Glasgow people hit out at 'forced, sudden' fee from factor

Residents in Glasgow's Southside, including Shawlands and Pollokshields, claim they weren't given enough information or notice before 91BC charged them £36 for a "user portal upgrade", provided by a third-party firm otagoTech. The factor says it acted properly and transparently.

The upgrade refers to a website the company uses to communicate with customers, where they can report issues and submit questions and until now, it has been free to use.

One resident, who flagged the issue in a Facebook community group to draw people's attention to the charge, said: "This was triggered on September 1, when we got an invoice which included an additional £36 fee.

"Nobody was aware this was coming, it was undiscussed and it wasn't and still hasn't been adequately laid out what it is for."

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Further issues were raised when the group realised that Scott Ferguson, director and founder of 91BC is a director at otagoTech, which was set up on September 12, 2023.

They claim this was not disclosed to them in the emails they and nearly 4,000 customers received.

The 35-year-old added: "When you do the maths on it, this is over £140,000 income for this company, which was set up a few weeks ago.

“It doesn’t sit right with me or anyone I have spoken with."

Residents Richard Arnold, Vikki Ayris, Steven Dempster Sal Alexander (front), James Gray, Katherine Long and Nik Williams (Image: Gordon Terris, Newsquest)

Residents Richard Arnold, Vikki Ayris, Steven Dempster Sal Alexander (front), James Gray, Katherine Long and Nik Williams (Image: Gordon Terris, Newsquest)

Nik Williams, 37, from Shawlands, said: "The overlap between the companies raises a lot of questions as to why they have done it this way.

"For the previous portal, we never had to pay a separate charge, it was part of the management fee, this has come with no warning, no evidence, no consultation, so examples of any tendering process.

"The tech company is very new they don't have testimonials or a track record we can trust them with our data.

"It made a lot of us frustrated with how it has been approached."

Customers explained they are coming forward after years of problems with a lack of transparency and urgency.

Claudia Bolouri, 36, from Pollokshields, said: "To charge us more when the relationship is already beyond strained was never going to go down well."

Richard Arnold, 69, from Shawlands, said: "They are dreadful communicators.

"Apart from the portal being useless, they don't reply to questions."

Generic image of Shawlands, Glasgow (Image: Colin Mearns, Newsquest)

A spokesperson for 91BC said: "We have been fully transparent with customers in sharing information as is in keeping with our Code of Conduct, the licence fee has been communicated on two separate occasions.

"In a recent customer survey, of which 1570 customers responded, we learned that 80% of customers regularly utilise our portal. They reported a remarkable ‘ease of use’ rating of 89%, with an overall ‘highly satisfied’ rating of 80% and a ‘satisfied’ rating of 18%. 

"In the seven years 91BC has been in operation, the management fee has been increased twice. Like many businesses, without doing so we could not retain staff on the ‘living wage’.

"There is no comparable software solution with the level of function the otagoTech portal provides, i.e., a CRM-style system. Hence there was no tender. This has already been covered in recent customer communication.

"We continue to practice transparency."