Virgin bills not free?

[lezwez]

i have only just noticed that im getting charged £5 per month extra for not paying the bill how they want me to?

is there anything that can be done because i do not like this 5 pound charge for nothing i pay the bills ebanking and it goes stright into their accout without a fuss and does not cost them a penny.

also since when has it cost money for me 25 pence per minute and 10 pence connection charge for them to sort out my connection i had a problem with connection drops all the time now to report a fault i have to pay for them to fix it.

what is happening with all this greed i do not know first this 5 pound charge then trafic shapping then i have to pay for them to fix their own equipment.

im not happy i must say:Yikes:

[groobber]

i have only just noticed that im getting charged £5 per month extra for not paying the bill how they want me to?

what is happening with all this greed i do not know first this 5 pound charge then trafic shapping then i have to pay for them to fix their own equipment

The non D/D charge has been around a long time, it is not something VM have just introduced.

also since when has it cost money for me 25 pence per minute and 10 pence connection charge for them to sort out my connection i had a problem with connection drops all the time now to report a fault i have to pay for them to fix it.

You should not be paying for reporting faults if you use 151, you should only get charged if calling from a non VM phone line.

[GuyVXT]

if its their fault they refund you the charge to the tech line, its to stop the people ringing up moaning about their router or their computers firewall or something else which is not VM's fault.

ring up and say that the calls werent meant to be charged for. im sure this past few weeks there are ALOT of the calls being refunded for.

[Richy99]

non dd charges have been around for years, they raised the price several months ago

[WHISTLED]

is there anything that can be done because i do not like this 5 pound charge for nothing i pay the bills ebanking and it goes stright into their accout without a fuss and does not cost them a penny

All payments cost VM but clearly not £5.

Most companies calculate this charge based on a number of factors such as the cost of administration reminder letters etc, also the cost of chasing late payments and collections activity.

Obviously the charge is intended to act as a motivator to pay by DD not just to recoup the costs.

Unfortunately with changes to billing systems people have had problems and canx DD payments

[what?]

hey

i'm new to this forum but as already said, the dd charge has been around for a good while now, though has over the last year gone from 2 to 4 then upto 5.
not something i agree with but meh!

and also most calls to tech support are refunded, with the assumtion ur using a vm landline, if ur using a bt line or mobile and get charged more we refund u at the rate of charge from our phoneline. and it is of course on the basis that it is a fault with our service which is not listed on the freephone status line (which can be attained from cus services also on a free line):)

and back to the dd charge, u will find that most companies to now apply this charge for customers using other methods of payment than dd.

[WHISTLED]

Still quite expensive if consider cost of most peoples services with a bundle

[lezwez]

I really do not know what to say without abuseing people and bringing politics into it to say how in a simple way the world works

i think i will leave it at that and get my money back by doing the oposite of what virgin recomend with tv and internet

Thanks anyway

[xpod]

I was happy to pay by DD to start out with, until my first couple of bills went haywire that is.
I then asked just to pay by phone as it was just as easy and less prone to f**k up`s ,"no problem" i was told but at no time was i ever informed of any £5 charge.

I eventually realised and of course queried it,all to no avail but then when we upgraded the BB to the 4Mb i was again forced into paying by direct debit.I protested at first and explained my reasons for the apprehension but eventually gave in and agreed to the £25 via DD.

The mad thing is that still i pay the bb separately over the phone at a cost of £5....Surely me paying over the phone is just as quick and cheaper than any DD costs??

[xspeedyx]

Idont agree with dd charges from any company at all you should be able to choose how u pay but I must admiy I do use dd but I have never had problem with vm/orange/gym membership

[the-cable-guy]

i had to pay this also & was not happy about is but since they ripped me off i dont have to pay for BB for over 12 months, but wen i do it'l only cost me £22 including the £5 charge, im not happy about the charge but at leaset im saving some money cuz i was out of pocket by £302 cuz they ripped me off

[NitroNutter]

Is the NTL contract not covered under the consumer credit act 1974 ? and if so is it not illegal under that act to make the transactions within the agreement cost different dependant on the payment method ? Just a thought as I notice the DD has now become a discount method by the looks of the new wording rather than other methods being a penalty becasue such penalty's are and have been legally challenged, rather an obvious move really, but if it is within the consumer credit act then its likley just as questionable wether its actually legal to offer discounts based on payment methods as it was questiuonable to charge unfair penalities based on payment method.

There is only one reason why DD is the preffered method, its becasue its like an open cheque and when they double bill 2 million customers and only 1.5 million notice even for 3 months its a big chunk of $ to their benefit even just the interest over that time until most the original overcharge is filtered back by the rest that notice. The reason of 'costly' reminders etc is simply a ruse, a falacy invented as an attempt to justify obtaining open cheques to as many bank accounts as possible, as reminder letters are an auto generated process from a standard base letter, it actually costs them no more to send out one of those standard letters than it costs them to send out a personalised printed spam mail which is almost a monthly event, those who pay will allways pay and mostly they will pay on time, those that plan not to pay wont anyway regardless. The same goes for regular discrepencies in their favour on most bills, unless you notice they simply take it and keep taking it anyway, best for them to have that on an open cheque so the customers have to argue aout it later, this is where the real cream is, by skimming pennies from millions of people monthly of which mostly goes unoticed is where the bonus' are, the board rooms monthly champers party etc.

[Roy MM]

I pay BB £37pm and the rest of my VIP bundle bill via pay point, i'm happy with this arrangement but i hate the £5 admin charge as they call it. :(

[WHISTLED]

There is only one reason why DD is the preffered method, its becasue its like an open cheque and when they double bill 2 million customers and only 1.5 million notice even for 3 months its a big chunk of $ to their benefit even just the interest over that time until most the original overcharge is filtered back by the rest that notice. The reason of 'costly' reminders etc is simply a ruse, a falacy invented as an attempt to justify obtaining open cheques to as many bank accounts as possible, as reminder letters are an auto generated process from a standard base letter, it actually costs them no more to send out one of those standard letters than it costs them to send out a personalised printed spam mail which is almost a monthly event, those who pay will allways pay and mostly they will pay on time, those that plan not to pay wont anyway regardless. The same goes for regular discrepencies in their favour on most bills, unless you notice they simply take it and keep taking it anyway, best for them to have that on an open cheque so the customers have to argue aout it later, this is where the real cream is, by skimming pennies from millions of people monthly of which mostly goes unoticed is where the bonus' are, the board rooms monthly champers party etc.

Ahhhh I get you, so the reson all my service providers require payment by DD is so they can deliberately over charge in order to benifit from the added interest...?

That makes sense, you are correct it would run into millions in interest payments alone not to mention the percentage of customers never even notice. :rolleyes:

There is only oen problemwith that as far as I can see - I have never been over charged by any of them, nor are the majority of consumers. (I anticipate some VIP customers to jump in here but those errors are ususally caused by the guy girl on the phone making a mistake)

I've enver heard of any service providers employee coming forward to say they were involved with such a plot either? :Yikes:

[the-cable-guy]

well if u keep on @ em for long enough ul get it sorted. afta ova 6 months of being ova charged, bein out of pocket by £302 & then sayin dat i owed em £160 i got last months BB for free & wont have to pay another bill for ova 12 months

[NitroNutter]

Ahhhh I get you, so the reson all my service providers require payment by DD is so they can deliberately over charge in order to benifit from the added interest...?

That makes sense, you are correct it would run into millions in interest payments alone not to mention the percentage of customers never even notice. :rolleyes:

There is only oen problemwith that as far as I can see - I have never been over charged by any of them, nor are the majority of consumers. (I anticipate some VIP customers to jump in here but those errors are ususally caused by the guy girl on the phone making a mistake)

I've enver heard of any service providers employee coming forward to say they were involved with such a plot either? :Yikes:
Plot, lol dont think so, talk about twisting a posts context to suit, I suggest you use some common sense if your going to try to read between the lines of anothers post, especially if your going to comment on it in any kind of derogitory manner. Post treated with the contempt it deserves...

'No further response as it would prove to be about as worth while as complaining about a 10p total discprepency I spotted in my last telco bill'.

[eth01]

Direct debit has always worked for me.

It's ridiculous though that you have to pay for itemized invoices.

[Magilla]

hey
and back to the dd charge, u will find that most companies to now apply this charge for customers using other methods of payment than dd.

Though to be fair, VM's seems to outstrip everyone elses by about 3:1. Since Virgin came into being it's gone up by ~30% and the service standards have gone down considerably.

BT charge 4.50 per quarter.. a saving of £42 a year.

---------- Post added at 12:28 ---------- Previous post was at 12:24 ----------

well if u keep on @ em for long enough ul get it sorted. afta ova 6 months of being ova charged, bein out of pocket by £302 & then sayin dat i owed em £160 i got last months BB for free & wont have to pay another bill for ova 12 months

And in english?

[what?]

since virgin came in its went up by 25%
was £4 is now £5

and i understood the post :)

just read it slowly and think what each word could mean if ur not sure :tu:

[vmtech]

btw is this forum not in the wrong place??

[what?]

the forum is in the correct place vmtech :p:
the thread is in the wrong place tho i think

[vmtech]

shut up u know wat i mean!

[Magilla]

since virgin came in its went up by 25%
was £4 is now £5

Actually it was 3, and it's now 5 ;)



and i understood the post :)

just read it slowly and think what each word could mean if ur not sure :tu:

Ofcourse, but there's no reason to act like you're retarded if you're not ;)

[what?]

i worked for cs for a while and it went from £2 to £4 as far as i rmr

dont rmr it ever going to three unless my drinking has eroded those particular braincells

anyway, not gona argue about it,not important, i think the dd charge is way too much anythin above £1 which i think is fair enough, but a lot of companies are takin advantage of these charges which tho i hate to say it i think icstis should b lookin into (if they haven't already) to see how much it actually cost a company if customers arent paying by direct debit

[moaningmags]

I totally disagree with the £5 non direct debit charge.
I paid it for long enough switched to DD, they screwed it up.
I went back to paying by debit card over the phone,
once again was convinced changing to DD would be beneficial
so did so but demanded a letter stating the day it would come from
my account so that I could claim it back via DD guarantee if they
screwed it up again, so far (7months in) not a single error.
And as for people not realising they were overcharged for something
for 6 months, that's their fault!
I check all of my bills, bank statements etc, any errors I contact
the company involved immediately, regardless of whether it's a 10p
error or £300 error.
It's my money !!!

[hokkers999]

i have only just noticed that im getting charged £5 per month extra for not paying the bill how they want me to?

is there anything that can be done because i do not like this 5 pound charge for nothing i pay the bills ebanking and it goes stright into their accout without a fuss and does not cost them a penny.

also since when has it cost money for me 25 pence per minute and 10 pence connection charge for them to sort out my connection i had a problem with connection drops all the time now to report a fault i have to pay for them to fix it.

what is happening with all this greed i do not know first this 5 pound charge then trafic shapping then i have to pay for them to fix their own equipment.

im not happy i must say:Yikes:

So do what I did, drop down to the bottom tier of 2 meg, saved me £19 on the bb connection so a net saving of £14.