Direct debit problem - Santander and Vodafone blaming each other

jd87

I have been with both Santander and Vodafone for a few years now, but up until 3 months ago I was paying my Vodafone bill from a different bank. I decided to change my direct debit details to take the money from my Santander account, but this direct debit change has still not successfully gone through.

I have spoken to Vodafone about 5 times regarding this. They claim that everything is set up correctly from their end (we have confirmed the account number and sort code every time and it has always been correct). They say that the payment is being rejected by Santander. Before anyone asks, there is more than enough money in the account.

Santander say that there is no direct debit mandate set up and that I need to go back to Vodafone and get them to send it. Vodafone just repeat that everything looks fine and it is set up. Both and them are just blaming the other and refusing to escalate it any further. Has anyone experienced this? What can I do next? Who is most likely to be to blame?

It's complicated a bit by the fact that there is a very old Vodafone direct debit set up on the account from years ago. This was showing as cancelled (which would be correct). One person at Santander suggested that maybe Vodafone were trying to use this old direct debit with the old reference number, so we reactivated it to see if it would help. It hasn't made a difference though and Vodafone don't see any direct debit reference number in their system for me to check with them.

Vodafone have given me a bunch of "payment authorisation codes" for each attempted direct debit payment but Santander have told me they can't do anything with this information. Can anyone help? For the first month my Vodafone service kept getting cut off for non-payment. They have stopped doing this now but I am worried that I'm going to start getting marks on my credit report (not to mention the huge bill I'm running up). Yes I could just make a one off debit card payment, but the direct debit still needs fixing.

chambta

Almost certainly down to Vodafone. If it was done successfully by the originator there's nothing that the bank get involved in other than reacting to the request.

Nebulous2

For goodness sake make the debit card payment, or it will appear in the details held by the credit reference agencies and you'll spend even more time trying to resolve it.

Vodafone doesn't seem to handle DD changes, particularly to Santander, very well.

I switched my direct debit to Santander and received a letter from Vodafone saying the DD had been set-up. They actually took the first month's payment, then didn't take the next one. It was about a week before I noticed, lulled into a false sense of security by the fact they had taken a payment already.

I paid the bill right away and managed to get the DD setup again. For some reason Vodafone denied the first one existed, which was strange when they had managed to take one payment.

If I had to bet on who to trust between these companies, I wouldn't put much money on Vodafone.

I'd tend to scrap the existing DD, you can cancel it online, and get Vodafone to set-up a new one. I think there is a charge for a non-DD payment but they should waive it if you explain the circumstances.

PaulW922

If you look at the direct debits set up on your account with Santander online banking you will have your answer. If the instruction has bene set up properly it should show.

of course you are dealing with two organisations both unfamiliar with basic standards of customer service...

colsten

PaulW922 wrote: »

of course you are dealing with two organisations both unfamiliar with basic standards of customer service...

When it comes to Santander, your assessment seems about 5 years out of date, even by the MSE surveys.

OP, if I were you, I would raise a formal an written complaint with Vodafone. http://www.vodafone.co.uk/vodafone-uk/forms/complaints/

grumbler

My money is on Vodafone...

gingercordial

jd87, you are not alone! I could have written exactly this. Spent another 20 minutes on the phone to Vodafone this morning.

Having happily paid by DD from my Natwest account for the last 15 years, I got a Santander 123 account in September and tried to move (not switch!) my Vodafone DD over to it for the cashback. All seemed fine, except that when my October bill's due date rolled round the DD wasn't taken. I went through several calls to Vodafone, a visit to a store, and several calls to Santander. Just like you I have a direct debit mandate number from Vodafone (Santander say they can't find that reference on their systems as ever having been issued to a DD) and some payment attempt references (Santander say those are meaningless to them). I ended up making a manual payment and incurring a late payment charge though they say it'll be credited against my next bill.

During all of this a chap in Vodafone billing (and yes I do have names, dates and times) said that of course it wouldn't work, they never do for the first month, and that I should have been told to make a manual payment but he was "100% sure" it would be fine for November's payment.

November's payment date rolled around and nothing came out of Santander. It still doesn't show in my list of DDs on online banking. After a week, in concern I called Vodafone who said that as far as they could see it had been tried on 12 November, failed, retried on 20 November and "gone through" and that probably the reason I couldn't see it is that this was Friday and I was calling on Monday. He told me my bill was settled as far as his systems went.

Cue Friday last week (27th) and still nothing out of my bank account and a voicemail and text from Vodafone threatening to cut me off. I called them and paid manually again today. I've cancelled my DD as I didn't want to go with the CSR's advice that I should see what happens next month.

I don't know what to do other than carry on with manual payments. I'd put it back to Natwest but am not completely sure they won't mess that up either.

I wonder if it's Santander as I've also had the experience of npower being unable to set up a DD to a 123 account, but that seems to be a known issue (the npower CSR said it would be a problem and I found various old posts on here saying that as well). Perhaps Vodafone also has the same problem with 123 accounts but the staff don't know?

xylophone

http://www.vodafone.co.uk/terms-and-conditions/business/buying-with-vodafone/buying-online/direct-debit-guarantee/

https://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Pay-monthly-account-specific/Direct-debit-not-being-set-up/td-p/2440099

http://www.vodafone.co.uk/two-direct-debits/

Make a formal complaint to Vodaphone and make it clear that you will take the case to the Ombudsman if necessary.

gingercordial

Thanks xylophone. Looking at that Vodafone forum there are other threads too...

https://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Pay-monthly-account-specific/Direct-debit-problems/td-p/2430256

Which means it isn't anything to do with it being a Santander 123 account (unlike npower's separate issue) and even if I try to set it back up with my Natwest account it is likely to fail!

Not sure that the DD Guarantee helps as they haven't taken an incorrect amount - they won't take any amount at all.

Sounds like they are even less competent than I thought. Amazing.

bob792

I had a similar issue 6 months ago, setting up a DDR with First Utility to take payments from my Santander 123 (replacing one with another bank that had worked perfectly). The DDR showed correctly set up in my First Utility online account but never showed up in my Santander online account, so the payment failed. FU cleared the DDR entry after the payment failed, so I set it up again. It still never showed in the Santander account.

I explained all this to a man in FU Credit Control (when they were chasing payment) and he said that DDRs not getting set up correctly was a problem they had encountered before but only with Santander! As the FU systems showed a DDR set up correctly, he had to email someone in his company to manually reissue the DDR mandate. Fortunately it got set up at Santander this time and the payments now go through (although I keep checking my Santander account just to make sure the mandate doesn't vanish).

Inevitably, both sides are going to blame each other. You are not going to solve your problem until Vodafone actually submits a new DDR mandate (even though their system shows they have already done this).

eskbanker

bob792 wrote: »

....FU Credit Control....

Sounds like most* credit control departments I've had the misfortune to come into contact with!

*Apologies to any decent credit controllers who may be offended by my little joke....