Querying late payment and non-direct debit charges

mbaz

Hi there

I'm locked in a bit of a battle with my telephone/internet company at the moment.

My direct debit bounced the month before last so I phoned up and paid my bill by card using the automated service. Unbenown to me because the DD had failed they susoend the instruction and so last month they didn't take the direct debit in April either.

I have online statements with them and I must admit I'm not very good at checking them - I just assume they'll be taken by DD - but luckily I checked this month.

They have added a £10 fee for the original failed DD, £5 for non-DD and then another £10 and £5 last month because they had suspended the DD. So on top of my £35 bank charhe I've had £30 of charges from them!

I am furious about these charges as I paid the bill by card as soon as I found out the DD had bounced so it was only a couple of days later and I didn't realise I also had to reset the DD and had no notification from them to ask me to do this.

I have tried reasoning with them but they are not willing to refund the charges so I'm wanting to send an official complaint and put something in it around the fact that I don't believe these charges are reflective of the cost to them of my (2 day) late payment. Also surely they have told me I needed to reset the DD and that they would be adding ANOTHER charge the next month?


Can anyone point me in the direction of a template letter for quering fees applied to utility bills or offer any advice for the wording??


Sorry this has turned into a long post!

Thanks in advance