NTL late payment fee scam
 

I paid a 1 Dec bill on 29th Dec, yet on my 1 Jan bill NTL added a £10 Late Payment Fee.

NTL Customer Services insists this is due to failing to meet a requirement for payment within 28 days set out int in the terms and conditions and on the bill back. I can find it nowhere in either place. NTL were likewise unable to identify the location in either place.

Have other users suffered this illegal levying of a late payment fee? Who should NTL be reported to in order to get this scam stopped?

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

The whole NTL: TW organisation recently changed their late payment approach to an immediate £10 charge - no warnings or exceptions. I'm not sure about the 28 days but the 29th does sound later than usual for a bill printed on the 1st. Our NTL: TW bill is usually generated around 24th and due around the 15th - or 3 weeks later.

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

Does it not state a pay by date on your bill?

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

Thats all well and good Paul, but what is a reasonable fee ?

This is the problem the banks are having also.

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

Which is why many people are contesting the fee in exactly the same way. Personally I think £10 is too much but then I think 28 days is a bit long to wait to pay a bill. (Just my opinion of course ;) )
Oh and to answer another part of the original post... you may want to ask Google if anyone else has been charged the same way. It's been going on since 2006

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

Appreciated :)

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

Pay the bill on time and there'll be no fee.

I can never understand why people agree to pay something by a certain date, then object to the company charging them when they don't.

Seems simple to me. There are substantial costs involved in chasing and processing late payments. The alternative to late payment charges is spreading this cost across ALL customers. I personally object to the idea that I should subsidise late payers. So I like it the way it is.

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

Can I ask, if you don't mind, was there a charge for payment by non direct debit methods included in the breakdown of your bill?

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

> the 29th does sound later than usual for a bill printed on the 1st

"Later than usual" is not grounds for a penalty charge.

---------- Post added at 22:10 ---------- Previous post was at 22:10 ----------

No. Does it on yours?

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

No date on ours because we only have broadband with them now and it's an email notification.

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

> Pasy the bill on time and there'll be no fee.

And what is "on time", pray?

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

Before the due date... ?

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

Yes - £4. That is not in dispute, and I do not understand why some hereaouts call that a penalty and unenforceable.

---------- Post added at 22:31 ---------- Previous post was at 22:19 ----------

It says "payment is due immediately".

If you have a bank account with a time machine that will allow you to pay before this date, please do tell us where to get one!

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

No need to be balshy. I don't pay the NTL bill in this house but I'm sure there must be a "cut-off date" there generally is with most billing.

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

So it doesn't say "feel free to wait 28 days before paying the monies owed to us" ? NTL are asking you to pay your bill as soon as you receive the paper bill so that no mis-haps can occur that may cause you to incur a penalty.

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

> I don't pay the NTL bill in this house but I'm sure
> there must be a "cut-off date"

I think you are mistaken.

But do please check your bill and tell us if you find one.

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

Thanks for clarifying that, much appreciated.

Assuming you pay / have paid the charge.

Your next step is to challenge the legality of the charge. Simply state that the fee, as described in their own literature and terminology as a "late payment fee", constitutes a "penalty charge" and that you are aware that under existing consumer contract law such charges are unenforcable unless the charging party can quantify the fee levied.

Invite them to provide you with a breakdown detailing the costs they have incurred, specifically in respect of the human intervention involved, in respect of this so called fee and advise them that if they refuse to do so you are quite prepared to exercise your rights and will seek restitution through the courts - for which you will seek reimbursement of your legal costs.

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

> NTL are asking you to pay your bill as soon as you receive
> the paper bill so that no mis-haps can occur that may
> cause you to incur a penalty.

The penalty that that have no right to charge anyway?

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

Dont know if i`m right with this or not,been a few months since i`ve been with ntl,but i thought you had to pay for at least some of your services in advance?maybe i`m wrong,i am getting old and i`ve been known to be wrong before :),but if not, how can it be a late payment charge if your paying in advance?

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

An old old argument that's completely wrong I'm afraid.

It's the BILL that is late. For all it matters legally, the services could relate to 12 months time.

As an example, if you take out a 12 month subscription to a magazine, you can't withhold payments on the grounds that you haven't yet received all the magazines.

An ntl bill is technically an invoice due under the terms and conditions the customer agreed to when they joined. Any customer who does not accept those terms and conditions should cancel their services, rather than try and get them changed to suit themselves.

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

The semantics of the billing cycle are irrelevant. The legal stand point is, as you pointed out, the terms and conditions the customer agreed to when they joined. Those terms and conditions are governed by consumer contract law which states that penalty fees, specifically late payment penalty fees, are unenforcable.

There is a very distinct difference between exercising ones right as a consumer who is party to contract law and trying to trying to change the terms of a contract to suit oneself.

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

Well the only other way they can enforce the payment of bills would then be suspension of services. Would you prefer that to happen instead?
Oh and please use the quote buttons as it makes it easier to understand the flow of the thread.

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

chrisjj, you say you paid the bill on the 29th December 2006 - may I ask how you paid.

If you paid by cheque in the post, as it was the last working day of 2006, NTL probably did not have receive the cheque until the 3rd/5th January (Wednesday/Friday), depending if you sent it 1st/2nd class. On the back of my NTL bill, it states "please allow 5 working days for your cheque to be credited", which takes it up to 10th/12th January, for a bill you received on the 1st December.

Did the January bill have your payment on it?

btw, you may find this link useful - same thing with Telewest Linky

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

About as useful as the search link I posted last night ;)http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...24&postcount=5

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

Sorry, Paul - didn't click through on the Google linky <my bad>

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

However the company does have the legal right to charge a fee to cover its costs in enforcing the payment of the bill, and these costs must be reasonable. You'll notice the credit card companies have started using £12 as a ballpark figure after the recent rulings, therefore it's a fair bet that £10 would be equally deemed reasonable to cover the increased costs involved in chasing a debt.

Having said that, as has already been pointed out, if the charges DO turn out to be illegal, there is only one alternative...doing what the credit card companies do and printing a "payment must be RECEIVED by" date on the bill, which would be 14 days after the bill date (it did used to appear on them at one time). If payment is not RECEIVED and CLEARED by that time - the services go off, no warnings, no negotiation, and will NOT be reinstated until the money is received.

THAT would be 100% legal and if these companies' hand is forced, that is what we'll get.

At the end of the day, people should pay the damned bill and stop trying to take the mickey. If they can't afford to pay, then cancel the services. Late payments simply put up MY bill, which I object to! Why should I subsidise loafers and shirkers?

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

Enforcing the payment of a bill is entirely different from awaiting payment of a bill. Should a company elect to engage a third party to enforce the payment of a bill then they are within their rights to pass the associated cost to the debtor.

The £12.00 is not "deemed reasonable" in law - nor was it a ruling. It is simply the opinion of the OFT who mooted it as a threshold charge. The OFT further go on to state that "a court will certainly not consider that a default fee is fair just because it is below the threshold."

Of all the banks and credit card companies who have been challenged on this matter not one has felt confident enough to offer a settlent based on deductions made for "a reasonable" £12.00 per charge. That, in conjunction with the aforementioned legal reference made by the OFT, tells us something.

That would certainly be a much more logical procedure to follow. However, based on consumer ignorance as far as their rights go, NTL are quite happy to continue charging and banking monies accrued on the basis of an illegal "Late payment fee".

I say "illegal" because until such time as NTL provide a factual breakdown of the costs they maintain late payment cost them to administer we can only assume they have something to hide. I mean to say, if someone at NTL has actually sat down and figured out that it cost them £10.00 (exactly, strangely enough) for each late payment then why don't they just agree to have that breakdown scrutinized in a court of law the next time someone threatens them with court action? Perhaps that's just a bit too logical for NTL?

Your issue at the end of the day is with NTL, not late payers. As you yourself have pointed out above there is an easy remedy to this - no payment, no services. It would appear, however, that the prospect of making a legally dubious ten pounds extra from late payers is more important to NTL than providing you or me with value for money.

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

It's not always by choice that someone makes a late payment you know. After I was made redundant from my last job, it took me 3 months to find another one. But this new job was now paid monthly on the 25th of every month, which made me unable to pay my ntl bill at the correct time, and I had several late payment fees. I phoned ntl up to ask them if they would change my bill date, but they said no. When we moved house, and had the services transfered, the bill date changed and now it's just after I get paid which is perfect for me.

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

I was charged a £10 late payment fee in January and I pay by Direct Debit !! :rolleyes: There was no problem with my bank, the payment went through ok. Can only assume it was to do with the change of billing dates/systems in January, but thats hardly my fault. Queried it with them, after a long pause, they said I'd be credited next month (they didn't sound too confident about it though - I'll wait and see....). Shouldn't think its a 'scam', more likely the usual shambles/incompetency from NTL.

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

Whilst I fully sympathise, and I don't mean to sound harsh, however, none of this is ntl's problem and if you can't pay the bill you can't have the services.

I don't wish to sound unsympathetic in any way, but it does no harm to remember that companies generally aren't interested in this sort of thing - they just want the money. That's the way it is.
They can't change your billing/collection date then charge you a late payment fee. Make sure you push this as hard as you can, you've been shabbily treated and ripped off. What's more, you also need to check they haven't recorded this "late payment" on your credit file. When I worked there, this was automatic. Well worth a check.

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

I didn't say I couldn't pay, I couldn't quite get the payment to them on time. Which is why I asked to change the bill date. How hard is it for them to do that?

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

I'm sdurprised nobody's noticed that Virgin's bill is usually dated one WEEK before I actually received it! (Usual billing date is 14th, invoice received 21st or 22nd). Despite my payment showing on the next month's bill as being received, a £10 late payment charge is appled. I've no intention of paying - of course - however have they stated anywhere what amount of time customers are permitted to pay without penalty? I've not seen this declared anywhere.

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

It has to be generated by the IT system, then printed, and then posted to you - that is why there is a difference between bill date and date received.

My bill is dated 28th of the month, I tend to receive it the first week of the following month, and the DD is taken out on the 12th of that month.

hth

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

The Ball park figures for the ex-ntl side of things usually work out as being, bill is printed on the 1st of the month (for instance) can take up to 10 days to be recieved by the customer, usually anywhere between 5-7 days are then give before payment is due.

So that would be 16/17 days after the bill is printed that payment is required. Anything later than that is considered a late payment.

However, because the 'Late Payment Fee' is not applied till the 28/30th day after the bill is printed, there is even a bit of extra time built into the system in case there are any problems with getting the bill or paying.

Non-Payment Restrictions are usually not done on accounts until there is an outstanding amount that has rolled over to the next billing cycle (but is does depend on the circumstances/credit limit)

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

It is perfectly fair to charge late payment fees, if the bill asks you to pay immediately it seems common sense to pay as soon as you can as you then owe money. 28 days is quite a long time to leave a bill for. Direct debit would reduce your admin fees and save any late payment charges, its the only way I remember to pay mine!

Re: NTL late payment fee scam
 

My understanding is that the latepayment charge is applied when the next bill is printed. as Virgin work on a 30 day billing cycle depending how you paid i'm guessing the payment hadn't been recived by them when they printed the the next bill