DD on the wrong date?

[Gavin78]

My partner hasn't been with Virgin long 1st December and she asked them last month if they could change her billing date for her tv/phone pack to the 18th of every month and they were fine with that.

we got the bill as normal and didn't pay much attention to what the bloke said in the phone the first time we phoned.

Anyway my partner gets paid around the 16th of every month so today she goes to the bank to see that she has charges on her account. it appears that they have taken the money on the 12th of this month instead and it wasn't until a closer inspection of the bill it actually said that the money will be due out on or around the 14th.

She had a DD coming out for another bill on the 12th and there was enough for that bill but not to cover the whole of the DD for virgin so they have took a part payment of £20. the other bill wasn't paid for and because the whole money to cover virgin wasn't in she also has a bank charge for that.

this totals £78 in charges.

Virgin had originally told her that the bill for the internet was due on the 14th of every month and instead they took that on the 7th of feb. the tv and phone was due for the 18th which was agreed for that on the phone but instead have taken it on the 12th of feb.

infact the person on the phone said the bill for the tv was going to be £17 and its £33+ on paper. we haven't as yet phone them to find out why but can we claim back any charges incurred by the bank through there error?

with regards to the date on the bill saying on or before the 14th of this month I assumed they say that if it falls on a weekend but this bill didn't? 14th today and the 12th was on a tuesday... pretty confused at the moment on how the billing works?

[Mick Fisher]

Although I do sympathise with your incurring penalties I would be surprised if VM had the ability to set a date for DD withdrawal for every individual customer.
Be send text and email warnings that they are about to charge their payment each month and for you to make sure there is enough credit on your account to cover it. I'm not sure what happens if you tell them you can't cover the payment though.

[BenMcr]

But Virgin cannot legally take money from a bank account before the date they advised (unless it falls on a weekend, but thats down to your bank counting Sat+Sun as Monday)

[Gavin78]

She contacted VM and they said that the direct debit was actually setup for the 18th even though there was a 5-6 weeks of notice given for the 2nd DD. but she was told on the phone that the person that she spoke to last should have told her that this one might not actually come out on that date and she may have to wait for the next one around.

this didn't happen so this women again set it up on the system to come out on the 18th of March although she said I can't make any promise that it will be on that date and it maybe the 18th of April that it starts coming out from.

Talk about fecking stupid how much notice do they need as it was the 14th of this month they were asked to change it.

With regards to the BB it was supposed to be the 14th of everymonth and was told refutly that the dates for this cannot be changed....but she did acknowledge that they had infact changed it to the 7th and said it was unusual that they would do that....

She did say that when we get a copy of the bank charges to forward them a copy on and ask for a refund of the charges due to the fact that VM were in the wrong and not us.

So just waiting at the moment then will forward all detials onto them and see if we do actually get refunded the costs um!

Originally Posted by BenMcr

But Virgin cannot legally take money from a bank account before the date they advised (unless it falls on a weekend, but thats down to your bank counting Sat+Sun as Monday)

No they legally cannot take it early full stop, if the payment date falls on a weekend they have to take it on the first Monday after.

That why they always say "we will take your payment on or soon after"

My mother had this ongoing problem with BT a few years back, my mother could of under the direct debit guarantee gone to the bank with proof i.e. bills etc.. and got all payments returned but that would of lead to other problems so she took BT to small claims court for all outstanding bank and court fees incurred as well as £80 compensation and she got it!

Well actually BT paid up before judgment was made!

If I was you I would request in writing VM pay all costs incurred, provide them with a copy of your bank statement and a copy of your bill showing the dates you were informed payment was due to be collected and inform them if they refuse you intend to file a claim against them in your local civil court house.

[webcrawler2050]

You can claim under the direct debit guarantee - by law the must give you 14 days notice prior to taking payment. Your bank will be able to change this - I know from recent experience that *sometimes* the bank releases the money early.

The problem with that is, your account will automatically show as being in arreas!

That in turn leads to you being a non paying customer and your services being interupted.

[webcrawler2050]

This is true and the Direct Debit claim process aint exactly easy!

Its probably the bank to be honest, taking and releasing far to early.

[pedro55]

Hello to all.
I've just joined this forum and have began reading the posts etc.
This one caught my eye and is a real bone in contention,to say the least.
For the moment I won't go into too much detail with my own DD problems,but
for now would like to make a brief comment,if I may.

Changing a DD payment date is not a problem,according to VM(VirginMedia) and
several advisors have also told me this.

However,here I am just about to have a final "requested" date to be set up,for April,
after the initial request being made in November.(Yes,that long ago.lol).
You can probably guess that there have been a few problems since that time and
I can confirm that there were far too many.

My real gripe is the fact that information given to customers is not always correct
and it's so dependant on who we talk to at Customer Care and/or any other department.
Setting certain single mistakes to one side,we can only accept the information as being
correct at that time,in good faith.
However,subsequent calls bring forth conflicting pieces of information which effectively
compounds the situation and often leads to additional problems.
I have contacted VM many times to try and resolve these,but each time I get yet
another story.

It appears that although the staff do try to help,their efforts are overridden by the
auto-system that controls the billing etc;which is self defeating,obviously.
Such simple requests can be easily dealt with,as do other companies without any
problems at all.

I am now contemplating taking this further as a complaint,but based on experiences
to date with dealing with VM,not sure if I'll get anywhere.

Sorry for going on about this,but I remain an agrieved customer,at this time,to say
I'm more than dissappointed,would be an understatement.

Thanks for reading.

Pedro.

[corek]

Changing a DD payment can take a bank / business 5 days. If you attempt to change the date within this period of 5 days you may find you get been billed twice. You will need to go to the business that took the money to reclaim it, not the bank as they acted on the "correct" instructions". It is advisable to make sure that there is a clear 10 days between your normal pay date and the new pay date. If you live in Germany this is different. You will normally pay on the 10th, 20th or 30th of the month, but you can choose which.

Originally Posted by Gavin78

My partner hasn't been with Virgin long 1st December and she asked them last month if they could change her billing date for her tv/phone pack to the 18th of every month and they were fine with that.

we got the bill as normal and didn't pay much attention to what the bloke said in the phone the first time we phoned.

Anyway my partner gets paid around the 16th of every month so today she goes to the bank to see that she has charges on her account. it appears that they have taken the money on the 12th of this month instead and it wasn't until a closer inspection of the bill it actually said that the money will be due out on or around the 14th.

She had a DD coming out for another bill on the 12th and there was enough for that bill but not to cover the whole of the DD for virgin so they have took a part payment of £20. the other bill wasn't paid for and because the whole money to cover virgin wasn't in she also has a bank charge for that.

this totals £78 in charges.

Virgin had originally told her that the bill for the internet was due on the 14th of every month and instead they took that on the 7th of feb. the tv and phone was due for the 18th which was agreed for that on the phone but instead have taken it on the 12th of feb.

infact the person on the phone said the bill for the tv was going to be £17 and its £33+ on paper. we haven't as yet phone them to find out why but can we claim back any charges incurred by the bank through there error?

with regards to the date on the bill saying on or before the 14th of this month I assumed they say that if it falls on a weekend but this bill didn't? 14th today and the 12th was on a tuesday... pretty confused at the moment on how the billing works?

What date did it actually say on the bill!!! You said you didn't pay much attention to it but didn't say what date it was. Based on what you've said it looks like the dd hadn'd changed and it said the 14th on the bill. If this was the case then VM didn't take the dd early.