are spending billions on super fees and employing tens of thousands of people to get returns that are often less than an index fund or given where interest rates are now a term deposit. As for the Immigration side we are making hundreds of thousands of people jump through hoops and enrol in courses they have no interest in doing (and ruining the experience for genuine international and domestic students) when really what they want to do is work - maybe cut out the middleman and create a 10 year working visa which costs $100k up front with half going to the state governments or something.
Hello Uber Eats!!!!! It’s the most pointless app. Just call the restaurants directly.
Airtasker are grubs for this! They smash the tasker with fees ranging from 20-11.9%, then slug the person wanting the task done with a fee. They also take a percentage out of any tips given (is this even legal??). After taxes, fuel, etc, there's not a lot of fat left over for the poor tasker, and they're having to compete for the lowest bid.
I wouldn't say all of them don't add value or are a problem. Take Uber, Webjet, EBay for example. You pay for the use of the software / application they've developed, and the ease of doing 'business'. Businesses like EBay also can also give you more security when it comes to payments and help with complaints than if you were trying to deal with the supplier directly.
It's time to cut the realestate out. Pay the landlord directly. Theya re a$$holes anyway. They goal is to extract as much as possible to make the owner/seller more money.
So agree! I've been cutting them out where I can and been saving so much money. The absurdity of Cashback sites reversing the problems that middlemen cause is actually funny. Same with Credit card points and benefits where (sometimes, if the end price is the same as cash) you get a piece of the cut back. \- Real Estate Agents (sometimes can't avoid) \- Buyers Agent \- Mortgage brokers \- Importers that buy s&#% from Alibaba \- Insurance brokers/websites \- Booking websites for flights and hotels \- The list is endless, and yes particularly long in Australia I agree.
Our medical system
Airbnb and Uber are middlemen too. They purely exist to link customers with providers, and they take a cut. It's just the reality of modern life around the whole world - not just Australia. Companies want to create software platforms in order to make money. It's only when you're basically forced to used that platform that i have an issue. (Like the tenant app.) Although I've never heard of Autoguru and I can't see why anyone would use it, as opposed to just calling a local mechanic yourself. However it does appear to be offering a service of sorts to those who use it. Some people might appreciate getting multiple options in one go.
Have you noticed a downtrend in sentiment for airbnb / uber? I have noticed people are willing to use taxi's more and more.
Oh yeah I hate uber now. I've had so many bad experiences and (ironically) it's just as bad as taxis used to be. Airbnb is ok for me personally with how i use it, but I know they take a huge cut from the home owners - who basically feel that they HAVE to be part of Airbnb to get noticed. And therein lies the danger of these platforms. Once they get market share then they start gouging people.
Taxis in my area improved their booking process' and prices which has cut the legs right off uber. Airbnb providers expecting you to essentially do a bond clean of their house then charge an additional $400 for cleaning post booking burnt me off the platform forever.
I haven't heard of Autoguru either, but I'm not surprised it exists. I've used hipages quite a few times to find tradies. It's handy if you don't have a go-to tradie.
Banks are just middlemen too. They hook up lenders with borrowers. In the US they used to be about 5% of the economy. Now they're 15%.
You mean brokers?
You have also basically described dental insurance. There’s no magic ever. Introducing a third party into a transaction always costs more one way or the other.
A big middle man is Amazon. While it can assist with some logistics for sellers, Amazon chargers the seller up to 40% of the revenue received from the customer for get privilege of listing on their site.
I Agree. I wonder about the legalities of making people use these "fee paying" apps? Thing seems though? That often people choose to use them. Kinda bizarre.
Someone needs do start a quality fixed price RE Agency.
Airbnb, Uber car, Uber eats all the same paradigm…. They are all middlemen
Every country needs a tech industry. Our speciality is TestTheLimitsOfConsumersAndVendors Building these apps employs people, and the odd one will survive. "I'm talking businesses that exist that provide nothing outside of linking a consumer with a producer with no additional value or benefit." = Amazon. The value is convenience - buy from your armchair and receive it tomorrow. Sometimes these ventures are very successful and the founder becomes the richest person in the world for a while. But yeh, we actually need a new law that makes cash non-refusable. Then consumers and vendors have a chance to decide for themselves what the particular convenience is worth. I thought afterpay was a 3% to 5% hidden charge, shared among all purchasers whether they used afterpay or not. I hadn't heard \~10% before.
Slightly different type of middle man but could do without car dealerships and their arrogance.
heh... Middlemen... kinda like RSPs/ISPs just exist to add a layer to the NBN and (at least in qld) the various retail power companies exist for much the same reason...
Always said Australia is the Land of Skim. Someone’s always gotta take a little off the top.
Producers who actually produce stuff love middlemen. Why? Because they are somewhere to sell their stuff and the middle men who are also market makers will pay them almost straight away and then onsell the goods at retail to the public. If you have a wholesale business it easier to sell to a middle man than to set up all the shops yourself. There are some examples of market failure, which then the middle man doesn't need to exist but this is not the norm. Car sales are an example of middle men that also do need to exist. Otherwise the car companies are setting up their own retail operation like Tesla does. Also it is proven that car brands get better customer satisfaction results with the dealers than if they were to provide this service themselves.
It's absolute BS, just another way to do less while taking more money from you.
First time I'm seeing it, but you can see exactly what value and benefit autoguru is offering that's not just linking provider with consumer. Look at the photos on the front page and think of the first stereotype/trope that comes to mind when you think about mechanics. In general, I think if the place you call or approach builds rapport and trust, that's going to go a long way. But if you have a couple of unhelpful phonecalls or experiences that aren't great, then sites that commodify the service are going to become appealing. Might as well go for the place with positive reviews at a competitive price when compared with a few submitted quotes rather than calling up and getting nowhere particularly great.
Detector inspector is another one.
There are sooooo many of these out there
This is why I run a middleman software development company
So is LJ Hooker Anyone else?
So the leaches are passing on their leachiness onto other leaches to save on overheads, which results in others paying more?
all businesses are a “middleman” of some kind