virgin media late payment fee, reclaim..

victoriav

Can anybody please tell me, in order to reclaim late payment fees, from virgin media, would you use the same letter template as for reclaiming bank fees/credit card fees?

Its the same principle, has anybody done it?

Buzby

No - the fee is avoidable, by paying your bill on time. They will often waive it the first time it is applied but not subsequently. The issue here is that they have given due warning of the possibility of a charge being levied, and by not paying on time you are deemed to accept the risk of an additional fee.

The point being made is why should everyone else who pays on time suffer high charges for services because a section of the customer base don't pay timeously?

There is a different situation with VM's imposition of a £60pa increase (£5 monthly) for NOT paying by Direct Debit. They can justify the late payment fee, but cannot do this with the DDM fee, as they cannot prove it costs them £5 more to process payments by other methods, and especially not by BACS transfers/PC Banking.

Drea

Oh I hate that £5 monthly charge for not paying by DD...

Buzby

I'm preparing papers to take them to the Small Claims Court for my 1st £60...!

deklan99

What's the basis of your claim as a matter of interest? AFAIK fairness only comes into it if the charges aren't obvious.

normanmark

Buzby wrote: »

I'm preparing papers to take them to the Small Claims Court for my 1st £60...!

Best of luck then. A judge deemed those kind of payment charges as legal not too long ago in a recent case.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/7319545.stm

Heinz

normanmark wrote: »

Best of luck then. A judge deemed those kind of payment charges as legal not too long ago in a recent case.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/7319545.stm

Which, of course, related to BT's £1.50/month (£18 p.a.) similar charge - hardly in the same league as VM's £60 p.a. charge.

normanmark

Heinz wrote: »

Which, of course, related to BT's £1.50/month (£18 p.a.) similar charge - hardly in the same league as VM's £60 p.a. charge.

Different fee structuring yes.

But the point which was raised in the case with the BT charges;

"She had the option of either starting to pay by direct debit or incurring the charge or leaving BT," he said. "She could do that without any loss or consequence."

Which kind of applies in the case with Virgin. But its the British courts so you never know what happen but I'll be surprised if its a different decision to the one announced in the BT case.