A Tale of Two Phones

[Buzzby]

Last October my girlfriends daughter managed to get a £450 bill for internet etc on mum's phone. Mum couldn't pay it all there & then.
She negotiated a deal with NTL £50 a week, and no service until the bill was
cleared. No problem, she was paying the £50 a week until suddenly NTL
grabbed the rest of the debt out of her bank a/c, emptying it.
With no phone service she was using her mobile. Suddenly no mobile service either, because NTL emptied her a/c the mobile debit couldn't be paid.
The final kicker was that even after NTL had grabbed her money they could
not or would not provide service because there was a fault, 2 to 3 weeks to
clear.
This is not exactly a good result for NLT, their back office systems seem as dumb as they always were. It would seem that their public statements re we are improving our customer facing systems is just another PR puff.

[Millay]

Well under the Direct De bit guarentee, she is entitletd to get her money back from NTL plus they have to pay for any charges etc she incured because of the money they took...

Originally Posted by Buzzby

Last October my girlfriends daughter managed to get a £450 bill for internet etc on mum's phone. Mum couldn't pay it all there & then.
She negotiated a deal with NTL £50 a week, and no service until the bill was
cleared. No problem, she was paying the £50 a week until suddenly NTL
grabbed the rest of the debt out of her bank a/c, emptying it.

If she had agreed to pay the debt by DD and was paying it correctly and had received no notification from NTL that they were intending to vary the agreement or the amount, then they are in breach of the Direct Debit Guarantees:

* If there is a change in the amount to be paid or the payment date, the person receiving the payment (the originator) must notify the customer in advance.

* If the originator or the bank/building society makes an error, the customer is guaranteed a full and immediate refund of the amount paid.

See http://www.financevictims.co.uk/direct-debits/ for some useful information as to what to do next including:

"If an error - by the originator or by the bank - has caused you extra expense (perhaps by causing you to go overdrawn), the bank must put you back in the position you would have been in if the mistake had not happened. Whether this cost is borne by the bank or passed on to the originator is no concern of yours."

I'd also suggest contacting your local Citizens Advice Bureau if you need any more help or info.

Best of luck!

[Buzzby]

Millay,

Nice idea. However the paying of this bill was a verbal agreement with
NTL's billing front office to pay off the bill at £50 per week.

Mum was paying off the debt every week from her debit ( or credit card ). There was no debit involved.

All is now resolved but what cock up by NTL.

[paulyoung666]

Originally Posted by Buzzby

Millay,

Nice idea. However the paying of this bill was a verbal agreement with
NTL's billing front office to pay off the bill at £50 per week.

Mum was paying off the debt every week from her debit ( or credit card ). There was no debit involved.

All is now resolved but what cock up by NTL.

so this was a whinge for the sake of it then , if there was some advice needed to help resolve this then fine , it seems to me to be ntl bashing because you can , not ntl bashing because you are asking for help