MARTIN3030 Virgin Media charges ROUND 3

[buzby]

Buzby's a strange one! people shouldnt be asking for the charges back yet he got his d/d charges dropped to £1.50!

 

Depends on the charges. I beat SKY prior to court (but they lost me as a customer). VM manipulated their pricing (quite legally, and giving proper notice), so why 'ask' when the answer will be 'No' with no possibility of forcing the issue to your advantage?

 

VM were charging me £60pa for the lack of a DD, but in addition I was paying them £650pn in fees for services provided. They realised losing the £650 for the sake of £60 was pretty poor business practice, so they reduced the £60 to £18. The £42 was better in my pocket than theirs. They retained me as a customer, but it also made it difficult for me to pursue them in court as I could prove £60 was unreasonable and with my eyes shut. But £18? A win would not be assured.

 

You may think it is simply "asking for your charges back" but the issue is quite complex, and not the simple matter you believe it to be.

[mickjo1]

hi martin

i am planning to claim all the £10 late payment charges from virgin media.

is there a template letter i could use as i am not very good a writing letters and getting my point over.

regards

mick

[indebtstudent]

"I could prove £60 was unreasonable and with my eyes shut."

 

Share the wealth then it'd pnly be sporting...

[MARTIN3030]

hi martin

i am planning to claim all the £10 late payment charges from virgin media.

is there a template letter i could use as i am not very good a writing letters and getting my point over.

regards

mick

 

 

Hi Mick,

 

The ones I used are here in my thread.

But we tweaked these as things moved on and VM started introducing their own thoughts.

I will try and sort something for you-if I forget hit the red triangle or send me a pm.

Can you say when the earliest charge was ?

When was the last one ?

and have you got all your statements,or else figues to boot ?

[mickjo1]

hi martin,

thank for your reply and i appreciate your help

the earliest one was a few years ago and the last one was about 3 months ago when i told them i want them to disconnect my services i dont havr all the statements .

virgin did disconnect me but still charged me for the phone and broadband what i could not use.their have passed my account on to moorcroft dca.

regards

mick

[buzby]

"I could prove £60 was unreasonable and with my eyes shut."

 

Share the wealth then it'd pnly be sporting...

 

As noted in post #501

[echowitch]

Quick question in relation to my case today.

 

I have officially disputed the case/account. It is in a disputed state as it is in the Court process. Now surely VM should not be sending my account to DCA's to harrass me, but they are. VM's solicitor today (when I pointed this out to him) said that they can send it to DCA's.

 

Who is right ?? I want to get prepped for the next round against them. (Im taking boxing gloves - proverbially speaking - next round lol Especially as their Solicitor was docile as a kitten in front of the judge but whilst we were discussing a possible solution he was really on the offensive, which if I wasn't as confident as I am I would have probably felt very intimidated by it.

[buzby]

Nothing to prevent them instructing a DCA. I agree it is stupid, but what has logic got to do with anything? British Gas do this all the time, irrespective of pending court cases. It is actually good they do this, as you tell the judge the harassmernt continued even though you you were waiting from a proiper legal disposition. More brownie points for you.

[echowitch]

You sure ?? I could have sworn I read that they have to cease all action against the case/account if its placed in to an officially disputed state.

[buzby]

I'm not aware of anything in a civil dispute like this that would require them to cease pursuit, other than good manners. Until you can overturn their claim against you, they're not going to sit idly by.

[MARTIN3030]

You may be thinking of the OFT guidelines into debt collection.

This is concerned with transactions or accounts that fall under the Consumer Credit Act.

You should have filed draft directions in anticipation of this,its been brought up before.

As Buzby says-it does not look good that they choose to do this whilst a case is ongoing.

Maybe you should draw the DCAs attention to this-it is possible that you could cite their Codes of practice.

Who is the DCA by the way ?

[MARTIN3030]

edit-I see its Moorcoft.

 

Ok well not the most explosive of people.

I had the same-send them a letter explaining that the case is the subject of litigation,and that you think that by continuing to press you for payments,this contravenes CSA codes of practice.

Request a copy of their complaints procedure,and give them 14 days to respond.

[MARTIN3030]

Here;

 

 

http://www.csa-uk.com/media/editor/file/Code%20of%20Practice%202009.pdf

 

 

 

 

http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/business_leaflets/consumer_credit/oft664.pdf

Edited May 15, 2010 by MARTIN3030

[echowitch]

It was Moorcroft originally then they passed it on to another company. When I gave them the court case number they backed off. The most annoying part though was Moorcroft were originally told and they went and asked Virgin, who claimed that they were not being taken to court by me.

[MARTIN3030]

If you have all this in writing then its good.

Moorcroft will usually back off if they are presented with some evidence,or else told.

VM claimants need to be aware that although their legal team will appear to be looking for resolution-their collections department will say different and ignore anything you say about litigation.

This again demonstrates the need to keep everything in writing-something VM do not appear to subscribe to.

[maybelline]

ok found when I started to put some time into this, VM are the culprits who are charging me every month without fail. I have continually argued that if you are paying in advance anyway, how can you be paying late, the dates seem to move around it a bit when you talk to customer service, some say its 30 days from when the bill is issued but then whack a charge on if you dont pay witin 14, then the bill comes after the magic date they want it paid by so you dont know what they are charging you for in the first place?

 

now going to challenge the charges, have sent SAR before I beleive, no response.

[buzby]

The charge is levied when there is no payment showing for the previous invoice period, so if it is not applied in time of the next bill being printed, the charge is automatically added. Since the bills can be printed on different dates, stating you have X days to pay is misleading, whether you get charged only depends on a payment being recieved, before the following miss is printed (not posted or recieved by you).

[hadrianswall]

who do i send the SaR too ? virgin /

[MARTIN3030]

Yes the contact details are in the stickie at the top of this forum