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Virgin Mobile Help please
Received a letter today saying that they are changing the way customers are billed.
What it means broken down
Bill date 10th October taken by direct debit 24 October
Next Bill will now be 22nd October and payment taken on 5th November
I have been on this contract for 3 years, always paid on the 24th of each month,
Firstly, I cannot afford to make 2 payments in less than a month, I budget my money (on getting paid) from the 20th. I cannot afford to pay them 24th and 5th
The letter offers no options and tells me it's easier for me as they are making tweaks to their billing system.
Is there anything I can do, (I am not looking at just stop paying them) but when I call customer service, I get told We cannot see any change please ignore the letter, obviously I know that's not the case, and on the 5th I will get a failed payment, charges from my bank and possibly a suspended service.
Do they not have to provide me proper notice? Are they even allowed to change this? I am currently 3 months into a 2 year contract (upgrading) and there was no mention of this change then?
Any advice please
What it means broken down
Bill date 10th October taken by direct debit 24 October
Next Bill will now be 22nd October and payment taken on 5th November
I have been on this contract for 3 years, always paid on the 24th of each month,
Firstly, I cannot afford to make 2 payments in less than a month, I budget my money (on getting paid) from the 20th. I cannot afford to pay them 24th and 5th
The letter offers no options and tells me it's easier for me as they are making tweaks to their billing system.
Is there anything I can do, (I am not looking at just stop paying them) but when I call customer service, I get told We cannot see any change please ignore the letter, obviously I know that's not the case, and on the 5th I will get a failed payment, charges from my bank and possibly a suspended service.
Do they not have to provide me proper notice? Are they even allowed to change this? I am currently 3 months into a 2 year contract (upgrading) and there was no mention of this change then?
Any advice please
0
Comments
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The bill on Oct 10 is supposed to cover Oct 10 - Nov 10.
The bill on Oct 22 is supposed to cover Oct 22 - Nov 22. As you have already paid until Nov 10, the new bill has to be small - about 40% of the normal amount.
AFAIK, there are no strict rules regarding how long before the due date a company can notify you abut the changes. Normally it's 10 working days.
I see the same 10 days on Virgin website.
If they failed to notify you 10 days in advance, contact them.
Otherwise cancel the DD and contact Virgin to discuss how and when to make a manual payment.
And save some money FGS. Living on such strict budget without any savings is a recipe for a disaster sooner or later. A mobile contract is possibly the first thing that you have to start cutting your expenses with.0 -
Thanks for the reply grumbler, (It's cos I am repaying so much debts) I have nothing really left. The only thing if is, they are saying my full bill will be taking again on the 5th
My bill is £44 a month (so they are taking £44 friday) and want another £44 on 5th November. I have again spoken to Virgin who confirmed this, they say all Virgin Mobile customers will eventually be affected. I said surely £44 won't be due again, but they say it will as they are just moving the billing date. Nothing else changes.
The letter also says
We know getting two bills close together is inconvenient but we can promise that the change will make billing much simpler for you in the future.
How I don't know..
http://help.virginmedia.com/system/selfservice.controller?CONFIGURATION=1003&PARTITION_ID=1&secureFlag=false&CMD=VIEW_ARTICLE&ARTICLE_ID=135179&TOPIC_ID=2055
A link that's included to read0 -
My bill is £44 a month (so they are taking £44 friday) and want another £44 on 5th November.I have again spoken to Virgin who confirmed this, they say all Virgin Mobile customers will eventually be affected. I said surely £44 won't be due again, but they say it will as they are just moving the billing date.
As a side note, it's beyond me how one can waste £44 p.m. on a mobile toy while struggling to repay "so much debts". You can have a decent phone with reasonable allowances for a quarter of this amount.0 -
Why are you paying £44 for 3 years!!!! after your 2 year contract is up you can drop down to a sim only deal0
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I've received a letter today about this as well. It does actually state we will be paying two whole monthly payments during November to allegedly bring billing in line with the monthly allowances.
The trouble for me is that I went through this to bring them into line a couple of years back and I wasn't really sure I didn't get ripped off then. I'm on the lowest tariff anyway as I don't use all my allowance, but it's the smallest they have and about as cheap as I can go (£7 month, free landline and mobile calls SIM only)
Mine is currently this:
My allowance runs from 19th of one month to 18th of the next, I am billed about 10 days later and the DD comes out on the 1st of the next month (or near enough).
According to the letter, without giving us any prior warning it states that over the next 3 months (which actually is the past 2 months and the next one month):
Allowance date is from 27th of the month (27 Sept / 27 Oct / 27 Nov)
Earliest Billing date is from 18 Oct, then 1 Nov, then 1 Dec
Earliest DD date is then 31 Oct / 14 Nov / 15 Dec
Now, I'm going to pay £7 on 1 Nov and £7 on 14 Nov
My allowance which I've already been billed for is:
19 Sept - 18 Oct - I pay £7 on 1 Nov
Then it goes 19 Oct to 27 Oct - I am billed a further £7 on 1st November and the DD goes out on 14 Nov
Then the allowance goes from 27 Oct to 26 Nov, I'm billed on 1 Dec and DD on 15 December.
So I'm not getting anything out of this, I'm paying twice for exactly the same allowance in one month.
This just seems to be a massive con.
I'm going to try and talk to someone who can explain it honestly but I'm not holding my breath.
If anyone can help take this up with Virgin as well, it would be much appreciated as I am sure this is a con - and they've not given anything like enough warning about this.
I know mine is only a small amount in comparison to others but as a pensioner on pension credit, being conned out of £7 is not funny.
ETA: I've just seen on my online account that it says:
Your bill covers the period until 18 October 2014. We added your allowance on 27 September this month.
Your bill this month includes some costs for use not covered in your allowance. You can see all the detail by clicking on 'Extra use' below.
except that I have not got any Extra Use charges - it shows £00.00 as I haven't gone over my allowance or made any charged calls.0 -
I too fell foul of the bill change date with 19 days billed at a full month's charge.
I called 150 and complained that I has been overcharged because of the short month, and they are now waiving the November bill.
Result! :T
I'd urge everyone affected by the bill change date to check their bills and amounts.
You should also be able to keep your existing date.
Virgin should be forced to reimburse all account holders who have been affected without them having to claim.
Bestys
David0 -
affected me as well . I paid in November and December then they want to take it twice in January and once in Feb, they reckon we are paying behind and they want paying upfront... smacks of cash flow problems to me. January is the worse month possible!0
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