Moral Dilemma: Owe large sum of money

LegacyUser

Living in a rented property and looking to move in the next few weeks. Been viewing propertys already. Note, I'm looking to rent and not buy.
I'll be out of the property in 30 days, I have a few more places to view. I'm a good tenant but this is a bedsit and I'm looking to rent an apartment.

I've had broadband in my gaff for about 12 months now.
I assumed it was paid by direct debit but it seems I never paid for it all. I do get bills every month but I never read them as it's a fixed fee, around €25 for line rental and €22 for broadband.

This company sent me a letter today and said I owed over €700 and to contact accounts department to settle up.I don't know if this figure is correct, I have to work it out.
I have a lot of direct debits (gym, cinema card,etc) so I assumed I was paying every month. But it seems I've haven't so I need to pay up in one big whack!

So, I realise posters will flame me alive for even contemplating skipping without paying the bill but what happens if I don't? I am Irish btw and they have my mobile and my work email address afaik.

Victor

Its not a large sum of money. They will find you. Phone them and agree something.

Sherifu

Organise to pay over time. Someone made a f up. Was it you or them?

kraggy

You'll get a bad credit rating if you don't pay and that means next time you apply for a loan you'll likely be refused.

Sprouts

Same happened to me, If it's Irish broadband they'll keep ringing and lots of letters will be sent, after a while they'll give up and write it off, don't worry about it anyway.

Tragedy

You asked for the service, you used it, you seemed to have no problem with it and now you're asking if its ok to not pay for it?

The answer is no.

Zen 2nd

You should take better care of your money. Do you not keep an eye on how much is in your account to begin with? For all you know they could be lying to you as you can't seem to keep on your account. That's just an extreme case anyway to empathise how important it is to keep a track of your money.

If you set up a direct debit you may want to check if it was to pay 100% of the bill as you can get direct debits which would only say pay 50% of the bill.

Yeah you have to pay the bill, unless its their fault but at the moment it seems all the blame is on you since you were negligent to where your money was going, or lack thereof.

Alanstrainor

Sprouts wrote: »

Same happened to me, If it's Irish broadband they'll keep ringing and lots of letters will be sent, after a while they'll give up and write it off, don't worry about it anyway.

That's awful advice, i agree with victor, give them a ring and figure something out, it's not a huge sum of money.

LegacyUser

kraggy wrote: »

You'll get a bad credit rating if you don't pay and that means next time you apply for a loan you'll likely be refused.

Surely only financial institutions can add information about your payment history to the ICB? It that's the case, how would you get a bad credit rating?

SarahSassy

Sprouts wrote: »

Same happened to me, If it's Irish broadband they'll keep ringing and lots of letters will be sent, after a while they'll give up and write it off, don't worry about it anyway.

But will your name not be published in Stubbs Gazette?

AARRRGH

Victor wrote: »

They will find you.

Assuming he's not going to tell the current landlord where he's moving to, I don't see how they will track him down.

kraggy wrote: »

You'll get a bad credit rating if you don't pay and that means next time you apply for a loan you'll likely be refused.

Not true. No broadband companies are members of the ICB.

OP: If you can afford to pay it, pay it. Otherwise give them a ring and make some arrangement with them.

Pete67

Pay it or make some arrangement. Otherwise what they will probably do is sell the debt to a collection agency, and you really don't want one of those chasing you, applying obscene interest rates etc etc.......

Sherifu

dublindude wrote: »

Assuming he's not going to tell the current landlord where he's moving to, I don't see how they will track him down.

They have his mobile and work email.

Dave!

e700 is a large sum of money nowadays?

Miss Fluff

Didn't you post on this very topic in PI last week OP?

Gumbyman

Tragedy wrote: »

You asked for the service, you used it, you seemed to have no problem with it and now you're asking if its ok to not pay for it?

The answer is no.

Couldn't agree more. Honour your debt. How much is your word and your honour worth to you? These items should be priceless. It depends on what sort of person you are but personally it would never cross my mind to welsh on a debt.

Do the decent thing. There is no moral dilemma here. There is right and there is wrong and it should be pretty clear which is which.

AARRRGH

Sherifu wrote: »

They have his mobile and work email.

How do you know this?

Bottle_of_Smoke

Credit wrote: »

Surely only financial institutions can add information about your payment history to the ICB? It that's the case, how would you get a bad credit rating?

It'll be sold to a debt collection agency & if it goes legal it probably will affect your credit rating. I'd just pay it. ring them up all angry & tell them you should have been charged monthly. Arrange to pay it over 6 mths.

LegacyUser

OP here, on reflection I'll pay up

It was supposed to be done by direct debit but it seems they had the wrong address.
Using an example I would be house 133 on my street and they had me down as 113.
Strangely enough, there are no houses between 100-120 on the street (don't know the historical reason why??) so that house doesn't even exist!
Yes, I admit I didn't check my 24 hour banking enough and didn't check out why I wasn't charged.

However, I won't pay the money without getting a full breakdown of everything. I remember it took Eircom 9 weeks to install a landline. Not entirly their fault, they were sent to a house that doesn't exist twice. I think I was charged for those months anyway.

Hmm, I'll pay but it won't be €700.
DaveMcG, you live at home afaik, try living in the real world and it's not such a tiny sum
Miss Fluff, not me, I didn't post this before

AnonoBoy

dublindude wrote: »

How do you know this?

Read the original post.


OP - If you can't afford to pay it off in one go then ring the company and explain the situation. Tell them that there was a mix-up with the direct debit and the money was never taken. Most companies will agree to you paying them back over a period of time. Just be sure to stick to whatever you agree to with them.

Running out on 700 euro could come back to bite you in the ass at a later date.

AARRRGH

AnonoBoy wrote: »

Read the original post.

Oops, didn't concentrate on the last sentence. Apologies.

IRISH RAIL

when you apply for broadband you have to give your bank details the company then sets up the direct debit so I would say its thier fault

my advice screw them move away so what if they have your mobile number or e mail address let them ring and write if it is sold to a debt collection agency all they can do is try and find you through your work e mail address just get your job to change it simple as
no need to get all on about morals I owed aib thousands do you think they got it my name isnt on a credit list and I got a lovely loan and mortgage in fact the banks throw money at me

Lazarus2.0

IRISH RAIL wrote: »

when you apply for broadband you have to give your bank details the company then sets up the direct debit so I would say its thier fault

my advice screw them move away so what if they have your mobile number or e mail address let them ring and write if it is sold to a debt collection agency all they can do is try and find you through your work e mail address just get your job to change it simple as
no need to get all on about morals I owed aib thousands do you think they got it my name isnt on a credit list and I got a lovely loan and mortgage in fact the banks throw money at me

Get them to throw in a few full stops with your next loan .

If you can pay , do pay OP . There's a lot to be said for standing on your own two feet and you're right - it's a lot of money in the real world ...

Gordon

I think Consumer Issues is a better forum for this. I'm not sure where it should go exactly so my apologies to the mods if this is in the wrong place.

Although it may be impossible to reply without doing so but please do not give out legal advice, we can not be held liable for any advice given. OP you should see a solicitor/legal advisor about your dilemma.

pete4130

Call them, say it was a mix up and you'll agree to pay a fixed sum per month until its paid off as its the only way you can afford it. That way you are making an effort to make repayments as it wasn't entirely your fault the direct debit never went through. €10 per week would take about 1.5 years to pay off and you'd never notice the €10 per week I hope. Simple as that. Just call them and get it sorted and forget about it. It's not worth getting stressed over. Once you get it sorted you'll be wondering why you let it get to you like this!

311

Tell them your moving and make a deal with them ,it's in their best interests to get cash off you.

bmaxi

I always understood a dilemma to mean having to choose between two equally bad things. I fail to see the dilemma here.

snowey07

i think for your own sake you should agree to pay something to them

few years ago i switched phone providers, settled in full (their words) and then they sent me a bill for roaming charges that hadnt gone onto the account in time. i deceided to forget it, thinking its their problem if they forgot to charge it. BIG mistake, they sold the debt and an agency came looking for the money and threatened with the balliffs, The amount was €25!!! so i decided to pay up and not be stubborn to prove a point.

you could agree maybe to pay a small weekly repayment , im sure theyd prefer that rather than nothing at all and legally persuing you

Sherifu

dublindude wrote: »

How do you know this?

It's in the first post. I think this makes tracking the OP down fairly easy and they will almost certainly send debt collectors.

Culchie

IRISH RAIL wrote: »

when you apply for broadband you have to give your bank details the company then sets up the direct debit so I would say its thier fault

my advice screw them move away so what if they have your mobile number or e mail address let them ring and write if it is sold to a debt collection agency all they can do is try and find you through your work e mail address just get your job to change it simple as
no need to get all on about morals I owed aib thousands do you think they got it my name isnt on a credit list and I got a lovely loan and mortgage in fact the banks throw money at me

I bet your parents are very proud of you. People like you are like leeches.

eth0_

IRISH RAIL wrote: »

when you apply for broadband you have to give your bank details the company then sets up the direct debit so I would say its thier fault

my advice screw them move away so what if they have your mobile number or e mail address let them ring and write if it is sold to a debt collection agency all they can do is try and find you through your work e mail address just get your job to change it simple as
no need to get all on about morals I owed aib thousands do you think they got it my name isnt on a credit list and I got a lovely loan and mortgage in fact the banks throw money at me

Perhaps you could get a loan to go on a college course to teach you how to use punctuation?

IRISH RAIL

nah leeches like me never use commas or full stops

Victor

Behave.

alanceltic

Personally I dont see the dilemma, if the company cant get their act together on their billings and credit control well then i would welcome them to the real world and walk away.... this might seem a very simplistic and shallow attitude, the OP wasnt being careless with his money, we all live busy lives these days and an oversight like this is understandable, if i was in ur shoes and taught i could get away with it id let them go to hell

Oceana2u

Don't take advice from free-loaders, OP... their luck always runs out eventually.

Why not tell the company you'll pay 50 Euro a month and it will take a whole 14 months.... that shouldn't be a major strain on your day to day living costs.

At the end of the day it isn't really about whose fault it is. And even if the company DID slip up regarding the address aren't we all responsible for checking that our own finances are in order - why should they be out of pocket just because we're too busy to get our affairs in order.... doesn't sound like fair-play to me.

What you decide to do depends on how much value you place on your own integrity. The free-loaders like to call this "taking the moral high ground" 'cause that way they avoid facing the fact that their own integrity is in tatters.

And even from a practical perspective, if that company is like most others it will end up sellling the debt. As soon as the debt-collection process begins you start becoming liable for any additional costs incurred by the collection company (the costs of retrieving the debt from you) and so the problem will likely grow and grow. And if you stop hearing from them it doesn't necessarily mean the problem has gone away, they may have secured a judgement against you without your knowledge - something that can come back to haunt you in years to come when you go looking for finance.

Why not give yourself a break by avoiding all that unneccessary stress. If there's one lesson I've learned in life it's that sometimes money just costs too much.

Whatever you decide best of luck !

Oceana