Caught out by Virgin

dfarry

The crafty so and so.... or perhaps it is my fault...

I have come to the end of my Interest free period with vergin... it's be fine and trouble free throughout and I have always paid my minimum payments of £5.

My offer period ends on the 5/12/2005 so I called them on the 24/11/2005 to make the payment.

I was advised to leave my direct debit running and still pay the minimum amount on my statement (£5)....also on this statement no interest is shown as being incurred in the following period.

Obviously I realise that I will pay interest from the 5/12 so I asked how I could pay... I was told...

1. Debit Card
2. Cheque
3. Internet Banking

I called them tonight to pay thinking that that would be the end of it and was told that they don't take debit card payments over the phone... this leaves me 3 days to make a bacs payment through my internet bank to them instead....

It is likely the payment will be late....

I spoke to my bank and they couldn't understand why Virgin would not take a debit card payment, apparently I can do this on the VirginMoney website but I am not registered.

I called Virgin back because I was quite narked by this and soke to someone who gave me the payments department... If I call them first thing tomorrow they MAY take a payment over the phone...if not then I am in the hands of my bank to get the money over quickly.

There's about £8K to pay off... and one or two days of interest isn't going to be much but I really feel misled on this!

Incidentally when I called back the second time I did hear a automated message stating that they do not take payments over the phone :mad:

Anon

Virgin is operated by MBNA - if they work on the MBNA online system, I seem to recall that you can register immediately - you would then be able to pay by debit card?

Virgin Money site seems to be down but the main MBNA site is up

http://www.mbna.com/europe/ (type in if you prefer as you will be giving your credit card details online)

Click on enrol and follow the instructions - it may be that the Virgin card runs on another system but worth a try for a few minutes work.



Anon

YorkshireBoy

dfarry wrote:

It is likely the payment will be late....

On the reverse of my Virgin statement it says to allow 5 working days for telephone banking. Also, the option to pay by debit card (over the phone) is not listed in the "Making a Payment" section on the statement. Why did you think you could pay this way?

Just a thought, can you enrol for online management tonight? It says "instant access" on the list of benefits. I can't remember if I had to wait earlier this year, but it looks like you could make a payment straight away this way. The online payment T&C's say that if you pay by 5.00pm your account will be credited the next day, so if you can pay now, your account will be settled on Friday.

dfarry

Hi there...

The only reason I thought I could pay this way is because thats what I was told on the 24/11 when I called to confirm...... and to be honest it seems such a standard thing to do that I never felt it necessary to question what I was told...

I did try to log into their online banking tonight but the server was down for maintainance...I wasn't sure I had an account so decided to request my login details but was then advised that I wasn't registered... I'll see what they say in the morning though and perhaps regoster for the online account them.

Cheers

YorkshireBoy

I've just been in the secure area (if it's the same server?).

Have you tried the "enrol now!" button at the bottom right hand side?

dfarry

Thanks Guys...you and MSE came to my rescue where Virgin/MBNA themselves could not...

Managed to register and just made the payment... takes two days to clear so I should be fine now :j