NTL caused me bank charges

[karlywarly]

I discovered this morning that NTL have tried to take a payment out of my Bank account for £67.76 which i had no notice of, no billing, nothing. This payment bounced and has now caused me £30 worth of bank charges.NTL payments dept. have said that i should have an email address set up to receive my bills, why when i am billed monthly in one package and have continued to be so since we upgraded to 10meg broadband 2 months ago. They have also said i am in credit by approx £120, how on earth can i be in credit when i pay my bills monthly by DD and only have one bill? The girl i was speaking to was very nice but very nervous too with little confidence in what she was saying. I have asked NTL for a refund on my bank charges as i know that to have them refunded by my bank i will have to start the full procedure of possible litigation for them and risk losing my bank account and having to open another account up with another bank, NTL said 'we do not refund bank charges'. Has anyone had their charges refunded and if so how please as i hopping mad with them for trying to take a payment they were not entitled to take and of course the bank charges. Thank you for taking the time to read this. If push comes to shove then i will have no choice but to cancell the DD and pay through internet banking but then i will incur extra charges for this.

If NTL have billed you incorrectly and taken your money by Direct Debit, then your bank, under the terms of the Direct Debit scheme, is liable to repay you all charges and then to pursue the matter with NTL themselves. I'd involve the bank now if I were you.

[karlywarly]

Thankyou for the reply i shall do it now.

[Mr Angry]

This raises several questions.

If you were "in credit" to the tune of £120.00 why did ntl bother raising the Direct Debit

By law NTL must afford you around fourteen days notice of their intent to debit your account. You maintain that you did not receive any prior notice and indeed the billing Dept advised you that you "should have an email address set up to receive (your) bills". From the gist of your posting this suggests that they are unsure as to whether you have or have not done so.

Given that it's rather foolhardy of them to just assume that you have received the advance notification required. In fact I'm amazed they managed to send it to you by email when they themselves can't even ascertain if you have a specific email established for that purpose.

The fact is, however, that the Direct Debit scheme in this scenario affords you little or no protection as, from what I understand from your original post, no monies were paid to NTL.

You will need to deal directly with your bank on the matter of the £30.00 charge. Firstly I would phone your bank to explain the circumstances behind this issue and ask that they refund the £30.00 as a "gesture of goodwill". If they refuse then ask if they will reconsider your request if you can provide them with adequate written proof that the error was not yours but NTL's. If they agree then ask them to write to you stating this and forward that letter, along with a covering letter, to NTL. Obviously it would be better if you already had available to you an admission of sorts from NTL. (Perhaps they could email it to you as a matter of urgency to the email address which you don't have that they supposedly sent your advance billing notification to).

If your bank refuse to budge on either count then advise them that you consider the charge to be a "penalty charge" under common law and that you are quite prepared to go to your local County Court to claim for recovery of that charge and any other such charges which they have levied against your account over the last six years. You can do this, very effectively and at very little cost, online via a site called moneyclaim.

Don't threaten it if you are not prepared to do it though. If you need any more info or advice drop me a pm.

[karlywarly]

Thank you for you post. Sorry it's taken so long to get back to you but I've had IE problems and haven't been able to post, anyway all sorted out now, hopefully. I contacted the bank who have agreed to re fund the charges seeing as it wasn't my fault so alls well there. As far as NTL go i will give them one more chance and if they do it again i will cancel the DD and pay through Internet banking, paying the extra in the log run for not using DD will be a hell of allot less stressful. I am well aware that bank charges are penalty charges and am in the process of filling litigation against another high street bank if i had to do it with this bank it would cause me no end of problems again changing everything over so i would rather not go there unless pushed, but it looks like i don't have to

[MistaP]

I've never received an email advising of direct debits.

I had to go through a lot of trouble simply to get a paper bill through the door. Twice, one for phone/tv and other for 10Mb broadband.

Their billing system is appalling and the whole system is very flakey. I've never known a company with so many billing problems.

[gavnad]

"By law NTL must afford you around fourteen days notice of their intent to debit your account. You maintain that you did not receive any prior notice and indeed the billing Dept advised you that you "should have an email address set up to receive (your) bills". From the gist of your posting this suggests that they are unsure as to whether you have or have not done so."


just 1 think id like to add....ntl are obliged to offer sufficient notice of withdrawal when you pay by DD...its not an obligatory 14 days but generally falls between 5 and 10 working days...this is specified on the DD guarantee part of the DD mandate you may have completed or is verbally given to you should you set it up over the telephone

[Toto]

I'm sorry, but I do not receive notifications on nearly 6 services that I pay using direct debit, if it was the law, then its not just ntl breaking the law.

[gavnad]

i think its dependant if the amount changes,,,,,if it remains static say for a monthly subscription there is no need to notify each month....and as you say its not law just a guidline set down by BACS for all DD originators to follow...ultimate sanction for not following would be to have their licence revoked

Originally Posted by gavnad

i think its dependant if the amount changes,,,,,if it remains static say for a monthly subscription there is no need to notify each month....and as you say its not law just a guidline set down by BACS for all DD originators to follow...ultimate sanction for not following would be to have their licence revoked

I think you are right about the fixed amount not needing notification.

If you take other services it may vary, area, by area??

Here we get a printed bill with the variable amount due for our '3 play' package, in advance of the payment being taken..

[karlywarly]

update

NTL have once again debited my account for £67.76 which they are not entitled to take. Yet again no bill . Payments debt say it will be credited back to my account with them next month. Well this isn't good enough. I have been to my bank and filed an indemnity claim for the whole amount plus cancelled both DD they set up. Right now I'm on the phone to their cancellation dept..................................

[Mr Angry]

Originally Posted by gavnad

i think its dependant if the amount changes,,,,,if it remains static say for a monthly subscription there is no need to notify each month....and as you say its not law just a guidline set down by BACS for all DD originators to follow...ultimate sanction for not following would be to have their licence revoked

It becomes subject and party to law when it forms a core element of a legal agreement or a term or condition thereof (in this case parts 6.2 & 6.4 of the NTL T&Cs which are governed by consumer contract law). The "around fourteen days" referred to earlier was being generous to NTL in that I was affording them a weekend either side of the 10 (working) days.

Karly - I hope you got this sorted. I love this "it will be credited to your account next month" malarkay from NTL. Someone ought to tell them they're not a bank and that they are not licenced to operate savings or deposit accounts.

Assuming that you are in the right on all counts then if NTL have taken real money from you which they are not due and the best they offer you is some Mickey Mouse type of credit on your account simply inform them, politely, that you consider their actions to be tantamount to theft and that unless you are refunded in full, along with any associated bank charges which you have incurred as a result of their incompetence, you will take legal action to reclaim your monies, associated charges and legal costs.

Send a letter to their Company Secretary detailing these facts and request confirmation from him, in writing, that information pertaining to these two most recent incidents has not been shared with any third party which might adversely affect your credit worthiness.

Additionally do as Chris said earlier (above). Involve your bank and demand to know what protection they are affording you in respect of NTL's incompetence.

[iSteve]

Having previously worked for a dept within NTL that dealt with direct debit issues, I can confirm the advice given above is correct:

1. Under the terms of the DD Guarantee, if any error is made either by your bank or NTL, you should file an 'indemnity claim' with the bank for a full refund. For your protection, it is up to your bank, not NTL, to initiate this, and they the bank required to do so if you advise them an error was made. Some banks will refuse and try to pass you back to NTL to sort this out - don't accept this, under the DD Guarantee it's their responsibility to process the indemnity for you. In normal circumstances the money should be back in your bank account within 48 hours or so, and the bank then reclaim the money from NTL.

2. In respect of the above, an indemnity 'refund' simply reverses the payment. If there is an underlying billing error behind why this amount was debited, you'll need to contact NTL for this to be resolved, otherwise you're back at square one.

3. Notice to you is required when the amount to be debited changes each month. If the amount is static it is enough to inform you of the amount and the monthly date it will be debited on. You must, however, be notified again should the amount change for any reason, e.g. increase in a subscription rate.

4. If you have any concerns about what's going on, cancel the DD at the bank directly. This will stop any pending DD from going through (so long as it's not due out within 24hrs). If you cancel at NTL's end, it can take a week or more for the cancellation request to get to the bank via BACS and for the bank to then process it, during which time a claim that's already 'in the system' can still go through.

The above advice is standard advice that applies to all companies, not just NTL. I know you've already know/have done some of the above but I'm just confirming this is the proper procedure, in case anyone else reading finds themselves in a similar situation.

The above comes straight from the 'BACS handbook' which NTL and the banks operate the DD system under (but obviously not word for word )

Firstly NTL do refund bank charges!! But they won't do it via the phone it has to be documented, the bank will write to you to advice you that NTL have taken the payment and it was rejected, reasons and the appropriate charge.

NTL have taken money from my account before 2 weeks after I made the payment via credit card. Don't give up faith once you have this in hand it will happen, you will get it on your bill, while some argue I want the money at the end of the day its 30.00 less that goes out of my account when the bill is due.

As for the emails there is no guarantee that this will reach you just like post, however generally with a postal run they will have a record if its been printed whereas with email they have no record, if anyone in NTL does then tell me why I never get mine!!!!!!!

[Mr Angry]

Originally Posted by xathras

Firstly NTL do refund bank charges!! But they won't do it via the phone it has to be documented, the bank will write to you to advice you that NTL have taken the payment and it was rejected, reasons and the appropriate charge.

NTL have taken money from my account before 2 weeks after I made the payment via credit card. Don't give up faith once you have this in hand it will happen, you will get it on your bill, while some argue I want the money at the end of the day its 30.00 less that goes out of my account when the bill is due.

As for the emails there is no guarantee that this will reach you just like post, however generally with a postal run they will have a record if its been printed whereas with email they have no record, if anyone in NTL does then tell me why I never get mine!!!!!!!

I've no doubt that NTL will refund bank charges, however, there is a bigger issue here.

NTL's incompetence in this regard is the stuff of legends and people really need to get their heads around this. In Karly's case she has been debited incorrectly by NTL (twice), debited by her bank (at least once) inconvenienced by having to communicate these issues to her bank and to NTL (at a cost, no doubt).

The fact is that even if Karly cancels her Direct Debit NTL will, in all probability given the abysmal state of NTLs accounts management, continue to try and make good on same - running the risk of her incurring further charges (for example a "late payment fee").

Don't ever assume that because you have "sorted" something with your bank and NTL that that is the end of the matter. Banks, and NTL, in many cases report failed payments (erroneous or not) to credit reference agencies and this can have a very detrimental effect on peoples creditworthiness.

Anyone finding themselves in Karly's position should seek assurances in writing that the error on the part of NTL (or any other company) does not adversely reflect on their credit history.