NTL Non Direct Debit Payment Charges

marvintherobot

Firstly thank you for providing somewhere where I can vent my :mad: annoyance about NTL introducting charges for people who do not pay by direct debit - I have found it difficult to find anywhere 'official' to complain to!

NTL have recently started charging me £4 per month for not paying by direct debit. When I first started with NTL, I had several problems with them overcharging and sorting out my account. I spent many a long hour listening to 'you are in a queue we value your call.....' , explaining the problem, getting assurances it would be sorted, not getting it sorted then ringing up customer services again & round we go again before finally getting the required service at the agreed price.

You can therefore understand that I was reluctant to enter into a direct debit contract with a company who's left hand were unsure if it even had a right hand, so I set up a standing order so that the bills were paid on time, whilst I could retain control of the situation. I therefore feel more than a little upset that I am now being charged for paying my bills in an efficient way.

Could someone please explain how a standing order (where my bank pays directly into NTL's account) incurs a £4 fee, yet NTL having to go to the trouble of extracting money from my bank each month incurs no cost at all.

I'd also like to know how the £4 fee is arrived at (especially for a standing order). It seems a very round number for covering specific billing expenses.
They even have the nerve to charge for the phone call (5p/min) to set up the direct debit. I tried phoning to set one up only to find after listening to 3 minutes of messages that the customer services were in fact closed :mad:.
I'd like to change my service provider, but they all seem to be doing the same thing and I'd lose my e-mail accounts etc.

I feel there is less (not more) competition and 'rip-off' seems to be everywhere in the UK.

Thank you for listening/reading.

Helix

The fee is going up to £5 per month from Feb 1st.

uktim29

What would you expect to be the outcome of a complaint? It doesn't seem worth the effort unless you feel that there would be a change, but that seems unlikely from what you've written.

davsidipp

marvintherobot wrote:

Firstly thank you for providing somewhere where I can vent my :mad: annoyance about NTL introducting charges for people who do not pay by direct debit - I have found it difficult to find anywhere 'official' to complain to!

NTL have recently started charging me £4 per month for not paying by direct debit. When I first started with NTL, I had several problems with them overcharging and sorting out my account. I spent many a long hour listening to 'you are in a queue we value your call.....' , explaining the problem, getting assurances it would be sorted, not getting it sorted then ringing up customer services again & round we go again before finally getting the required service at the agreed price.

You can therefore understand that I was reluctant to enter into a direct debit contract with a company who's left hand were unsure if it even had a right hand, so I set up a standing order so that the bills were paid on time, whilst I could retain control of the situation. I therefore feel more than a little upset that I am now being charged for paying my bills in an efficient way.

Could someone please explain how a standing order (where my bank pays directly into NTL's account) incurs a £4 fee, yet NTL having to go to the trouble of extracting money from my bank each month incurs no cost at all.

I'd also like to know how the £4 fee is arrived at (especially for a standing order). It seems a very round number for covering specific billing expenses.
They even have the nerve to charge for the phone call (5p/min) to set up the direct debit. I tried phoning to set one up only to find after listening to 3 minutes of messages that the customer services were in fact closed :mad:.
I'd like to change my service provider, but they all seem to be doing the same thing and I'd lose my e-mail accounts etc.

I feel there is less (not more) competition and 'rip-off' seems to be everywhere in the UK.

Thank you for listening/reading.

i have same problem with ntl wont do direct debit as you cant trust their bills this firm takes the p**s.

mrbadexample

I had this with Telewest for ages. Fight it tooth and nail! I wrote to the MD when they first started it:

Dear Sir,

I am writing with reference to the £2.00 “Non Direct Debit Admin Fee” that has recently been applied to my service charges for April and May 2003. I must inform you that I am not prepared to accept this charge for a number of reasons:

Firstly, I have not previously been advised of this additional payment, so have not had the opportunity to accept or reject the charge. Furthermore, I have been a customer since August 2002 and have not previously been charged an administration fee for paying my bill.

The reason I do not pay by direct debit is that I am not confident in your ability to ensure my bills are correct. Although I have been a customer for only a short time, I have already been sent incorrect charge details. I therefore have to carefully check each bill in its entirety before payment. I do not feel comfortable paying by direct debit for variable amounts as I feel it allows you to take whatever payment you believe is due – it would then be down to me to seek a refund if I had been overcharged. There would also be nothing to prevent you adding further charges without consulting me, as in this situation. Clearly, this is not in my best interests.

Since I became a Telewest customer in August, I have experienced a number of unnecessary problems and service issues. I have experienced service failures, incorrect charges on the bills, unwarranted restrictions to my services, and aggressive debt recovery techniques, even though I have had no problems paying my bills.

In the near future, I will be moving house: I will therefore be looking for a company to provide a telephone line, internet broadband and cable / satellite TV. I would appreciate it if you could explain to me exactly what benefits Telewest have to offer, as the service I am currently receiving is less than I would expect.

I would be grateful if you could ensure that the “Non Direct Debit Admin Fees” applied to my account are credited, and that this charge is not applied in future. I do not believe I should be penalised due to my choice of payment method. I would happily pay by direct debit if I had no previous problems with Telewest bills; however, this has not been the case.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

Yours faithfully,


I used to phone up and pay by card - every time I did so I deducted the admin charge from the amount I authorised them to debit. It went on for ages - the above letter got me a years charges by way of a £24.00 credit, and subsequent complaints got further credits. Try the above letter, but tailor it to suit your needs. Ask them to explain exactly how an admin charge is warranted for a standing order. Change your standing order to £4.00 below the bill amount to take the charge into account, and tell them why you've done it. Tell them you reject the charge. You won't win in the long run, but you should get a few credits and register your dissatisfaction. Make sure you write to a Director. Tell them if they can make it through a year without getting your bill wrong then you'll sign up to DD.

marvintherobot

I managed to get through to customer services last night and was ready for a big battle about the non direct debit charges. I explained I was very peeved that they had introduced this charge when I was paying on time by standing order. To my shock :eek: (and to NTL's credit), the chap on the other end simply said "that doesn't sound right. I'll remove the charge from your account now and investigate why it was put on in the first place and ring you back tomorrow night"

I need to reserve judgement because I've had similar (broken) promises in the past with NTL and ended up going round the whole thing again, but if this works out, then either NTL has greatly improved it's customer service or I was fortunate enough to speak to someone on his first day or it truly is the Season of goodwill to all NTL customers

I'll keep you posted on the outcome.

ooobedoo

I left NTL a few years ago due to fantastic levels of incompetance but if you want to keep your email account then use hotmail, I set it up after being reluctant to leave aol due to the email problem you have. I informed everybody that was important and any others it was tough. Hope this helps

Voyager2002

OP, I think you have chosen the wrong strategy.

It is obvious why NTL and Telewest like being paid by direct debit, and in fairness it does reduce their costs. So some level of discount for customers who pay in this manner seems reasonable, although I agree that the monthly charge of four or five pounds for non-DD customers is excessive.

Anyway, the payments that you make like this are covered by the direct debit guarantee. So if you are wrongly charged, contact your bank and get the payment recalled, and write to them rather than wasting your life trying to speak with their (non-existent) customer service.

I have been a Telewest customer for two and a half years, and I don't think they have ever made a mistake with my bill. On a couple of occasions I have disputed charges and got them refunded, and so have never needed to invoke the DD guarantee.

marvintherobot

Well NTL haven't changed a bit.

They did not ring me back despite saying they would and when I rang customer services again tonight, lo and behold, they had not removed the charges from my account :mad: . When I explained that I had phoned 2 days ago and was told the charges would be removed, I was now informed that the information I had been given was incorrect.

Customer services this time said they would waive the 'late payment' charge (I should think so too!) but could not do anything about the direct debit charge.

On the plus side (I hope), they say they have an offer on at the moment - for 6 months I need only pay £19.99 (I am currently paying £24.99), thus 'compensating me in a round-about way for the charges.

I caved in and decided to pay the outstanding charges and in future pay by direct debit before they send the bailiffs round and screw up my credit rating!
I am not optimistic that they are going to get the next bill right. I have no faith in their billing system (direct debit guarantees or not)

I recommend anyone phoning NTL and apparantly resolving a situation should follow up a few days later to confirm their account status. What they say and what they do rarely seem to line up.

Merry Christmas!

marvintherobot

The saga goes on. Two months down the line and I have received 2 bills neither of which have been covered by the direct debit I reluctantly setup last time I rang NTL (now Virgin).

Yet another call to Virgin - wait for all the advertising rubbish in order to find out which button to press to get through to customer services again aaagh!
After a 5 minute wait (not bad considering they were quoting 15 minutes), I got through to an operator who agreed I had indeed set up a direct debit, but it was still 'pending' for some reason and she would have to chase it through the IT and accounts department which could take 2 to 3 weeks!

In the mean time, as the direct debit (when it finally gets processed) could only be applied to charges from that point on, I would have to pay the bill by some other means!!!!!!

This meant paying now by debit card.

So from going from a customer who paid his bills on time every time by Standing Order, I am now having to chase each bill, check up on the status of the direct debit, phone customer services regularly etc. What is worse, I have no idea if/when the direct debit will get sorted out (they cannot send out e-mails even to confirm the direct debit has been set up). The operator said she would ring to confirm, but on past performance I don't hold out much hope for that.

How is this a cost saving for anyone???

There are major process problems at Virgin (NTL) which need to be sorted Mr Branson.

Tetsuko

OMg you poor thing. I have all the sympathy in the world because my partner and I had similar problems with them. We set up a direct debt to pay our bills but then started getting bills saying we hadn't paid. They hadn't set up our direct debit. Then they charged us for not paying on time and then made us pay using our debit card before they would allow us to set up the direct debit that should have been set up in the first place.

Also we paid our broadband by direct debit. After a few months we got a letter demanding we pay £250 to pay for out Broadband. We complained that we were already paying but then it turned out they had forgetten/lost our direct debit details and never set it up. But over a period of ten months no one contacted us to query the payments or lack of.

I don't know how they manage to get away with being so incompetent to soooo many of their customers and just blatently get away with it. Complaining seems to get you nowhere either but complaints do seem to conveniently dissapear or just not get answered *rolls eyes*

I really hope that Virgin makes them pull their fingers out and get some work done.