Virgin Media Late Payment Charges

nickventure1973

I'm not stressed out about it at all unholyangel...and to be fair there are quite alot of judgemental characters that answered the question without reading it properly. I mean, glentoran99 making a judgement about my finances trying to spin it out into something where 'he' believes that I have further problems to worry about. It had nothing to do with my finances. How does he know if I have problems or not? I am debt free for a start.

And ‘Country Cousins’ comments were like being a pupil at school having to talk to the headmistress, and being told off for being a naughty boy’. She may as well have got the cane out.

And then along comes ‘bod1467’ saying ‘If this is the way you respond to people trying to help - I'm out.’ when I simply said ‘I’m not even going to answer your response as your responses are coming across confrontational when I've explained.’ in her defence.

I don’t have to accept answers from anyone as being correct, that is up to me to make that choice, and that was what I was doing when I said what I did as I felt her answers were picking rather than dealing with the question.

The only stress I’ve had today is from this forum being judgemental over a simple question. Virgin aren’t stressing me out at all and neither are my other bills as they all get paid.

Admittedly I did get behind on Virgin Media in the past, but thats because I don’t treat them as a priority bill. Council Tax, Rent, Gas/Electric, Food are all priority bills and ALWAYS get paid. Virgin always get paid, however not always on the date they would like, and they will not allow me to move the payment date which causes the problem in the first place. My point is, if Virgin moved the payment date then I wouldn’t get the charge. The bill gets paid, but not on the date they set which results in the charge. And that has always been the argument with them since they started all this.

Before you say set up a Direct Debit then, well I could but then I would have to pay two months in one to do it, which I could probably do at a push, but I don’t feel it is fair that Virgin require a Direct Debit to move the payment date. I don’t even understand the rule they have with regards to this.

And Direct Debit guarantee is fine, if your willing to wait a few days for money to come back into your bank account should they take an amount not agreed. However, what if you need it instantly and they have taken it? That is why I don’t like DD’s as it’s happened to me a few times. Last time was with Scottish Power, and they did it three times in a row. That resulted in the Energy Ombudsman giving them a £100 penalty. It effectively left me without money for three days as they’d emptied my bank account claiming for three lots of energy which they weren’t supposed to be claiming, and as it was a weekend, the bank couldn’t return the money fully until late on Monday. What if I’d had something else to pay in that period? Luckily I didn’t but it ruined the weekend.

I realise people are trying to help, but you must have seen there were many who actually didn’t even look at the main question and picked on the bit beneath to make a judgement, trying to claim I had other problems. They don’t even know the first thing about my finances and to be honest if they look on the dark side like that all the time then I wouldn’t want them anywhere near any of my money. I’d be worried in case they tried to pay one thing without thinking about prioritising another first.

It’s been a hell of an outing on here today I have to say.

nickventure1973

It's used for both home and a bit of work

glentoran99

nickventure1973 wrote: »

I'm not stressed out about it at all unholyangel...and to be fair there are quite alot of judgemental characters that answered the question without reading it properly. I mean, glentoran99 making a judgement about my finances trying to spin it out into something where 'he' believes that I have further problems to worry about. It had nothing to do with my finances. How does he know if I have problems or not? I am debt free for a start.

And ‘Country Cousins’ comments were like being a pupil at school having to talk to the headmistress, and being told off for being a naughty boy’. She may as well have got the cane out.

And then along comes ‘bod1467’ saying ‘If this is the way you respond to people trying to help - I'm out.’ when I simply said ‘I’m not even going to answer your response as your responses are coming across confrontational when I've explained.’ in her defence.

I don’t have to accept answers from anyone as being correct, that is up to me to make that choice, and that was what I was doing when I said what I did as I felt her answers were picking rather than dealing with the question.

The only stress I’ve had today is from this forum being judgemental over a simple question. Virgin aren’t stressing me out at all and neither are my other bills as they all get paid.

Admittedly I did get behind on Virgin Media in the past, but thats because I don’t treat them as a priority bill. Council Tax, Rent, Gas/Electric, Food are all priority bills and ALWAYS get paid. Virgin always get paid, however not always on the date they would like, and they will not allow me to move the payment date which causes the problem in the first place. My point is, if Virgin moved the payment date then I wouldn’t get the charge. The bill gets paid, but not on the date they set which results in the charge. And that has always been the argument with them since they started all this.

Before you say set up a Direct Debit then, well I could but then I would have to pay two months in one to do it, which I could probably do at a push, but I don’t feel it is fair that Virgin require a Direct Debit to move the payment date. I don’t even understand the rule they have with regards to this.

And Direct Debit guarantee is fine, if your willing to wait a few days for money to come back into your bank account should they take an amount not agreed. However, what if you need it instantly and they have taken it? That is why I don’t like DD’s as it’s happened to me a few times. Last time was with Scottish Power, and they did it three times in a row. That resulted in the Energy Ombudsman giving them a £100 penalty. It effectively left me without money for three days as they’d emptied my bank account claiming for three lots of energy which they weren’t supposed to be claiming, and as it was a weekend, the bank couldn’t return the money fully until late on Monday. What if I’d had something else to pay in that period? Luckily I didn’t but it ruined the weekend.

I realise people are trying to help, but you must have seen there were many who actually didn’t even look at the main question and picked on the bit beneath to make a judgement, trying to claim I had other problems. They don’t even know the first thing about my finances and to be honest if they look on the dark side like that all the time then I wouldn’t want them anywhere near any of my money. I’d be worried in case they tried to pay one thing without thinking about prioritising another first.

It’s been a hell of an outing on here today I have to say.

You say you need to change payment date, if your finances were all good then you would be able to put enough aside from the previous months income to pay on time, its a valid statement, as for your question You have no recourse at all to reclaim late payment charges you are consistently late


as for your direct debit "fears" if they take an amount not agreed your bank will refund it instantly under the direct debit guarantee,


as for them changing payment date, are you talking of every month? if so then why should you et longer to pay than anyone else? how long extra do you expect?

unholyangel

Regarding the DD guarantee, theres a possibility your bank have been wrongly applying it then as the DD guarantee entitles you to a full and immediate refund and on the few occasions I've had to implement it personally ( for virgin media funnily enough), the money has always been returned to my account immediately.

But if i remember right, even setting up a DD doesn't usually change your billing date, it only changes the date the payment is due (and thus the date the late payment charge is applied). However even if you dont pay by DD, as long as you have a DD set up at the time your bill is produced, you won't be charged extra for not paying by DD and you will have longer to pay your bill before a late payment fee is applied.

nickventure1973

glentoran99 I'm not even going to bother answering your first comment as clearly you have not read things properly again. Valid point, but not correct.

as for your direct debit "fears" if they take an amount not agreed your bank will refund it instantly under the direct debit guarantee, - they didn't refund it instantly and couldn't, you weren't ther either so you cannot say if they did or didn't. However I have FULL evidence and the bank could not refund instantly.

as for them changing payment date, are you talking of every month? YES

if so then why should you et longer to pay than anyone else? It wouldn't be longer as they would add the difference AND they can do this if I set up a Direct Debit - which I refuse to do. My choice! And before you say, how would you afford the difference. The answer is, that I get paid mostly before the 20th date so I could. And before you say well why can't you cover it now, well its called cashflow which is different to affordability.

how long extra do you expect? I don't expect any extra time, just a move from the 4th of the month to the 20th of the month. Fairly simple to sort out admin wise.

And also anyway, why are you still asking questions about my finances? I didn't come on here to be asked all these questions. I came on here to get the answer to 'I'm sure this has been asked many times before, but I wondered if anybody had successfully claimed back late payment charges from Virgin Media?'

Nothing to do with my finances whatsoever!!!!!!!!!!

nickventure1973

Anyway I'm out of here to be honest. There's only really one who grasped my question and that was unholyangel - so thanks for the answer unholyangel

However I feel like I've just had 20 rounds with Mike Tyson with the rest. Talk about not grasping the point and looking on the dark side. It makes me wonder what YOUR finances are really like to be honest.

glentoran99

nickventure1973 wrote: »

Anyway I'm out of here to be honest. There's only really one who grasped my question and that was unholyangel - so thanks for the answer unholyangel

However I feel like I've just had 20 rounds with Mike Tyson with the rest. Talk about not grasping the point and looking on the dark side. It makes me wonder what YOUR finances are really like to be honest.

Mine are great I pay all my bills by direct debit on time, thanks for asking,


Your choice the way you manage your finances, but being a money saving site it seems foolish to be spending late fees when you could simply avoid these by putting the bill amount aside when you have it, Your very defensive being a forum on a money saving site its not a big stretch for the thread to move to finance.


as for the direct debit guarantee, as said above it hasn't been done right as you are entitled to a full and immediate refund,

Bollotom

You can challenge Virgin Media to gt your refunded late payment charges, but pointless asking on here as it will be up to a judge on the day. If those charges are unfair a judge may be sympathetic but as I said it would be up to the judge on the day.
To go slightly off topic. Why not write to VM, set out your plans and intention to pay though it may be construed as a late payment. Perhaps tell them that over a twelve month period they wouldn't be out of pocket and that they should wait out the twelve months before applying any charges.
Failing any of the above, cancel at the end of your contract and see what retentions will offer you.
Okay, class. That's it for the day. Back here tomorrow and don't be late. :cool:

[Deleted User]

I stopped reading after a while, I have to admit.

Ignoring the late charges and the inability to change payment dates, I think the OP might actually open a whole can of worms if he seeks to take Virgin to court.

He says he is reliant on 200mb Broadband because he works from home, but the amount he pays each month suggests he is using a Residential Contract rather than a Business one. This is obviously against Virgin's terms and conditions.

bris wrote: »

Considering you use it for work then you are a B2B contract and have no consumer rights.

You mean he SHOULD have a B2B Contract.

photome

glentoran99 wrote: »

You say you need to change payment date, if your finances were all good then you would be able to put enough aside from the previous months income to pay on time, its a valid statement, as for your question You have no recourse at all to reclaim late payment charges you are consistently late

nickventure1973 wrote: »

glentoran99 I'm not even going to bother answering your first comment as clearly you have not read things properly again. Valid point, but not correct.

glentoran posts a perfect solution and answers the question.

OP chooses to ignore, maybe theres the problem