Virgin Media Bill Change and Late Notification

vbrindle

Hi,

Virgin Media notified me that the billing date would change and that my broadband and tv will be rolled into a single bill. I then got my final bill for TV/Phone.

I have been waiting ages for my bill to arrive and I finally got it in the post on 3rd June saying that the direct debit would be taken out on or after 6th June.

Is this a fair enough warning or should I complain? The direct debit guarantee states:

• If the amounts to be paid or the payment dates change, the organisation collecting the payment will notify you normally 10 working days in advance of your account being debited or as otherwise agreed
• If an error is made by the organisation or your bank or building society, you are guaranteed a full and immediate refund from your branch of the amount paid
• You can cancel a Direct Debit at any time by contacting your bank or building society. We also recommend you notify the organisation concerned.

They have failed on the first point seeing as my bill has significantly changed and I only get the letter 3 days before it's going to come out of my bank account.

The bill date says 23rd May, but I didn't get this until 3rd June and surely the post doesn't take that long.

Should I complain?

Has anyone else had this problem?

Lokolo

Complaining to Virgin Media *sigh* worst possible thing to do. Living with the most stressful woman (my mum), I can assure you, complaining to Virgin Media is worse than blowing your head off (well from the sounds of it from my mother).

Do you not have enough money or something?

It does sound like it is the postmans fault though, however you could phone them and try to put a weeks delay on it or something because of the situation (explain to them that you have only just recieved it and thus not enough time) but be resonable, don't say a month, say a week or something.

swake

I was a Virgin (previously NTL) customer and i found them to be the most infuriating company i have EVER dealt with. Their service would frequently go down for a number of silly reasons and there customer support was appauling. They were also twice as expensive as Sky and had half the channels and service. I have been told from an employee that even though they are now supposedly a different company they have basically the same set up.They only purchased the frachise to use the virgin brand because they had such a dismal public image.

Im sorry i cant offer any practical advise to your predicament my only suggestion would be to get thell out of there. Im now with sky my bills are in half and they are easy to deal with and far more organised.

Good luck.

Mac_Sami

Virgin are plain stupid when it comes to credit control. I'm having issues with them at the moment, which were quickly resolved when I started charging them £25 per correspondence I had to sent to them, after explaining by email, letter and phone countless times that I owed them no money.

Now I'm chasing them for the debt they've accrued with me, which is really fun, and it's great to see them squirm every time I phone or send another letter chasing their outstanding debt. At least they dropped trying to get money from me which I didn't owe, though.

swake

Mac that is hilarious and youve given me an idea with an issue i have with Littlewoods.

Keep up the harassment.

vbrindle

Hi all,

I'm not really in a predicament, it was more the principle than anything.

Maybe I'm just being petty.

One thing I have noticed with these bills lately is that it doesn't have a postage date on the envelope so it's hard to prove when it was actually posted.

Mac_Sami

swake wrote: »

Mac that is hilarious and youve given me an idea with an issue i have with Littlewoods.

Keep up the harassment.

Thanks - I plan to. I doubt I will ever get the money from them, but I hope it highlights a serious point that it's not fun being harrassed by them for money which I never owed them. Putting the boot on the other foot, so to speak.

mute_posting

Lokolo wrote: »

It does sound like it is the postmans fault though

That's a bit sweeping isn't it? :mad:

I hope you're aware that many large companies don't use RM to send the mail door-to-door now?

They use the likes of TNT, DHL et-al to bulk sort and process mail - it only reaches RM for the "final mile" to the customer.

The problem with this is that these 3rd parties "hold onto" mail to gain bigger (volume) discounts when they pass over to RM as pre-sorted mail.

RadoJo

Has your payment really changed though, or is it just that it has been rolled into one rather than coming out as two separate payments?
Either way, I wouldn't bother - if it won't inconvenience you to have the direct debit come out, why inconvenience yourself by spending time on the phone to Virgin, as they will probably only change the date your direct debit comes out which won't really benefit you if you say you can cover the charges.

Plus, there have been quite a few notifications that their billing system is changing over the course of the last few months, so they would probably claim that you had been made aware anyway - save yourself the stress of talking to them!