Direct Debit advice

DCFC79

pqrdef wrote: »

So TalkTalk are well aware that customers don't read their bills - why would they - they don't bother to send out a special email to alert people, they just collect lots of £7.99 penalties. Good business.

The ISP provide the information and its then up to the user to read it or not.

InDeepDebt

Checked my bills last night.

First, I’m on paper billing – it’s one of the few that I’ve kept for when I need a utility bill within the last three months to prove who I am.

I’ll restate my position, when I started out many years ago with talk talk – about 2006 – my DD got taken out on or around the 29th. This gradually crept down to the 25th – yes I did have notification in the form on the paper invoice – I only read the amount (my bad).

I won’t have noticed this change of date as it is still after pay day – the same as most other direct debits. Virtually every DD comes out on the 20th or the 21st – the exceptions are the TV licence (who refused) and I think council tax – but the other half pays that. The ONLY time that those DDs change is when the 20th falls on a weekend when the DD date changes to the Monday.

Talk Talk though have changed my DD date from the 25th to the 18th. They did give me 10 days notice on the bill but I do not recall having a letter advising me of this. This is the bit that I am really querying – is the notification on the bill sufficient – the bill is dated 14 days prior to the DD but, for example, this month we received the bill on the 12th for the DD on the 18th.

I have asked them whether they have sent me a letter advising me of the change of date and one person that I spoke to said that they had – but gave me an incorrect date – it was a date when I was already being billed on the 18th. The second person that I spoke to said that he did not know why the date had changed, he didn’t know when the date had changed and didn’t know whether they had sent a letter.

Anyhow, my view (rightly or wrongly) is this. If they have not sent me a letter and have just gone on the fact that I should read the invoice then this may be legal but it is bad customer service. Justified or not, I feel so strongly about this that I have changed my provider; the actual connection has been a bit dubious which was annoying me but the change of the DD date was the nail in the coffin.

I realise that I should have sufficient funds in my account at the end of the month to cover emergencies but, at the moment for our family – for whatever reason, we just aren’t able to do that. Our plan is on course for 38 months from now to be debt free at which point we will have the luxury of available funds but this is not the case just now.

Cheers

Jim

masonic

InDeepDebt wrote: »

Talk Talk though have changed my DD date from the 25th to the 18th. They did give me 10 days notice on the bill but I do not recall having a letter advising me of this. This is the bit that I am really querying – is the notification on the bill sufficient – the bill is dated 14 days prior to the DD but, for example, this month we received the bill on the 12th for the DD on the 18th.

Yes, notification on the bill itself is quite sufficient. That's how most companies inform you of changes in my experience, so don't expect this to be the last time this crops up for you.

Unfortunately there is no hard rule for the amount of advanced notice given. It is supposed to be 10 working days, and companies should add on a day or two for snail mail to be delivered on top of that, but the words "unless otherwise agreed" offer them a get out clause. There will no doubt be something in TalkTalk's T&Cs specifying how much notice they will give you.