Stikky taking on Virgin for late payment's refund.

[stikky62]

I'm about to got for a refund of all the late payment charges Telewest / Virgin have taken me for over the past 11 yrs i've been with them.

Will this do for the S.A.R request ? >>

 

Data Protection Act 1998 – Subject Access Request

 

Dear Sir/Madam

 

ACCOUNT NUMBER: xxxxxxxxx

 

Please supply me with a complete list of transactions and charges relating to my account history with your organization dating back to 1997. Alternatively, a complete set of statements for that period will be acceptable

 

Additionally, where there has been any event in my account history over this period which has required manual intervention by any member of your staff, or any other person, I require disclosure of any indication or notes which have either caused or resulted in that manual intervention, or other evidence of that manual intervention in relation to my business with you.If you are unable to supply this data because there has been no such manual intervention, then please be so kind as to confirm this in your response.

 

I enclose the statutory maximum fee of £10. You have 40 days in which to comply. Furthermore, if I discover that you have levied disproportionate penalties against me, then I shall be reclaiming them, and also reclaiming the enclosed £10 Data Protection Act subject access request fee.

 

Yours faithfully

 

Stix

[Guest Old_andrew2018]

good luck

[semyaza]

I don't quite understand how this works.

 

I am always late paying for about 2 or 3 years I think and get late charge everytime. Reason because my finances have been screwed for 3/4 years so I wait until I get my next salary and then pay. I have only just been refunded 3 months worth as I am not getting any bills and don't know when and how much to pay and have just been guessing. However the same thing has happened again this month. I have just emailed them politely.

 

However reading these posts is there a chance of getting 3 years worth of late payment charges back? That would be a nice little present

 

Thanks.

[Guest Old_andrew2018]

you can get all of it back

[semyaza]

Ok. I am reading this thread

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/telecoms-mobile-fixed/9306-telewest-10-00-late.html

 

quite a lot to get through.

 

I am guessing though that you can only claim back 6 years worth? Same as banks?

[stikky62]

Little update,

 

I got my S.A.R request back a couple of days ago, but there's about 18 months worth of info missing, so i'm going to send this letter off on Monday >

 

 

Dear .......

 

Thank you for the information you sent me on 13th August 2008 in accordance with my Data Protection Act request (Subject Access Request) which was delivered to you on 8th August 2008.

 

However, the disclosure of personal data is incomplete in that the following documents are missing.

 

You have failed to provide a complete list of transactions and charges for the dates 07/06/2002 to 20/12/2003 inclusive.

 

Accordingly, I have to tell you that you have not yet complied with your obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998.

You have a further 30 days to comply.

 

In addition, I understand that under the Unfair Terms in the Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, penalty charges must reflect administration costs and cannot be punitive. I now understand that the regime of fees which you have been applying to my account in relation to non direct debit admin fee, late payment charge, payment handling charge and so forth are unlawful at Common Law and contrary to consumer regulations. If you disagree with this, will you please substantiate these charges by letting me have a full breakdown of the costs to which you have been put by as a result of my breaches, in order to reassure me that your charges really do reflect your costs.

 

Yours faithfully.

..........

 

I'm just wondering if i should include that last paragraph or save it for the letter in which i make a claim for a refund? (or do both)

[stikky62]

Ok. I am reading this thread

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/telecoms-mobile-fixed/9306-telewest-10-00-late.html

 

quite a lot to get through.

 

I am guessing though that you can only claim back 6 years worth? Same as banks?

 

This issue is discussed towards the end of that thread you're reading. A good post in particular to read with regards to this is #287 on page 15 by Bookworm

[stikky62]

Virgins response to my letter in post #6 >

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whats the next step?

[indebtstudent]

IMO you ought to speak to Buzby, has lots of info on Virgin Media & Sky, should b able to find several threads.

[locutus]

I am not at liberty to provide a detailed breakdown of the costs involved' date=' but I am informed that the actual additional cost of processing non-Direct Debit payments is in fact higher than the fee that Virgin Media charges its customers.[/quote']

 

That always makes me laugh! Their payments office staff must be on over £300 per hour then, 'cos it doesn't take more than a minute to do!

[indebtstudent]

BTW I should point out that I simply do not accept that 'the actual additional cost of processing non-direct debit payments is in fact higher than the fee that Virgin Media charges its customers'.

 

Surely if this were the case they would only offer services to customers willing to pay by DD?

 

But my guess is the reason they don't do that is they want as many customers as they can get. Perhaps they are making a loss on on ALL non dd customers, but I simply cannot accept that.

[locutus]

£5 per month is way over the top! Just greedy!

 

If you estimate people's average bill at £50 per month, it could not possibly be 10% for handling the money IMHO. If it costs more than £5 for handling money, how does amazon, one of the biggest Internet shops sell music CDs, DVDs and books sub £5 when they don't even accept payment by direct debit? VM have a screw loose somewhere!

[semyaza]

It's complete nonsense. I develop websites and have to integrate systems like Protix and Cardstream, or whatever. Most charge a fixed amount per month and a per transaction fee of 20p or whatever deal they have. And that is for small companies. It's an absolute con!

 

I havnt started claiming yet. I'll see how this thread goes. But I must have almost £300 worth of late payment charges to claim back and then two years worth of direct debit charges. Maybe a nice pressie waiting for me ;-)