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Originally Posted by Russ D
Oh and as for the dd guarantee - it's legally binding, anyone who thinks otherwise has obviously never tried making a valid claim on it.
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I thought I would jump in on this discussion at this point as I have actually tried to make a claim under the direct debit scheme and what the OP says is correct in my experience. Owing to the amount being taken each month being "variable" it is tantamount to "writing a blank cheque".
My circumstances were these. Back in the days when NTL was starting their "free" internet service. I was one of the "lucky" ones who was given authority to use the (as it was then) Diamond Cable connection as freely as I liked "All day and night if you wish Sir" as the lady at NTL repeatedly told me. At the end of each month my "call charges" to that one number were deleted or "credited" back to my account by the assistant to a nice lady called M Stoltz.
Obviously everything went smoothly for a few months. Up untill the PA to M Stoltz left on maternity leave, at which point M Stoltz herself took over the "credits" back to my account. A few months later, I got a bill for some £500+ in addition to my usual call charges etc. A day after that arrived (a Saturday) I received another demand from NTL explaining I had to pay an additional £274 for that month "due to excessive usage" of the telephone line. I immediatly got on the phone and called M Stoltz' department for an explanation. I didn't manage to speak to her as she was "out of the office". So I emailed her\telephoned her\left voicemail messages. Eventually I managed to contact her and she advised me she would "sort it out". I advised NTL's "Collections Department" about this, only to find the next week that nothing had been sorted out and I still had this debt. I tried to contact her the following Monday only to be eventually told that M Stoltz' department had ceased to be and that any enquiries of the type I was enquiring about had to go through Customer Services. Obviously they weren't interested and weren't exactly a great deal of help. Needless to say, I had to pay up and do it imediately otherwise NTL would cancel all my services and I would be charged again for reconnection.
I thought at the time - Ahh no need to worry, the money was taken via Direct Debit. They *Guarantee* against such things. But as the OP has found out, the DD guarantee doesn't cover payments taken as "Utilities" as these by their very nature are "Variable". Furthermore as my bank\s advised me once I have signed the "direct debit mandate" for a particular company it is "like giving that company a blank cheque".
Obviously, since this experience I have been a little more cautious as to which companies direct debit mandates I authorise. One company I shall NEVER give dd authority to again is NTL.