SIR Mike Priestley suggests that paying for goods or services by cash is the way to avoid electronic financial mugging (T&A, May 13).

But paying by cash has its pitfalls. My telephone company, Telewest, charges its customers £4 extra per transaction to those paying by cash, claimed as an administration fee just for handing your hard-earned cash over the bank counter, on time, into their account as well as demanding the telephone line rental a month in advance.

How do they get away with this and how do they get away with discriminating against those who do not have the benefit of a bank account?

It does seem that paying by numbers or by cash over the counter there is always someone ready to financially mug you.

R J Lacey, Wrose Road, Bradford