Thread: NTL Late Penalty Charges & No DD Penalty Fee

Where do I start...

There is no such thing as an OFT guideline, as said many many MANY times on this forum.
There is a level at which the OFT themselves will take legal action, and their threshold is £12.
The OFT has made it very clear that below £12 myy still constitute a penalty charge and that only a judge can decide what constitutes a penalty charge.
Finally, the OFT's statement only applies to credit cards, and telephone billing would be so far outside their remit on this occasion that it's not even worth looking.

On a separate note, it may be that you have only just charged the £10, but it has been introduced since April 1st. The OFT statement was made on April 5th.

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Amazing I think NTL is now (or about to be) part of Telewest following a buyout/merger.

Both Telewest and BT now see it as ok to make late penalty charges as well as a non direct debit admin fee.

I am awaiting dpa from Telewest to take this to the court.
A mate of mine is doing the same with BT.

A member on this site has threatened to cancel his services and as a result of him actioning that they have given him lots of freebies (Telewest)
I am tempted to do the same only it does not address the issues both of legality and costs.

I would advise you to consider one of 2 options....complain about it and all the evidence is that they will look after your account in a way not seen before nudge nudge wink wink.................or start the ball rolling for recovery of charges and a challenge as to the legality of them.

I can see that they have limited the admin charge to 1.00 .....and I expect the others will now be looking closely at that figure.

I think they arrived at that 1.00 as if they actually set it at 50p it would probably then cost them more to administer it !!!

They ARE unlawful regardless of what company charges you, yes. What gives you the impression they're not in what I said?

You made a connection in your post that this may be linked to the OFT's announcement, and I advised that this isn't the case. You also seem to imply that the OFT would accept a £10 charge as acceptable. They don't.

The main point is that ONLY a judge can decide what's lawful and what's not. I have said on a Telewest thread (they do the same) that in my opinion, the £10 is a penalty charge, especially considering that they already factor in additional administrative costs in possible late payers by adding £4 to non-DD payers. The lawfulness of this would also have to be detemined separately as we do not know that every non-DD payer actually pays late, and in this manner, the £4 may well be subsidising actual late payers at the detriment of all non-DD payers. It may well be however that £4 is a more realistic figure. But then, there would be truly no justification for the £10 late payment.

Your post gave the impression that the £10 was somehow endorsed by the OFT statement, and therefore could not be challenged. That is quite obviously not the case, and anyone who feels that, should indeed challenge their telephony company on the same contract law basis that we apply to bank and c/c charges.

Hope this clarifies things.

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Sorry BW

But these charges ARE being challenged and the telephone service providers are getting jittery.

I know of at least 3 cases wher they have either dropped the charge or are giving freebies !!

Your post gave the impression that the £10 was somehow endorsed by the OFT statement, and therefore could not be challenged. That is quite obviously not the case, and anyone who feels that, should indeed challenge their telephony company on the same contract law basis that we apply to bank and c/c charges.

No, I'm sorry, am I being unclear here???

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Originally Posted by adamski

ok i will not post about this again
Apologies for wasting everyones time

No youre not wasting everyones time.
BW was I think pointing out that the OFT ruling was not one that specifically can be used for everything.

Simply this was used as a guideline for the matters being referred too namely credit cards etc.

He is agreed about the question of penalties being unlawful and if you read his post again its clear on that.

May I suggest you monitor the threads throughout the site which will give more info.

I have one started in the consumer group theres nothing to stop you doping the same and lets follow the progress there.

Sorry Doing not doping.................be en a long day !!