Cancelling 0% Deal - Virgin

niksyg

Hi all,

I recently moved from Santander to First Direct using the switching service which has seemed to happen without any issues.

However, whilst checking my online banking today I had a text from Virgin stating that my payment to them had been declined and that I owed them to outstanding minimum payment.

I rang Virgin who said that they had tried to take the money from my Santander account but that the Direct Debit had been cancelled (First Direct did this as part of the switching service) so they were unable to take the payment. I made sure that there were enough funds in both the old and new accounts to cover any payments.They tried to take the payment on the 20th but only told me today - the 29th that it was declined. Virgin are now saying that they are possibly looking at cancelling the 0% deal I have with them (which expires September 2013) as a penalty for missing a payment.

I have contacted First Direct who are going to look into this and they have said it is Virgin's fault for not sorting out the change of Direct Debit details (they were informed on the 18th but didn't action it until the 23rd). If they do not get anywhere with this, I will have to complain as I do not feel this is my fault - if they had contacted me immerdiately I would have paid on the day.

Just looking for thoughts on this and if anyone has had a similar issue and what was the outcome?

chanz4

depends I suppose on what time friday they recieved it

sistafromanothermista

chanz4 wrote: »

depends I suppose on what time friday they recieved it

Hi, i had this, i thought i'd set up a direct debit when in fact i hadn't
It took me a month to notice that i was getting charged interest when i thought !!!!!!?! i called virgin and said that i thought i set one up, paid the amount due and they kindly re-instated the 0% (after i set up a DD to stop it happening again)
Just call them, apologise and hope they do the same

niksyg

Thank you! The guy I spoke to was quite understanding and said it was out of his control...kept referring to 'they' and 'them' cancelling the 0% so I guessed that I could always go above him to 'them' if necessary.

Butti

Write to them / email them and explain the situation. See if they move. If not,
- see if you can move to another 0%
- write to Bachelor and Brignall at Consumer Guardian or something similar. Maybe tell Virgin you are going to do this before you do, afterall 'there's no such thing as bad publicity'.

They are a tricky lot Virgin. Tend to give you a really long 0% followed by 32%, painful!

B

PhishFood_2

I recently switched from Santander to First Direct and out of 20 direct debits, 9 of them failed in exactly the way you have described.

Although it was a hassle to sort out, especially Virgin!, I got everything back to the way it should have been if the switch had worked. I wasn't on a 0% deal but I did have a direct debit that paid the full balance, it was showing as set up on my First Direct account but they tried to take from Santander. After a couple of phone calls I got all interest refunded and late payment fees refunded. First Direct blamed Virgin and Virgin blamed First Direct!

I think there must be a flaw in the process that FD follow as 9 out of 20 is shocking! I never bothered officially complaining as, apart from a few phone calls, it wasn't the end of the world but I will never use a switching service again!