WELSH water not takin DD

leon103

sorry if this should be elsewhere

I recently received my latest bill and was shocked to see that I owed £300. I noticed on the bill it didn't show all the payments I had made, but included a schedule for the direct debits for the next 12 months. Before I rang up to see if the bill was wrong I checked my account and no DD has been taken since February. I have checked with the bank and the DD is active.

Has this happened to anyone else?

Any advice when ringing to complain? I am not disputing the use but I know they will want me to pay the bill off which is a bit unfair when it's their fault.

footyguy

leon103 wrote: »

sorry if this should be elsewhere

I recently received my latest bill and was shocked to see that I owed £300. I noticed on the bill it didn't show all the payments I had made, but included a schedule for the direct debits for the next 12 months. Before I rang up to see if the bill was wrong I checked my account and no DD has been taken since February. I have checked with the bank and the DD is active.

Has this happened to anyone else?

Any advice when ringing to complain? I am not disputing the use but I know they will want me to pay the bill off which is a bit unfair when it's their fault.

If you have previously agreed with teh supplier to pay monthly, then the supplier would need to have provided advance notice of the amount and frequency of those collections.

Despite this, if the supplier has then failed to collect the money as advised to you, and you haven't noticed the money has not been taken from your bank in any month since February, then presumably the money is still in your bank account to pay them...

Suppliers don't usually send a bill as such if are signed up to pay monthly by direct debit; they usually only send a statement.
If you have now accrued a debit on your account (because the supplier failed to collect the money monthly as you say they agreed to do) then the supplier should usually just revise the monthly payment accordingly.
It is usual for suppliers to agree to spread the cost of recovering accrued debt over the period it was accumulated over, particularly where the error was caused by the supplier.

Worth a complaint to the supplier too (with supporting evidence). If they upheld your complaint, expect a small goodwill gesture because of their failing - typically about £20-£50 credited to your account.

brewerdave

For some unknown reason ,Welsh water didn't take my DD last March and April; I phoned and got fed some guff about being in credit when the meter was read in Feb. -I wasn't -had a very small deficit!
Restarted in May but after the last meter reading this month, I'm in deficit by £70 - which would have been virtually zero if they hadn't c**ked up!
I suspect that their computer had a melt down in Feb. -surprised that more people haven't commented!

EDIT - Looking at the latest statement,they have left the DD value alone -this means by my calculation that they won't recover the £70!!

leon103

Bill, statement - my mistake.

It seems strange that they haven't contacted me to ask why I haven't paid for over 6 months. The statement didn't mentioned anything and the schedule of payments hasn't changed.

Luckily it's only £33 a month so not a huge amount. I will see what they say when I ring them. Doubt they can say I have been in credit for 6 months. God you really do have to keep an eye on DD, earlier this year I noticed two companies were still taking DD out despite the accounts being cancelled. Luckily they were respectable insurance companies and they paid me back.

leon103

Bill, statement - my mistake.

It seems strange that they haven't contacted me to ask why I haven't paid for over 6 months. The statement didn't mentioned anything and the schedule of payments hasn't changed.

Luckily it's only £33 a month so not a huge amount. I will see what they say when I ring them. Doubt they can say I have been in credit for 6 months. God you really do have to keep an eye on DD, earlier this year I noticed two companies were still taking DD out despite the accounts being cancelled. Luckily they were respectable insurance companies and they paid me back.

footyguy

leon103 wrote: »

Bill, statement - my mistake.

It seems strange that they haven't contacted me to ask why I haven't paid for over 6 months. The statement didn't mentioned anything and the schedule of payments hasn't changed.

Luckily it's only £33 a month so not a huge amount. I will see what they say when I ring them. Doubt they can say I have been in credit for 6 months. God you really do have to keep an eye on DD, earlier this year I noticed two companies were still taking DD out despite the accounts being cancelled. Luckily they were respectable insurance companies and they paid me back.

If you were formally only paying £33 a month and it's only 6 payments that have failed to be collected, then you would still be in debit (owe) about £100 even if they had been collected. This indicates your monthly payment was probably set too low anyway. £40 would be nearer the correct amount.

So with failure to collect for the last 6 months, then expect a monthly collection amount of £80 for the next 6 months.

If this has not happened, then I suggest you contact the supplier to ask why not, otherwise the debit won't go away, and will only get worse as time progresses.

leon103

Will be ringing them later. Hopefully if I agree pay it off in one go they will make a token gesture towards the amount.