o2 account in arrears after transferring to First Direct

Legacy_user

I filled in the direct debit transfer form, and it looks like everything went through, but yesterday my newsgroups subscription was cancelled (paid through Paypal) and now o2 just emailed me saying they couldn't take the payment and my account is now in arrears?

Will this mess up my credit rating? What should I do (paying my o2 bill straight away)

edit: the direct debit transfer was completed on the 18th June and the o2 bill was created on the 14th (payment due on the 28th)

lottiegirl

first direct did this when we changed banks, they said they had sent everything in sufficient time and that it was the other companies fault. in our case barclaycard , o2 and another DD . we contacted first direct, and each of the companies.

Barclaycard, we have 3 accounts with them, 1 interest free, dependant on not missing a payment. They sent us late payment charges and for the interest free stopped that. However on telephoning them cancelled all late payments reinstated interest free period . Happened again the following month despite resetting up direct debit. Seems clearly barclaycard that are at fault not first direct .Ring the companies and explain.
We are monitoring the credit rating just in case.nothing yet and 2 months on. First direct offered to send us some letters to help if the companies were being difficult.

InsideInsurance

PayPal certainly wont affect your CRA file as there is no credit involved. As long as you deal with O2 promptly that should be able to be resolved too.

Have you checked with O2 which account they tried to take the monies from? Was it the "right" one?

The bank switching process is predominately managed by the BACS organisation and dealing with these sorts of things is a requirement of being able to offer/ accept direct debits. That said, not all companies are as good at dealing with these things as others and so certainly worth investigating from all ends where the process broke down and ensure the "guilty" party is the one that sorts it all out for you.

System

thanks for the replies, I don't know who the fault is with. I just hope that because the bill was dated 14th and the direct debit transfer date was the 18th it's not my fualt

pqrdef

Some firms' systems need more notice than they get. Possibly their computer decided on the 14th how much it was going to take and which account it was going to take it from and this was then set in concrete.

But if they tried to collect from the old account after the transfer date given to them by First Direct, they're in the wrong.

InsideInsurance

LooieENG wrote: »

thanks for the replies, I don't know who the fault is with.

Sounds like you need to do some phone calls then. Do you even know which bank O2 tried to take the money from? Which date?

System

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Sounds like you need to do some phone calls then. Do you even know which bank O2 tried to take the money from? Which date?

Yeah. My direct debit transfer date was the 18th June

o2 sent the invoice on the 14th, and tried to take the payment 2 weeks later on the 28th from my old bank