Penalties for not paying by direct debit

[cumbria123]

Can the late payment charge be challenged. BT want £7.50 if you don`t pay within ten days of the bill, that seems a bit of a tight deadline if your post is delayed or you are on holiday for instance.

[Odd Fellow]

Can the late payment charge be challenged. BT want £7.50 if you don`t pay within ten days of the bill, that seems a bit of a tight deadline if your post is delayed or you are on holiday for instance.

 

Given that many judgements are based upon people being "reasonable" about things, I would argue that 10 days (especially when you can lose some of those days by delaying the sending of the bill) is a little unreasonable.

[Odd Fellow]

Here's an idea.

 

If we refuse to pay BT these extra charges, what will it do?

 

I would suggest that if it cuts you off if you pay the bill minus these charges it will be acting unreasonably as you've paid the bill for the service provided.

 

Views?

[cumbria123]

BT wouldn`t isolate the charges, they would claim you still owed them as part of your bill.

[lazybones]

Hi All

 

I am sure those of you that were with NTL, before it being taken over by Virgin Media, have noticed that the NON DIRECT DEBIT CHARGE has now become the PAYMENT HANDLING CHARGE.

 

So I am to take it that they are charging me for just paying my bill.

 

Can I write to them and say that I'm going to charge them £*.** evry time I pay my bill ?

[fetsilva]

i sent off my letter to vodaphone about non dd fees a month ago and still no reply and now this months bills due (again with the fee)

any sugestions as to the next step plz?

[Odd Fellow]

BT wouldn`t isolate the charges, they would claim you still owed them as part of your bill.

 

Ah, but if you disputed the charge, that would be a different story, surely?

[maximus0983]

I've been with three a number of years now - actually since they started and i have never paid by DD. Recently i have noticed that on the bills it shows a "payment method administration charge" of £2.553 + VAT which comes to around £3...is this fair just because i choose not to pay by DD because im a student and i dont want to pay charges just incase a DD bounces. can i recover these costs?

[IVANHOE]

Ah, but if you disputed the charge, that would be a different story, surely?

 

£28 service charge?? or line rental as they used to call it, what exactly do they do with that??

bill arrived today, £5 late payment and £4.50 payment processing charge.

i'm with you, i will be deducting these costs from the amount i pay.

what they gonna do??!!

they monopolise the industry then bombard us with sneaky unlawful extra costs,

STUFF EM!

[Sak]

I found an one off charges on our bt bill of £4.46 earlier after talk of this penality charge on another forum. I went and check our bill which I didnt check throughly last week and dads already paid it.

 

Well been searching the web for answers and remember this forum :grin: ... read all thru this thread just.

 

so has anyone else got any other response? Btw has anyone contacted Oftel?

 

This is just so wrong, blimming daylight robbery

[Janet-M]

I have just recieved my BT phone bill £162.51 ,I only rent the line :o

 

part of the bill is payment charges £110.87 I have just phoned to query the whole bill ,seen as it should only be £11 ,and have been told the payment charges are because I do not pay by DD :o someones obviously got carried away somewhere

seen as I pay monthly by S/O (last payment recieved by them 8th May) I am just about to write a strong letter to both get the bill corrected and inform them I will not be paying their penalty charge and asking them to justify how my payment method costs them any more then a customer who pays by DD

 

I did originally phone but I felt sorry for the poor girl

[Fluffy Viper]

I presume I can send this letter to Sky who charge £4 for not paying by DD?

[coz]

I had numerous e mails to and fro BT questioning the fairness of the non DD charge and the fact that I should be able to choose how to pay and do so online within 2 or 3 days of bill arriving (I cannot be classed as a late payer).

 

After getting standard template e mails back with them trying to justify the charge I told them I would pay the bill minus the charge. Initially they said they then pursue the outstanding balance through usual debt collection process but I stuck to my guns and they rang me to say they would refund the charge and this would be "for life". I wonder whether I may have to do this every three months but hope not to.

 

The moral is "stick to your guns and keep on trying" - e mails are a pretty cheap way of corresponding too!!!!

[Rhino69]

There was an item on Watchdog on Monday about phone and utility companies charging customers extra if they don't pay by direct debit.

 

Clearly this is a penalty, which as we all know is not on. BBC Watchdog have produced a template to write to the companies involved, including addresses, which is shown below. There is also a link to the item on the BBC website for those who want to see it there.

 

CAG would like to acknowledge and thank BBC Watchdog for producing this useful template.

 

 

 

BBC - Consumer - TV and radio - Penalty charges

 

I received my BT bill on Thursday 07 June from BT. They expected me to pay this by 10 June!

 

I have not made any calls from my BT line as I have Orange Broadband, and all calls are by mobile.

 

They charged for a late payment (Which it was not) and a £4.00 'Processing Fee'

 

I called them and told them that firstly, it is inappropriate to expect me to pay this within three days of receiving the bill, especially as the payment for line rental is IN ADVANCE and that most businesses have 30, 60 or even 90 days or more to pay their bills and asked if BT paid their suppliers within three days of receiving the bill! This met with a confused babble, followed by silence!

 

I then said that I was willing to pay the bill there and then if they dropped the late fee and the 'Processing Fee'.

 

They said that they would drop the Late Fee, but not the processing fee. I then said that I would send a strong complaint and refuse to pay the bill unless this 'Processing fee' was dropped.

 

They said that they would note that I had entered a complaint.

I felt rather sorry for the female that I was speaking to, as she was a very nice Irish lady . (edit)

 

I then called the Post Office and arranged to have my number transferred to them, which will take 16-21days

[buzby]

But the Post Office do exacly the same thing!

[Mr Rhodes]

This is an outrage.

 

I have had anew line installed recently and they got the billing address wrong so I never got the bill, but I did receive the red reminder with the wrong address.

 

I have spent hours after hour (no joking) on the phone trying to get through as they have restricted my service. The last queue was 1hour 26 mins and then they said helpdesk closed and cut me off.

 

They are charging me a late fee and a processing fee for a bill I do not have and the bill actually is advanced line rental (3 months) when the service is currently restricted. I have now e-mailed them.

 

My next step is to send a recorded delivery to them asking for reimbursement of my costs (postage), removal of the late fee and penalty charge, reimbursement for the advanced line rental whilst service restricted and to send me correctly addressed bill.

 

I will give them 7 days to refund anc correct or issue a County Court Summons against them.

 

The attitude of these corporations!

 

Any advice from the CAG most welcome.

 

Thanks

[kennyparkroad]

i would point out that these charges have been placed because of THEIR administration error and it is unfair for you to pay these charges because THEY not YOU made the mistake.

[buzby]

Who is the phone company? If BT, their online service is quite impressive and you can see the data they hold about you. Once registered with your Customer Number you do get a fast track to CS and billing issues - like the wrong address - can be dealt with quickly.

[SupermanX]

I've recived exactly the same letter to my complaint letter. I'm thinking send them a LBA.

[Mr Rhodes]

Hi and thanks for the advice so far.

 

Yes the line is BT.

 

I went on-line and set up the account hoping to be able to pay the bill. I went through the process and they sent me an error message.

 

I used their on-line "ask emma" which was no use.

 

But I did have fun asking if she was a stupid ****! and I did get an answer, which was more interactive than my genuine question.

 

I cannot pay my bill for trying!!! I sent them an e-mail via their www and I am still waiting for a reply:(

 

To add insult to injury their bill is only for the advance line rental (3 Mths) and they want to charge me £4.50 cheque fee and probably the £7.50 late fee as well.

 

BT = S****!!!!! IMHO

[elliesnan]

just had my first bill from BT with the £4.50 charge so l will be paying the bill minus £4.50 of course! Hope they get in touch so l can ask them once again how they justify this penalty charge

[Milo19]

 

So how do we find out if the Trading Standards Institute have indeed pronounced on this and what they said exactly?

 

Also, never been entirely sure of what benefit I gain from the Direct Debit Guarantee?

 

Any thoughts?

 

 

Had exactly the same letter, do we know if what Orange are saying about Trading Standards in correct?

[jezza72]

If BT insist on these charges, would it be right to make them earn their money?? For example, how about paying a £80 bill with 80 £1 cheques??

 

It would be a pain to do, but very satisfying IMO!!

[goodwill]

I think BT are feeding all of us a lot of BS.

From their standard reply

We have introduced these changes because it costs more to accept non-Direct Debit payments from customers. This is not just because of the cost of taking the payments, but because on average customers are more likely to forget to pay or not pay, and this leaves us with bad debt of around £100 million a year.

"Bad debt" is a term applied to a debt where there is little or no realistic chance of that money being recovered.

 

BT has an ongoing agreement with Ofcom and the EU Commision to levy a "bad debt surcharge" on it's paying customers to cover that bad dept. The water companies have the same agreement.

also

If you pay monthly you are charged a £1.50 "processing" fee for each bill.

If you pay quarterly you are charged a £4.50 "processing" fee for each bill.

 

That shows the ammount charged has no relationship to BT's cost of "processing" the bill.

It's a rolling punitive charge.

[Milo19]

so have the trading standards said that this fee is legal?????