Paid council tax and got a reminder

[livelysprite]

I pay my council tax every month on time using virgin money's "move money" function and I haven't changed anything. I paid my council tax and it says "payment successful". The payment did not show up at the council. The council don't know where it's gone and are currently looking into it. She mentioned it may have gone to a lost payment account. How on earth can it get lost? Can I complain to someone about this such as FSA? I am having to travel in person now to the council office and pay cash as I don't want to risk losing more money.

[Mr K]

Have you tried the bank ? they might be able to get it back.

Use direct debit in future? that way the council 'pull' the money to your account, and there's less risk of this.

[nomadking]

Have you checked your bank account to see if the reference used on the payment was correct? Has the council's bank account number changed?

[livelysprite]

Originally Posted by nomadking

Have you checked your bank account to see if the reference used on the payment was correct? Has the council's bank account number changed?

The reminder payment details match those on my bank account. Unless they've changed something and not told me.

---------- Post added at 16:56 ---------- Previous post was at 16:55 ----------

Originally Posted by Mr K

Have you tried the bank ? they might be able to get it back.

Use direct debit in future? that way the council 'pull' the money to your account, and there's less risk of this.

I will check that tonight. I always thought direct debit was something to avoid.

[SnoopZ]

Originally Posted by livelysprite

The reminder payment details match those on my bank account. Unless they've changed something and not told me.

---------- Post added at 16:56 ---------- Previous post was at 16:55 ----------



I will check that tonight. I always thought direct debit was something to avoid.

Why on earth would you think direct debit is something to avoid it's the most normal straight forward payment method available???

It's often cheaper to pay bills by direct debit assuming you have enough money to do so.

[livelysprite]

Originally Posted by SnoopZ

Why on earth would you think direct debit is something to avoid it's the most normal straight forward payment method available???

It's often cheaper to pay bills by direct debit assuming you have enough money to do so.

Well, car insurance auto renewal is one example.
Sometimes paying the full amount for the year is cheaper. Car road tax is more expensive if paid by direct debit.
Rent-to-own charge huge interest rates.

[Jaymoss]

Originally Posted by livelysprite

Well, car insurance auto renewal is one example.
Sometimes paying the full amount for the year is cheaper. Car road tax is more expensive if paid by direct debit.
Rent-to-own charge huge interest rates.

But then Council Tax charges no extra Neither does TV license or Energy companies and you get the DD guarantee. You have just proven why to avoid your method

[SnoopZ]

Originally Posted by livelysprite

Well, car insurance auto renewal is one example.
Sometimes paying the full amount for the year is cheaper. Car road tax is more expensive if paid by direct debit.
Rent-to-own charge huge interest rates.

I was talking about normal bills, gas, electricity, council tax, water, mobile phone, virgin media, sky, TV license and mortgage if you can afford it then it's normal to use direct debit and they don't charge extra and some are even cheaper.

I certainly don't pay my car insurance or road tax by direct debit as I pay yearly which is usually cheaper as you say.

I understand people that are strapped for cash may not want to us DD though but I'm not sure if that's you.

[Taf]

Our council let payments from me "not appear" for 10 months. Then I got a phone call asking why I wasn't paying. I knew from the guy's tone that he was being sheepish, and actually knew what was going wrong. The council had changed banks and had forgotten to tell those paying by DD.

All payments were transferred between the banks once they finally told DD users to change banks for payments.

[livelysprite]

Originally Posted by Jaymoss

But then Council Tax charges no extra Neither does TV license or Energy companies and you get the DD guarantee. You have just proven why to avoid your method

The council lists my method of payment on their reminders. You would think a bank of all things could transfer money to a council account and the council would have a record of it. How a payment gets lost is beyond me.

[livelysprite]

Originally Posted by Taf

Our council let payments from me "not appear" for 10 months. Then I got a phone call asking why I wasn't paying. I knew from the guy's tone that he was being sheepish, and actually knew what was going wrong. The council had changed banks and had forgotten to tell those paying by DD.

All payments were transferred between the banks once they finally told DD users to change banks for payments.

So they messed up and tried to blame you. That's rich. It's like when I went to glasgow SPT to get my zone card and the company I worked for sent them a letter to authorize it. When I got there they could not find the letter as the office was like a paper recycling plant and they tried to blame me saying you have tampered with your old zone card so we can't issue a new one. I stood my ground and refused to leave. After about 30 minutes and a long queue of angry looking people behind me she eventually found the letter and gave me the zone card.

[Jaymoss]

My council did that to me once when I had to appeal my Incapacity Benefit decision. I was on limited income support which gave me full housing benefit and Council tax. I won the appeal and then got backpay meaning I needed to pay some. I put the forms in but the council took over a year to sort it leaving me in debt. I went in and they wrote off a few hundred quids rent but I had the pay the CT

[livelysprite]

Yipee. They found my council tax payment. The problem was caused by Virgin Money's method of displaying mobile app payments and the council's system could not recognize it.

[SnoopZ]

Originally Posted by livelysprite

Yipee. They found my council tax payment. The problem was caused by Virgin Money's method of displaying mobile app payments and the council's system could not recognize it.

Now setup a direct debit to save money and hopefully not have this stress and hassle again, assuming you can afford it, I understand DD are not easy for people that may not have enough in the bank.

Originally Posted by livelysprite

I will check that tonight. I always thought direct debit was something to avoid.

I think you are missing a word

direct debit is something not to avoid.