me v virgin

[karen654321]

Hiya all. Recieved my statements today which was the result of my sars. I do believe there should have been some more info than statements but will deal with this.

 

Have added up all the non ddr fees and the late payment charges and they total £215.00

 

Do i now just do standard 1st letter reclaiming money back and just adjust it?

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

thanks

 

karen

[buzby]

Basically, yes - however you have to give them the opportunity to explain the charge is justified before you can move on to the reclamation phase. Point out the total costs you've incurred and ask them to confirm their costings for process your non-DD payments. When they don't, you then send them your LBA and start the ball rolling.

[karen654321]

Thanks very much buzby. I already have a letter stating there charges are in proportion to there costs but couldnt provide breakdown..

So will get on with prelim letter.

thanks once again

 

karen

[buzby]

Great. Keep us posted!

[karen654321]

I have done first letter and letter before action and not heard anything. Should i try to make contact with them again or shall i just file a mcol?

 

Any ideas for the poc on the mcol

 

thanks

 

karen

[buzby]

You did get a receipt of posting for your LBA? And you did send it to the Matrix address in Wales? If so, you are good to go - but if not, you really need some proof that your final demand letter was ignored.

[karen654321]

hiya yes and yes. Im looking through other posts as i need help with the poc on mcol.

 

any ideas?

 

thanks

 

karen

[buzby]

As I use the Scottish procedure, I can't help with Mcol as we don't use it. However, you just state the nature of your complaint, just the brief facts, what you are claiming for, and leave the rest to the court. VM will most likely settle on receipt of the court documentation.

[karen654321]

thanks very much for all your help

 

karen

[karen654321]

Help please anyone!!!!!!!!

 

I have a managing director from telewest phoning me at 6.30pm tonight to discuss the late payment fees and non ddr fees. Have just spoken to a customer care bloke who is going to put a £9 credit on to my account each month to cover the late payment charge each month nearly.

They wont budge on the previous late payment charges. I asked for a breakdown of how they came to the £10 and they told me it is to cover the phone and letter fees and as an incentive to pay on time.

 

I asked where in the contract had i signed to say that i would be paying the late payment charges of £10.00 and they told me a letter would have been sent out when virgin took over and the late payment charge came into force.

 

The thing is i sent a sar to virgin and no where in what i recieved from them was a copy of a letter stating that they would be now charging a £10.00 late payment fee.

 

I need help with putting my argument across and im not very assertive and no good at arguments lol.

 

help please

 

 

karen

[karen654321]

Oh and the non ddr fee they wont budge on either...

 

Is it the same sort of thing with the banks where they are not allowed to make profit from charges?

 

anyone help

[buzby]

Karen - Don't Panic! The charge was well promoted, but that's not the point, it was applied to your account without your express agreement. You didn;t ask for it, it was imposed. Ireland has already prohibited firms from charging different amounts depending on payment method, if it's good enough for them - then clearly it is good enough for us.

 

You have the right to control who has access to your bank account, Virgin Media has no track record to speak of - say you'll reconsider in 12 months, but only if their billing system has not created incorrect bills during the period.

[karen654321]

when i was on the phone to them earlier all the bloke kept saying was run your account in order and you wont get the charges. I dont know how to answer that really.

 

Hes made it quite clear that when this manager phones me back he will say exactly the same and will not refund these charges.

 

Am i agreeing that they should make charges just not this amount of what??

 

panicking now. half hour to go

[karen654321]

they are now ringing at 7.30. what a joke

[karen654321]

Hiya, Well call went bad. I ended up in tears through frustration at getting passed from pillar to post. I spoke to 8 different people on Friday regarding charges. I have got one late payment charge refunded but they will not refund any more

 

If i run my account in order i wouldnt get charged basically.

 

Apparantly they have no way of refunding charges. Regarding the non ddr fee they add i explained all the errors that had happened on my bill this year alone and said that if in six months there wasnt no further errors i would consider swapping to ddr but for now no way.. The man just told me tough basically.

 

I explained my situation financially and told them that the 10 per month late payment fee and the 5 per month non ddr fee is a lot of money to me.Its the equivalent of my sons dinner money for two weeks. No sympathy there.

 

I asked how much notice i have to give to cancel services with them and its 30 days. The man is going to ring me back wednesday to see what i want to do.

 

I cant find anyone that has actually started court proceedings against virgin media so dont really know what to do next.

 

Any help would be appreciated

 

karen

[ClockworkBanana]

Hi Karen,

 

First of all I would like to say that I sympathise with your plight since I am in the same situation and I thoroughly support your attempt to get these crooks to refund these charges.

 

However I think you should not panic and there is certainly no need to cry, on the contrary you should make them understand you have the upper hand.

 

I'm sending them a preliminary letter tomorrow and see how that goes. What I basically intend to do is send them a few letters (prelim asking them to explain their costs/request for refunds/LBA) stating clearly what the remedies are and then file a claim in court. I think this will cost me $60. If I lose then so be it!!

 

I know I am right (morally) so I have no fear of confronting these gangsters. Since the death of Brezhnev, there are two Mr Niets left in this world: Vladimir Putin and me!!! Nothing but a full refund will do. I'll just try to keep it simple: Refund or court. Full stop.

 

However I don't know if i'm right legally speaking... and this is why I will seek the opinion of a judge if they don't settle.

 

I'll keep you guys posted in my thread:

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/telecoms-mobile-fixed/109948-reclaiming-charge-virgin-media.html

[karen654321]

Well guess what? I didnt get the call back. I have just sent a lovely email to steve stewart who apparantly is high up in the customer concern team.

He probably wont even get to read the email but i think now i have exhausted all other option apart from court action.

 

I just dont feel confident though replying to them on the phone stating that if i pay on time i wont get these fees. Also one of the numerous people i spoke to friday said well we know you have a bank account because you pay on your bank card so why not set up a ddr.

 

I tried to explain all the errors that had happened this year alone and that was the reason i wouldnt set up a ddr. But they wasnt interested.

 

Will keep you posted if i get a response. Not really sure how long to give him to response but will see.

 

karen

[2Grumpy]

They do refund non DD fees.

 

I asked for a comparison of costs between DD & CC. When they said that DD was free to them, I told them that I didn't believe them, and that customer services were obviously involved in administering DDs, were they using non DD charges to subsidise DD paying customers. Eventually I got them refunded.

[buzby]

There is always a cost, their description of 'free' however needs to be qualified slightly - they receive the full value remitted by the customer (or in reality, taken by them). This also hold true for money paid over the counter (if they had one) or remitting by cheque. All other card payments are paid with a percentage taken off for processing by the finance house, so VM do not receive full value of the payment. HOWEVER there is a good argument that since these costs are those incurred by VM it is they who should pay the fees as a consequence of doing business.

[karen654321]

Hiya just to update i never receieved any reply from steve steward. Last Wednesday i paid my bill of £180.00. I gave the money to my sister to pay in her bank account and then i phoned using her card on the automated line. I dont have a card. On friday my sister has checked her bank and they have taken the £180.00 out twice.

I couldnt beleive it. I phoned them straight away. The man that answereds response was on well it has put your account in credit now.

They are going to refund the money but it will take 3-7 days.

 

I told the bloke this is why i dont pay by ddr. And hes answer was well you get the money back.

 

Anyway ive had no more response regarding the late payment charges and the non ddr fees so i dont know wether to move on to mcol. I cant find anyone that has actually done this. I dont know what my chances are of getting any of this back.

 

Any help would be appreciated

 

karen

[buzby]

Unfortunately paying by card is just as bad than providing a DD - with the latter you at least get a laughable 'guarantee' that can sometimes be used to enforce a repayment. With cards, they can pretty well manage to empty your account and you have to sort out the mess with them, not your bank! There is also the additional problem that they will have retained this card number, and if you are late or don't pay they'll debit the card again without giving notice.

 

You may have to go the MCOL route (as I did with SKY) but if your reason for NOT giving them DD access to your account is because of their inaccurate billing, it is very hard for them to justify their penalty charges for non DD!

[karen654321]

Hiya buzby, Im sorry i dont understand the last paragraph.

 

How did you get on with sky? What was you claiming back if you dont mind me asking was it late payment charges or non ddr fees.

 

Im still looking to see if anyone has had any luck with virgin media. I do believe its luck with them because whatever member of staff you speak to will tell you different and different reasons.

 

will keep you posted

 

karen

[buzby]

The full story is here;

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/general-consumer-issues/29691-sky-subscriber-services.html?highlight=sky+subscriber+services

 

There appears to be only one department capable of resolving these issues at VM, and they are not 'customer facing'. It is only when you get close to taking them to court, or have raised a formal action do you get on to these folk, who have the power to right all these wrongs fairly quickly!

[karen654321]

thanks for that. will have a read through now.

 

karen

[karen654321]

Right after having a really good think about this ive decided that i will start a mcol for this but i havent got a clue what to put in the poc.

 

Any help would be appreciated. Also what address do i use?

 

thanks

 

karen