[damian78]

Hmmm, no replies for a couple of days and then they all come along at once (much of it abuse, thanks for that). Check my previous posts and you would see the problems I have been encountering (if you can be bothered of course). In brief though, I have been chased for outstanding payments dating back to 2004/05, which I was told several times had been cleared, however on requesting bills to prove I owe these amounts, I was told this could not be done as they are no longer on the system. Therefore they wanted me to pay almost £100, even though they could not prove I owed it.

Anyway, thanks Stuart for your reply, wasn't sure if you'd received my PM's as my sent count still shows as 0 (hence I sent them a couple of times, sorry about that). Just in case you have replied my PM I also can't see that. I am still having these issues, though have got slightly further in that I have now been sent details of bills from the period (by the guy who previously said he couldn't do this as they are not held on the system). However, the format this has been sent in is not easily readable (just a long list, no separators between bills etc.), and it took a lot of messing around last night trying to get them into a readable format.

I'm still disputing this, mainly because as I said above I have been told several times it was cleared. I cannot check by bank statement previous to November 2004 as they were with a previous bank to which I'm with now, and due to financial difficulties I was experiencing at the time some payments were made on my parents cards, so again I can't check. However, once I've finished going through everything, if it turns out I do owe the money then I'll obviously be willing to pay it.

I don't expect companies to do this, obviously we are (quite rightly) expected to pay for the services we receive. However, on a couple of occasions when I was with Sky I missed a bill and had my service cut down, they then called and offered to clear the outstanding balance if I set up my direct debit again. Virgin Media on the other hand are now hassling me for a balance that I've previously been told has cleared, there is difficulty proving that the money is owed, yet they aren't willing to budge in order to keep a customer (I was close to signing up for an increased package (VIP) when I got the call to say I still owed the money). I'm sure it's costing their money having staff spending time hunting down bills and payments to deal with this.