GRRRR VODAFONE! (and changing DD dates)

monkeylugs

I usually pay my bill (around £60) by direct debit around 18-20th each month. Up to press this has not been a problem as my husband gets paid weekly.

We suddenly found out last Thursday that his weekly wages would be stopped and he would now be paid monthly. His first monthly wage is due on 21st October. As he has been paid a weekly wage, his first monthly wage isn't a full month (if you know what I mean) and is down by £300 so basically I have to make three weeks wage last four weeks.

Basically I am pleased that we are being paid monthly now because it makes budgeting easier. He's going to be paid on the 2nd to last Friday in each month so I wanted to try and have as many direct debits coming out on 28th as I could to make budgeting easier for me.

So I rang around all of the people I pay direct debit to. Those who I was due to pay between 13th - 27th October I wished to pay on 28th October out of the 'part' wage, and those who I paid between 1st November and 13th November I wished to move to the 28th November (so it would be a full wage).

I phoned Vodafone on Thursday 13th October and explained the above to them. I requested that my direct debit date be changed to the 28th of every month. The Adviser spoke to the collections department who said that I was too late to change the date of October’s payment. Therefore I would still have £70.11 debited on 20th October. I accepted this and made arrangements to credit the bank account with £70.11 to cover the bill. The Adviser then said that the date could not be changed to the 28th, and the best they could do was change it to the 1st of each month. As this was only a matter of days I said this was acceptable. The advisor verbally summarised what would go on saying “So £70.11 will be taken by direct debit on 20th October, but November’s bill will be taken on 1st December. You might find that the line rental is a bit higher than normal to take into account the date change”. To be honest I had expected Vodafone to be the most difficult of my payees so I was presently surprised and even commented to my husband how straightforward it had been!

So I suppose I shouldn’t really have been surprised when Vodafone managed to !!!! the whole thing up!

I receive a bill telling me:
1. I owed an overdue amount of £70.11
2. I would therefore be expected to pay £148.36 on 8th November!

I contacted Vodafone Customer Services to see what this was all about and I was told.
1. £70.11 wasn’t really overdue and it would be debited on 20th October as planned and she didn’t know why it had been shown on the bill as overdue.
2. I would still be expected to pay £78.25 on 8th November because “the computers” had changed my billing cycle as requested but they had done it earlier than normal, which was a surprise to her as it normally takes a month to do!!

So basically Vodafone are expecting me to pay TWO bills out of ONE wage! Perhaps this wouldn’t be a problem if it were a FULL wage we were getting – but it isn’t! I didn’t ask for the direct debit to be brought FORWARD. I asked for it to be moved BACKWARDS!

I do not want to pay money on the 8th of any month. Least not November when I will have already paid a hefty amount 2 ½ weeks earlier! However the Adviser told me that she is not able to do anything about it, and it’s just my tough luck that the computer was on the ball for a change and did what it was asked straightaway instead of taking a few weeks and if I don’t pay then my mobiles will be disconnected until I do pay! She has agreed to “suspend” the direct debit request for 8th November providing I make a token payment of £5 by that date, and I can pay the remaining £75.25 on 18th November, but I will still have to pay another bill on 8th December.

She claims that I wouldn't have been told originally that I could pay my DD on the date of my choice because it's the billing cycles that change not the payment dates and so it's the billing cycle that's changed in my case. I said "Well can you change my billing cycle back to what it was?" but she said she couldn't

I couldn’t manage to articulate myself very well on the phone to the adviser and we just both ended up going around in circles mainly because she couldn't seem to understand that I phoned to change the dates because I knew I would only have part a wage to budget with so I would not have agreed to paying two bills out of one smaller-than-usual wage!. I've sent them an e-mail but I wonder whether I will get any joy from them.

Rant over - thanks for letting me get this off my chest!