Would other boardsies be pissed off about this.

useful_contacts

I have been with my tv provider the last 3 years- it shall remain nameless but i have had NOTHING but problems with them.

This month i have had to contact them 3 times with problems.

No bills from them came into us since the start of the year, i called them a million times about this and they said its a problem with their billing dept- but 3 months later still no bill , then today a bill comes in the door for 300 quid and it says it HAS to be paid By March the 25th. Now i only pay 70e a month for tv and net so that should only be 210e. I called them and they said the extra 90e was a fee for non payment of bills for 3 months, But they never sent the bloody bills out to us in the 1st place!

Then our tv and net went off for a whole week, and then it was ANOTHER week before they came out to fix the problem after they telling us they would be out within the 1st week and they had the NERVE to say they wouldnt take any money off our next bill as it wasnt their fault

And NOW our TV is gone AGAIN and has been gone since 2 o clock today, and after calling them they said its a techical fault and cos of the bank holiday it wont be sorted until next week

Is it time to change providers? What do boardsies think?

AlmightyCushion

I think this would be more suited to consumer issues or one of the cable forums.

Moved from After Hours.

LegacyUser

CHANGE!!!!

If they continue to kick up a fuss about the **** service and extra charges take them to the small claims court, costs just €9 so you cant go wrong there.

Also find out if they offer a free post service - I know of a credit card company that do who get bales of briquettes and blocks through the post from disgruntled customers because they have to pay the postage for them!

useful_contacts

asterix wrote: »

CHANGE!!!!

If they continue to kick up a fuss about the **** service and extra charges take them to the small claims court, costs just €9 so you cant go wrong there.

Also find out if they offer a free post service - I know of a credit card company that do who get bales of briquettes and blocks through the post from disgruntled customers because they have to pay the postage for them!

i have not paid the 300e yet cos i told them until they sort out my service im refusing to- and what about that extra 90e do i have a leg to stand on with that?

LegacyUser

To be honest I'd pay what I owe them - the €70 a month. I wouldn't pay the extra charges.

You should log all contact with them - hopefully you did when you rang them about the billing.

When you've paid up cancel the contract - state why and change.

As far as I know then your clear, I doubt they'll send solicitors after you for a measly €90 but if they do pay up but counter it with the small claims court. That way you wont have lost anything and have demonstrated that your the innocent party.

axer

asterix wrote: »

To be honest I'd pay what I owe them - the €70 a month. I wouldn't pay the extra charges.

You should log all contact with them - hopefully you did when you rang them about the billing.

When you've paid up cancel the contract - state why and change.

As far as I know then your clear, I doubt they'll send solicitors after you for a measly €90 but if they do pay up but counter it with the small claims court. That way you wont have lost anything and have demonstrated that your the innocent party.

+1

board om

useful_contacts wrote: »

I have been with my tv provider the last 3 years- it shall remain nameless but i have had NOTHING but problems with them.

This month i have had to contact them 3 times with problems.

No bills from them came into us since the start of the year, i called them a million times about this and they said its a problem with their billing dept- but 3 months later still no bill , then today a bill comes in the door for 300 quid and it says it HAS to be paid By March the 25th. Now i only pay 70e a month for tv and net so that should only be 210e. I called them and they said the extra 90e was a fee for non payment of bills for 3 months, But they never sent the bloody bills out to us in the 1st place!

Then our tv and net went off for a whole week, and then it was ANOTHER week before they came out to fix the problem after they telling us they would be out within the 1st week and they had the NERVE to say they wouldnt take any money off our next bill as it wasnt their fault

And NOW our TV is gone AGAIN and has been gone since 2 o clock today, and after calling them they said its a techical fault and cos of the bank holiday it wont be sorted until next week

Is it time to change providers? What do boardsies think?

dont think for one minute i am agreeing with the TV company because there isnt a single one i can think of in this country that is any use but...... you say you are with them for 3 years and the service is €70 a month? so if that is the case then it doesnt matter if the bill comes out every month, every day, or doesnt arrive at all. you know how much has to be paid each month so regardless of a piece of paper arriving in the post, you know that X amount of money is due every X amount of months and its usualy due on the X date of each month. you should have just taken the iniative and paid it when you knew it was due. it would have saved you €90.

first off i would check their terms & conditions and see of it says anything about adding an addittional charge if a bill isnt paid on time. if it doesnt state it there then call them and point this out. argue the point that you will pay the 3 months but you will not be paying the extra charge as it was never stated in the T & C's.

after paying the balance i would go looking for a new provider. they seem like a pain in the ass to deal with. even if you have to get seperate providers for TV and Net, it might still be worth it if they provide a good service and it saves you a few quid.

lastly, if possible pay by direct debit in future. saves these problems from happening.

good luck with it

Paulw

Ask for a copy (in writing) of all the data on your account with them, including billing and customer care calls, under the Data Protection Act. They are obliged to provide these details, but may charge you a small admin fee.

These calls to customer care should result in remarks entered in their system about the call - ie that you asked for bills, etc.

Tell them that you are prepared to pay for the charges you are liable for (make sure you stress you'll only pay for what you are liable for), and then inform them that you are prepared to take a case to the small claims court for over-billing and the fact they are not providing a proper service.

Hopefully that will sort them out quickly.

Sponge Bob

I hear a Chorus in my ear !

Sangre

I doubt it Paulw. She really won't get anywhere regarding not paying.

She knew the amount, she knew it wasn't getting the bill. They will have calls logged about her ringing up for them so she hadn't forgotten. I don't see why it makes any difference whether she got the bill or not. If the bill gets lost in the post can she also skips a month or two? I know it wasn't lost but she still knew how much she had to pay and when.

I won't comment on the poor service though. That alone is reason to change.

axer

board om wrote: »

dont think for one minute i am agreeing with the TV company because there isnt a single one i can think of in this country that is any use but...... you say you are with them for 3 years and the service is €70 a month? so if that is the case then it doesnt matter if the bill comes out every month, every day, or doesnt arrive at all. you know how much has to be paid each month so regardless of a piece of paper arriving in the post, you know that X amount of money is due every X amount of months and its usualy due on the X date of each month. you should have just taken the iniative and paid it when you knew it was due. it would have saved you €90.

Thats a good point. At the end of the day OP you are responsible for paying the bill. You could probably get away with just paying what you owe not including this €90 charge due to them not having sent a bill if you argue with them but at least pay what you owe.

CantGetNoSleep

Exact same thing happened to may, bill was being payed automatically by CC.

Rang CC company and they said TV Co. never sent them a new request for payment (not sure what they didn't send them exactly, cant really remember but CC said they needed this from the TV Co. to process the payment) The CC company said it happens fairly often

Anyway disconnection without any notice, looking for overdue money, reconnection fees etc. I told them to stick the box up their Gary Glitter and spin round on it.

Dodgy box is the way to go now

311

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

Anyway disconnection without any notice, looking for overdue money, reconnection fees etc. I told them to stick the box up their Gary Glitter and spin round on it.

One provider that gives good service is also the one with the worst picture quality ,so you can't win.

Del2005

board om wrote: »

dont think for one minute i am agreeing with the TV company because there isnt a single one i can think of in this country that is any use but...... you say you are with them for 3 years and the service is €70 a month? so if that is the case then it doesnt matter if the bill comes out every month, every day, or doesnt arrive at all. you know how much has to be paid each month so regardless of a piece of paper arriving in the post, you know that X amount of money is due every X amount of months and its usualy due on the X date of each month. you should have just taken the iniative and paid it when you knew it was due. it would have saved you €90.

first off i would check their terms & conditions and see of it says anything about adding an addittional charge if a bill isnt paid on time. if it doesnt state it there then call them and point this out. argue the point that you will pay the 3 months but you will not be paying the extra charge as it was never stated in the T & C's.

after paying the balance i would go looking for a new provider. they seem like a pain in the ass to deal with. even if you have to get seperate providers for TV and Net, it might still be worth it if they provide a good service and it saves you a few quid.

lastly, if possible pay by direct debit in future. saves these problems from happening.

good luck with it

If the OP had no bill whats to say the money would go into their acc? I'm assuming the OP uses' the giro at the bottom of the bill to pay, if they have no giro there is no guarentee that any money they pay to the TV company would get credited to their acc with the billing system down. I know I'd much rather owe them €210 then be trying to get €210 back from them.

Also you should never pay by DD if possible, they can increase the amount they take at any time. Setup a standing order and you control how much they get.

axer

Del2005 wrote: »

If the OP had no bill whats to say the money would go into their acc? I'm assuming the OP uses' the giro at the bottom of the bill to pay, if they have no giro there is no guarentee that any money they pay to the TV company would get credited to their acc with the billing system down. I know I'd much rather owe them €210 then be trying to get €210 back from them.

You would have receipts for monies paid so that would not be an issue.

Del2005 wrote: »

Also you should never pay by DD if possible, they can increase the amount they take at any time. Setup a standing order and you control how much they get.

I agree a standing order would be better than a direct debit.

board om

Del2005 wrote: »

If the OP had no bill whats to say the money would go into their acc? I'm assuming the OP uses' the giro at the bottom of the bill to pay, if they have no giro there is no guarentee that any money they pay to the TV company would get credited to their acc with the billing system down. I know I'd much rather owe them €210 then be trying to get €210 back from them.

Also you should never pay by DD if possible, they can increase the amount they take at any time. Setup a standing order and you control how much they get.

its all done via the accout number so even if you went to the post office with last years bill and paid €500 to that account number, once you have the receipt to prove you have paid it you are fine. your account would just be in credit by €500. getting that particular giro from that particular bill with that patrcular €70 on it makes no difference what so ever.

a standing order might make more sense alright. at least you would be guaranteed never paying more than is necessary.

useful_contacts

i pay the bill by postal order ,i dont use DD due to a problem i had with it before.They money is put away for each bill so thats not a problem- what is a problem is they said to me on the phone i wouldnt be held liable for extra charges as it was the fault of the billing dept, and now they are saying i do have to.

And i burn my bills when i pay them due to bein freaked out when a friends identity was stolen last year, so i didnt have a diff bill to go over and say "hey take x amount off this account" and the last time i went over to the PO with an account number they said it was no good to them as they needed the bill(something about a service number bla bla bla) and i honestly left it at that cos the provider said they would sort it

I have threatned to leave before and they called me and said "oh if ya stay we wil give u x amount of months free" but sure what goods that when the service is down half the time

Mossy Monk

useful_contacts wrote: »

I have been with my tv provider the last 3 years- it shall remain nameless but i have had NOTHING but problems with them.

I would say dump Chrous and get Sky if you really need to have multi channel tv.

meathstevie

I for one would be very peed off about it. What it boils down to is that you're supposed to pay for a very patchy service or a service you didn't get at all. And as for faulty equipment, if you read your contract it will most likely state that all equipment is property of the company and unless you did cause it to malfunction that also means that they are responsible for equipment faults. If they go piggy back on another network and try to blame their technical mishaps on that, not your problem either. How they get, or more applicable don't get, their signal into your home is not your problem. So my proposal would be the following : pay them exactly to the penny, by check or draft, for the days you had your tele and net connection running properly. Include a letter stating why you're doing this and also state that you no longer wish to avail of their services and that they can come and collect their stuff send this registered to the official company address. Very important : keep a copy of your letter and draft. If the official company address is different than the billing department address that's too bad for them, you can send correspondence to their official address no bother. If they send you nasty letters after that you can take it from there and argue your case. You should keep in mind that ultimatly a lot of judges take a very dim view of companies that deliver substandard services while charging full whack.

board om

meathstevie wrote: »

I for one would be very peed off about it. What it boils down to is that you're supposed to pay for a very patchy service or a service you didn't get at all. And as for faulty equipment, if you read your contract it will most likely state that all equipment is property of the company and unless you did cause it to malfunction that also means that they are responsible for equipment faults. If they go piggy back on another network and try to blame their technical mishaps on that, not your problem either. How they get, or more applicable don't get, their signal into your home is not your problem. So my proposal would be the following : pay them exactly to the penny, by check or draft, for the days you had your tele and net connection running properly. Include a letter stating why you're doing this and also state that you no longer wish to avail of their services and that they can come and collect their stuff send this registered to the official company address. Very important : keep a copy of your letter and draft. If the official company address is different than the billing department address that's too bad for them, you can send correspondence to their official address no bother. If they send you nasty letters after that you can take it from there and argue your case. You should keep in mind that ultimatly a lot of judges take a very dim view of companies that deliver substandard services while charging full whack.

yeah, that will work. good stuff.

and when the debt collecion agency comes calling, you can just tell them you arent paying it becuase your TV didnt work for a few days. in fact, ask them to add a note when they are sending your name to the Credit Bureau regarding unpaid bills that says "he didnt pay the bills, but its ok becuase his TV wasnt working for a few days"

judges dont give 2 swinging mickys about sub standard servcies. there is a system used when it comes to court called "the reasonable man". it basicaly means how would an average person of sound mind see a situation. in this atiuation "the reaonable man" would have not seen a paper bill coming in the letter box but would have known that the moeny was due so he would therefore have made other arrangements to get it paid. and regarding the sub standard service, "the reasonable man" can not expect 100% perfect service from anyone or anything. you have to allow for a margin of error in every case. when you walk into a shop, not every shop assistant will be helpful, not every item in the shop will be perfectly priced and working 100%. you could get a faulty dvd player, a faulty mobile phone, a pair of jeans might have a tear, etc. when getting digital services your broadband might have some downtime, your phone line might sometimes not work, and your TV service might go due to unforseen circumstances. that is why they cover their asses so well in the terms & conditions.

i am not saying this is fair. in an ideal world everything would work perfectly, but this is the real world, and some things suck.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

OP: presume it is NTL/Corus that you are being billed by?

Don't feel hesitant about naming them. I doubt there is anyone in the country that would have a good word to say about them. They really are a case study in bad customer service.

TheNog

If you are with the same company I was with 7 yrs ago then it is certainly time to change. I got their box and a huge pole with aerial on top of my house. They never told me about the pole. It must of been about 50 feet tall on the roof of my two storey house with 2 support wires.
Anyway about 6-7months later after numerous problems I told them to come out and take everything away due to pee poor service. An engineer came out, took one look at the pole and told me I'd have to pay an additional €70 to have it taken down. Said it wasn't up to him and I should get onto the company. called the company and had a roaring argument with a snotty woman from customer service. Finally told her to have someone round my house in two days or they will find their precious box and the pole on the side of the road. That evening the engineer was round and took it all away and at no extra cost!!!!!!

Del2005

board om wrote: »

judges dont give 2 swinging mickys about sub standard servcies. there is a system used when it comes to court called "the reasonable man". it basicaly means how would an average person of sound mind see a situation. in this atiuation "the reaonable man" would have not seen a paper bill coming in the letter box but would have known that the moeny was due so he would therefore have made other arrangements to get it paid.

The OP had called and asked about the lack of bill and was told not too worry as they wouldn't be charged as the issue was on the providers end. Then they get a bill for late payment. I think any judge who accept that the OP did what a reasonable man would have done and let them off.

board om

Del2005 wrote: »

The OP had called and asked about the lack of bill and was told not too worry as they wouldn't be charged as the issue was on the providers end. Then they get a bill for late payment. I think any judge who accept that the OP did what a reasonable man would have done and let them off.

no, the reasonable man would have paid the bill knowing that it was owed. having a piece of paper telling him it was owed shouldnt have made the slightest bit of difference to the reasonable man. he knows x amount is due on the x date of every month. so if the piece of paper that tells him that it is owed doesnt arrive in the post box then the reasonable man would still know it has to be paid and would make arrangemnts to do that by one of the many methods for paying the bill (over the phone, at post offce, dorect debit, by post, online, etc,).

in fact in all these calls made to customer care about the non existent bills, did the OP never think to offer to pay the bill over the phone with credit card or laser card? if he was already through to the customer services team then it would have taken an extra 2 minutes and would have saved a lot of hassle.

unfortunetly when working in a call centre most customer sevices reps aim goal is to get you off the phone with as little hassle and as little work for them as possible. and they will regularly tell you "eveything will be fine" knowing that the chance are by the time a problem comes to light the suctomer wont remember which custoemr service rep they were speaking to.

meathstevie

Funny the terms and conditions of these companies never tell you that they're not allowed to sell you a sub standard service. And I didn't say not to pay. I said pay for the time the service was provided correctly. And as for debt collection agencies : they're nothing more than cash collectors on behalf of who hires them. They have no more power than you or me to collect money owed.

Just trying to make the point that you should not blindly accept what a company says you owe them. No matter what's in their terms and conditions, and I accept that they are an integral part of the contract you have with them, but they also have an obligation to deliver on their side of the contract and if they don't do that or are not able to do that their terms and conditions aren't worth the paper they're written on.

axer

meathstevie wrote: »

Funny the terms and conditions of these companies never tell you that they're not allowed to sell you a sub standard service. And I didn't say not to pay. I said pay for the time the service was provided correctly. And as for debt collection agencies : they're nothing more than cash collectors on behalf of who hires them. They have no more power than you or me to collect money owed.

Just trying to make the point that you should not blindly accept what a company says you owe them. No matter what's in their terms and conditions, and I accept that they are an integral part of the contract you have with them, but they also have an obligation to deliver on their side of the contract and if they don't do that or are not able to do that their terms and conditions aren't worth the paper they're written on.

The you should cancel the contract immediately and not stay with them for over 3 years and then decide the service is crap. You could claim a refund then.

MOH

board om wrote: »

no, the reasonable man would have paid the bill knowing that it was owed. having a piece of paper telling him it was owed shouldnt have made the slightest bit of difference to the reasonable man. he knows x amount is due on the x date of every month. so if the piece of paper that tells him that it is owed doesnt arrive in the post box then the reasonable man would still know it has to be paid and would make arrangemnts to do that by one of the many methods for paying the bill (over the phone, at post offce, dorect debit, by post, online, etc,).

Most people get a lot of bills every month or two for a lot of different services. It's not reasonable to expqect someone to keep track of when their TV is due to be paid an how much its for, if the TV company can't be bothered to get their own billing system in order.

Most people wouldn't even bother ringing the TV company, the OP did, and was told they were having billing issues - which it took them 3 months to sort out. And they then have the cheek to look for a late payment fee?

There's only one party not being resonable here, and it ain't the OP.

board om

MOH wrote: »

Most people get a lot of bills every month or two for a lot of different services. It's not reasonable to expqect someone to keep track of when their TV is due to be paid an how much its for, if the TV company can't be bothered to get their own billing system in order.

Most people wouldn't even bother ringing the TV company, the OP did, and was told they were having billing issues - which it took them 3 months to sort out. And they then have the cheek to look for a late payment fee?

There's only one party not being resonable here, and it ain't the OP.

well if you were with the same company for 3 years, paying the same amount on the same date for 3 years, then it is reasonable to assume that you would know how much it was and that you would know when it was to be paid. if you couldnt figure out after that length of time how much something is and when it is to be paid, you must not be very good at managing your finances.

if the bill was paid by direct debit then you could be excused for not knowing how much the service cost as the figure wouldnt be in your head as such becuase it would be coming directly from your bank account. i couldnt tell you exactly how much my broadband costs becuase it is direct debit, i just know it is between €40 and €50 a month. BUT i do know what date it comes out of my account every month. seeing as the OP doesnt pay by direct debit that means that they are looking at the hard copy of the bill every month and then either writing a cheque, or writing down credit card / laser card number and posting back, or going to post office and paying, or calling in and paying by cc / laser, etc.

and the fact that the OP knew to call the company when they didnt recieve the bill shows that they DID know the money was due. otherwise why did the OP call the company?

so for these reasons it is reasonable to assume that the OP knew how much to pay and when to pay it.

seagull

I think your idea of what the reasonable man would do here are unreasonable. To my way of thinking, the reaonable man in this case contacts the company to ask about the bill not arriving. When they say there's an issue with the billing and they're working on it, you wait for the bill to arrive. When it still fails to arrive, you contact them again, and ask them to sort it out. Get it in writing from them that the issue lies on their side, and that they will not be applying penalties because of non-payment caused by their mistakes.

axer

seagull wrote: »

I think your idea of what the reasonable man would do here are unreasonable. To my way of thinking, the reaonable man in this case contacts the company to ask about the bill not arriving. When they say there's an issue with the billing and they're working on it, you wait for the bill to arrive. When it still fails to arrive, you contact them again, and ask them to sort it out. Get it in writing from them that the issue lies on their side, and that they will not be applying penalties because of non-payment caused by their mistakes.

I would agree with you IF and only IF the company refused to accept the payment that the OP knew was due e.g. if they said "sorry we cannot accept payment until our billing department gets the problems fixed". They already told him they were having problems sending the bills so he knew there was a problem. The OP knew how much to pay and when it was due so it is not like they just made up these figues all of a sudden.

I'd say if you contact NTL and explain the situation then you probably would get away with paying the late fee - just escalate the problem to someone who can waive the late fee.

the_syco

To the person talking about the "reasonable man"... no everyone has a credit card, and also the OP has pointed out that she cant pay via the post office a bill that she doesn't have the service number:

useful_contacts wrote: »

And i burn my bills when i pay them due to bein freaked out when a friends identity was stolen last year, so i didnt have a diff bill to go over and say "hey take x amount off this account" and the last time i went over to the PO with an account number they said it was no good to them as they needed the bill(something about a service number bla bla bla) and i honestly left it at that cos the provider said they would sort it

board om

the_syco wrote: »

To the person talking about the "reasonable man"... no everyone has a credit card, and also the OP has pointed out that she cant pay via the post office a bill that she doesn't have the service number:

you can pay in the post office with cash and with the account number. if you dont have this on an old bill then the OP could have got this during one of the 'many' calls made to customer service regarding the billing.

thats reasonable

seagull

If they're having issues with the billing system, I don't want to make a payment that may or may not get credited to my account. I'd rather wait until they've fixed their billing system, and then get everything resolved. I don't want to have to spend more time and effort persuading them that the payments have been made. The OP confirmed with the company that they were not going to apply penalties for missed payments due to the issues with their billing system.

Morgans

What you are saying essentially is that any company that provides a service and doesn't issue payment notice due to a fault of their own - in the form of an invoice for example - should expect to be recompensed when not receiving payment. Utter nonsense.

Would it not be a reasonable man's assumption that a leading player in a multi-billion euro industry could issue bills?

board om

bottom line is if you NEED to be sent a piece of paper to be told that you are supposed to pay money when you know it is owed, then you shouldnt be an account holder in the first place. when signing up for services like TV, Broadband, Telephone, etc you are accepting a resposibilty for that service. they expect you to be mature and adult enough when signing up for the service, so that if something like a bill not going out happens, that you are mature and responsible enough to pay it regardless. if you need someone to actually send you a piece of paper that says "you must pay this now" then i dont think you are responsilbe enough to have signed for the service in the first place.

the ironic thing is if their billing system had gone completely bananas and they hadnt sent out the bill for the 3 months but they also in error didnt charge for the 3 months either, i dont think you would be calling them up and saying "hey, you forgot to charge me for the last 3 months and i would like to offer to pay it". and i am not saying that the OP is dishonest in any way. tbh i dont think many people would call them and make that offer, i know i probably wouldnt. you would take it as their mistake so their loss, and would quite happily move on with a smile on your face at finally getting something back from one of these useless companies.

Morgans

That is very good board om, and i would agree with bits and pieces. But how quickly do you think the company would pay a €90 fine if after three months you rang the television service provider and said, "I would like to pay you for the three months that you havent charged me so far, given that your billing system is by your admission, faulty. However, I am going to have to charge you a €90 administrative charge as I had to ensure that I had 300 to hand in case you did demand the payment."

axer

Morgans wrote: »

That is very good board om, and i would agree with bits and pieces. But how quickly do you think the company would pay a €90 fine if after three months you rang the television service provider and said, "I would like to pay you for the three months that you havent charged me so far, given that your billing system is by your admission, faulty. However, I am going to have to charge you a €90 administrative charge as I had to ensure that I had 300 to hand in case you did demand the payment."

You cannot charge an administration fee on your debts like that considering you could have paid you debts every month. The op *knew* how much he/she owed every month. The *knew* when it was normally due. NTL did not refuse to accept the OPs money thus there was nothing stopping the OP from not paying it.

Morgans

The OP also stated that there was a deadline date before which the money needed to be paid. Was this information forwarded to the OP for the three previous months. The OP could have paid, but I dont think many would have, and had the OP been provided with a deadline date before which he/she needed to pay, then he/she doesnt have a leg to stand on.

However, in my experience, these deadline dates come with the bill.

I dont think that anyone is claiming that the OP shouldn't pay the three months that he/she owes, its the 90 fine that is the matter.

SO if the ESB bill doesnt come, given that you use electricity, you should pay an estimate each week. Just in case.

board om

Morgans wrote: »

The OP also stated that there was a deadline date before which the money needed to be paid. Was this information forwarded to the OP for the three previous months. The OP could have paid, but I dont think many would have, and had the OP been provided with a deadline date before which he/she needed to pay, then he/she doesnt have a leg to stand on.

However, in my experience, these deadline dates come with the bill.

I dont think that anyone is claiming that the OP shouldn't pay the three months that he/she owes, its the 90 fine that is the matter.

SO if the ESB bill doesnt come, given that you use electricity, you should pay an estimate each week. Just in case.

its usually the same with each bill. you get the bill on x date and then you have 21 days from that date to pay the bill.

please dont get me starrted on the ESB and their 'bill estimate'. i have got screwed on the bill estimate in nearly every place i have lived in the last 10+ years. and everytime you ask them where the figure has come from they always tell you that an the ESB guy came out and read the meter. a house i had about 8 years was unoccupided for over a year and they still claimed they had been in the hosue to read the bloody meter. all i could say was i would love to know who let you in becuase i have the only keys

Del2005

board om wrote: »

bottom line is if you NEED to be sent a piece of paper to be told that you are supposed to pay money when you know it is owed, then you shouldnt be an account holder in the first place. when signing up for services like TV, Broadband, Telephone, etc you are accepting a resposibilty for that service. they expect you to be mature and adult enough when signing up for the service, so that if something like a bill not going out happens, that you are mature and responsible enough to pay it regardless. if you need someone to actually send you a piece of paper that says "you must pay this now" then i dont think you are responsilbe enough to have signed for the service in the first place.

Thats a very bad attitude to have. If the company wants your money they can send a bill, they are providing a service and part of that service is to correctly invoice you. Do you think that the company would pay you for a service without and invoice, whats good for the goose is good for the gander.

If they don't send a bill and you ask why not then you are doing you resposible job. I wouldn't pay any comapny that told me their billing system isn't working as I'd rather fight them over a missed payment then try chasing money back from them.

the ironic thing is if their billing system had gone completely bananas and they hadnt sent out the bill for the 3 months but they also in error didnt charge for the 3 months either, i dont think you would be calling them up and saying "hey, you forgot to charge me for the last 3 months and i would like to offer to pay it". and i am not saying that the OP is dishonest in any way. tbh i dont think many people would call them and make that offer, i know i probably wouldnt. you would take it as their mistake so their loss, and would quite happily move on with a smile on your face at finally getting something back from one of these useless companies.

The OP didn't get a bill and asked why they hadn't recieved the bill so your irony isn't very ironic:) They knew there was a bill due, rang to ask, where told the billing system isn't working and wait for the bill to be sent.

board om

Del2005 wrote: »

The OP didn't get a bill and asked why they hadn't recieved the bill so your irony isn't very ironic:) They knew there was a bill due, rang to ask, where told the billing system isn't working and wait for the bill to be sent.

i am fully aware of what happened. but in my 'ironic therory' what i would have meant is say the OP had called for the missing 3 months bills and the TV company had said "no, there is no money owing on your account. all payments are up to date". would OP then argue that they do owe them money and insist on paying it? or if the 4th months bill had arrived in the post and it showed NO outstanding balance. would OP then have called and said "you seem to have made a mistake on my bill, i actually owe you 3 months bills"?

board om

Del2005 wrote: »

Thats a very bad attitude to have. If the company wants your money they can send a bill, they are providing a service and part of that service is to correctly invoice you. Do you think that the company would pay you for a service without and invoice, whats good for the goose is good for the gander.

If they don't send a bill and you ask why not then you are doing you resposible job. I wouldn't pay any comapny that told me their billing system isn't working as I'd rather fight them over a missed payment then try chasing money back from them.

if after 3 years of being with the same company and there were no previous issues on the bill, i wouldnt complain if there was only 1 billing issue in that 3 years. you are never going to get any service 100% and it is unrealistic to expect it. there has to be a margin of error allowed. and one mistake in 3 years is pretty good.

and you not paying a bill you knew was due just becuase you didnt get a piece of paper telling you to pay it says more about your character than anything. i suppose it comes down to morals and ethics at the end of the day.

id say if we took a poll we would find that the people who think the OP shouldnt bother paying the bill are the ones who regularly experience problems likes these with their TV, Broadband, Phone, providers. missing bills, direct debit mandates going missing, getting charged unneccesary charges, etc.
and the people who do think she should pay and that she should actually have been paying it all along rarley have these issues, pay their bills on time, and most likely by direct debit. i bet these people all know how much is in their bank account at any time and roughly how much their various services cost per month.

in other words responsible people versus irresposible.

MOH

board om wrote: »

bottom line is if you NEED to be sent a piece of paper to be told that you are supposed to pay money when you know it is owed, then you shouldnt be an account holder in the first place. when signing up for services like TV, Broadband, Telephone, etc you are accepting a resposibilty for that service. they expect you to be mature and adult enough when signing up for the service, so that if something like a bill not going out happens, that you are mature and responsible enough to pay it regardless. if you need someone to actually send you a piece of paper that says "you must pay this now" then i dont think you are responsilbe enough to have signed for the service in the first place.

If that's the case why do any company use time and resources to send out bills? Would they not just rely on everyone knowing when and how much they're due to pay to each provider?
In fact, the terms and conditions of one TV provider (which may well be the one we're talking about here) clearly state:
"You must pay all the Charges for which we bill you (whether you use the Services or someone else does), together with any Value Added Tax and any other taxes (atapplicable rates from time to time) which apply in relation to any Charges payable under this Agreement. You must pay your bill by the date specified in your bill."
It's up to them to bill you. Many people wouldn't have a constant monthly payment anyway, e.g. if they used pay-per-view services.

axer wrote: »

The op *knew* how much he/she owed every month. The *knew* when it was normally due. NTL did not refuse to accept the OPs money thus there was nothing stopping the OP from not paying it.

Apart from not having any old bills with account numbers on them with which to pay.

board om

MOH wrote: »

Apart from not having any old bills with account numbers on them with which to pay.

if the OP didnt know the account number then how did they call and discuss the lack of a bill?

Morgans

Well done MOH for going to the trouble of finding the terms and conditions for one TV provider. So, the consumer is being penalised for missing a date on a bill that he/she didnt receive, due a fault with the company's billing process. I noticed that a growing number of people on this forum, and maybe in society in general, are willing to take the side of the company with an phlegmatic bordering on subservient attitude. I have a theory on why this is the case, but wouldnt be too sure if it was right. But sure the big companies are only just trying to make a crust like the rest of us.

Whether or not the OP pays the penalty for this is up to him/herself, but he/she should not have been penalised.

Morgans

board om wrote: »

if the OP didnt know the account number then how did they call and discuss the lack of a bill?

It doesn't matter. If its in the terms and conditions that you pay the amount owed once you are billed, by the date stated on the bill, then that is what both you and the company signed up to. The OP has no right to be penalised.

Maybe the terms and conditions can only be referred to when the company believes it backs up their case.

Of course, this assumes that the T&C listed above are from the same TV provider of the OP. Of course, there arent that many around, so the odds are pretty high that it is.

board om

Morgans wrote: »

It doesn't matter. If its in the terms and conditions that you pay the amount owed once you are billed, by the date stated on the bill, then that is what both you and the company signed up to. The OP has no right to be penalised.

Maybe the terms and conditions can only be referred to when the company believes it backs up their case.

Of course, this assumes that the T&C listed above are from the same TV provider of the OP. Of course, there arent that many around, so the odds are pretty high that it is.

to be completly 100% honest, if this had happened to me i would be seriously be arguing that €90 additional charge with the TV company. you better believe i would be causing some serious headaches with the customer services supervisor. BUT saying that, in the back of mind i would know i really should have just paid the bloody thing and if i managed to get them to waive the €90, i would be thinking "ha ha, nice one, got away with €90". where as if it was €90 i defintly did not owe and it went on my bill in error so there was no reason for it what so ever, i would argue it the same way but my thoughts if i got it waived would be more along the lines of "the cheeky bast*rds sticking extra charges on my bill for no reason, well at least they gave at back and it is sorted now".

in other words i would kind of feel like i had got one over on them if they had waived the money in the above situation. but in a situation where the money just went on to my account in error i would feel i deserved the money back becuase it was completely their error.

Oracle

I'd pay the €70 per month for the months I received service but nothing more. Then I'd give the notice required, if any, and leave their service. I'd give notice in writing or by email, so I'd have a record, and of course note down any names of the people I deal with over the phone.

I'd suggest you look into getting a FTA (Free To Air) satellite dish and receiver, you can get hundreds of channels, including BBC and ITV for a one off fee, and no monthly rental. For a basic system it would cost about €200. Also, while you're at it, why not shop around for a cheaper internet solution?

You might be able to find a much better deal on broadband. Look on the bright side! If you get rid of your present dreadful TV provider, this could be an opportunity to shop around and save yourself some cash!