Virgin Media - cancel default notice?

Shrinkydoodle

Ok... I'm going to try to cut a long story short..

We were virgin media customers until 2012, after which we switched to sky. Upon our leaving they whacked us with a £97 bill, which I could have sworn that we paid in Feb '12. We heard nothing until I received a default notice for £10 this morning (3 whole years later!!). I spent over an hour on the phone and it seems that someone at virgin had accessed the account a couple of months ago, tinkered about and triggered it into being live, which then sent us a default notice for £10. They cancelled the £10 and put me through to the underwriters to sort out the default notice. It turns out that they hadn't applied this default to my credit file, but there was one for may 2012. The manager at the underwriters said that she couldn't go into details as to why this had all happened (which stoked the suspicious cynic in me... what are they trying to hide?) but if I paid the outstanding balance of £54 within 14 days, she would cancel the original 2012 default on my credit file, so that it would no longer appear on searches. Is this something that she can and will do? I've been stung before with collection agencies using bad practices and am very suspicious of all promises made by agents.

I will be contacting my bank to double check to see if the payment of the outstanding bill was actually paid or not (I have a sneaking suspicion that it might not have as '12 was not a good year for us!) But I didn't want to be falling for false promises. I had made it clear to them that my credit file was important as we are hoping to move next year - are they using this as leverage to get me to pay quickly?

Any thoughts?...

DCFC79

I'd want it in writing that you owe this money, so a bill showing the amount.

Shrinkydoodle

Thank you for your reply DCFC

She gave me an email address, so after I'd had a few minutes to think about it, I emailed and asked her to put it all in writing. I haven't heard anything back yet. If I haven't had a reply by mid day on Monday I'll phone her...

DCFC79

I'd also write a letter with the cheque saying you consider the matter closed and the default to be removed etc etc. Im surprised they agreed to remove.

GingerBob_3

Shrinkydoodle wrote: »

Ok... I'm going to try to cut a long story short..

We were virgin media customers until 2012, after which we switched to sky. Upon our leaving they whacked us with a £97 bill, which I could have sworn that we paid in Feb '12. We heard nothing until I received a default notice for £10 this morning (3 whole years later!!). I spent over an hour on the phone and it seems that someone at virgin had accessed the account a couple of months ago, tinkered about and triggered it into being live, which then sent us a default notice for £10. They cancelled the £10 and put me through to the underwriters to sort out the default notice. It turns out that they hadn't applied this default to my credit file, but there was one for may 2012. The manager at the underwriters said that she couldn't go into details as to why this had all happened (which stoked the suspicious cynic in me... what are they trying to hide?) but if I paid the outstanding balance of £54 within 14 days, she would cancel the original 2012 default on my credit file, so that it would no longer appear on searches. Is this something that she can and will do? I've been stung before with collection agencies using bad practices and am very suspicious of all promises made by agents.

I will be contacting my bank to double check to see if the payment of the outstanding bill was actually paid or not (I have a sneaking suspicion that it might not have as '12 was not a good year for us!) But I didn't want to be falling for false promises. I had made it clear to them that my credit file was important as we are hoping to move next year - are they using this as leverage to get me to pay quickly?

Any thoughts?...

Yes, exactly. As far as merchants are concerned this is the sole purpose of credit reference agencies.

Shrinkydoodle

Thanks for replying GingerBob

It was the underwriters that I was talking to. Are they the same thing as a credit reference agent?

kirstybum

Hi there, I contacted Virgin media a few months ago to see if they'd remove a £74 default if I paid it in full, they were really helpful and agreed and I can confirm that it is gone '
X