Wrongly charged DD - refund?

[I-S]

Does anyone know the legal position here?

I have landline and broadband with Vodafone. Recently I had an intermittent fault, and arranged to have a BT engineer come out to fix it. I was told I would be called to confirm when they would be coming.

A few days later I come home to find a card left by the BT engineer - I hadn't been notified he was coming. I arranged a new date, and the engineer came at the agreed time and fixed the fault.

My next bill appeared... £194! I phoned up to find out what was going on, and I have been charged £85 for each engineer call out.

After much wrangling, they have agreed that they should not have charged me that money. £170 due back to me.

"It will be credited to your account immediately sir".

This is no good to me - I require that money to pay my credit card bill, having run my finances tightly - I will now have to plunder a savings account. My demand for a refund got nowhere - they have said they can not do anything other than credit my account.

I put to them that if I were to close my account then they would have to pay me the money anyway - they don't even respond to that.

What is the legal position? How on earth can they refuse to give me back my own money?

[AlanDITD]

Does anyone know the legal position here?

I have landline and broadband with Vodafone. Recently I had an intermittent fault, and arranged to have a BT engineer come out to fix it. I was told I would be called to confirm when they would be coming.

A few days later I come home to find a card left by the BT engineer - I hadn't been notified he was coming. I arranged a new date, and the engineer came at the agreed time and fixed the fault.

My next bill appeared... £194! I phoned up to find out what was going on, and I have been charged £85 for each engineer call out.

After much wrangling, they have agreed that they should not have charged me that money. £170 due back to me.

"It will be credited to your account immediately sir".

This is no good to me - I require that money to pay my credit card bill, having run my finances tightly - I will now have to plunder a savings account. My demand for a refund got nowhere - they have said they can not do anything other than credit my account.

I put to them that if I were to close my account then they would have to pay me the money anyway - they don't even respond to that.

What is the legal position? How on earth can they refuse to give me back my own money?

To be fair mate there talking bollocks, when i worked for CPW and talk talk they issued rufunds all the time via cheque for errors like this.

Contact Ofcom directly and explain the situation.

[Spirit]

I would say you are also covered by the direct debit guarantee:

The direct debit guarantee applies to all banks and building societies taking part in the direct debit scheme. It says that:

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.

Customers can cancel a direct debit at any time by writing to their bank or building society.

I would contact your bank immediately and demand a refund, which they should do, and then they should chase Vodafone.

[miller]

Issac, your bank should help you out here. speaking from experience here! Two years ago EDF took £600 out of my account after my gas meter was read in m3 when it should have been cubic feet or vice versa.

My bank got the money back straightaway. EDF couldnt see anything wrong in what they did, plus it took them the best part of a year to figure out their mistake.

[I-S]

I have now spoken to the bank, who say that Vodafone would have to start the procedure to return the money through DD.

This is why if I can do otherwise, I refuse to pay for things through DD...

[Spirit]

I have now spoken to the bank, who say that Vodafone would have to start the procedure to return the money through DD.


I am 95% sure that is incorrect Isaac, and the person you spoke to at the bank does not understand the guarantee. Your bank has to refund the money and then sort it out with Vodafone. If they kick up a fuss then demand to speak to a manager and threaten to take it to the Banking Ombudsman. It's the whole point of the guarantee that you should be able to get a refund instantly in such circumstances.

[Spirit]

Just to confirm the above, take a look here:

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/27/27-directdebit-guarantee.htm

The important passage is:

"Here are some of the things firms have told customers (incorrectly) when problems have arisen:

‘We don’t operate the direct debit guarantee.’

‘You’ll have to contact the originating company for a refund.’

‘We need a month’s notice to cancel a direct debit.’

‘The guarantee doesn’t apply – because you haven’t suffered a loss.’ "

[I-S]

So, to update then.

Based on Spirit's posts above, at lunchtime today I went into my local branch where they were more helpful, and have started the indemnity claim process.

This afternoon, a representative of vodafone responded to a similar thread that I put on another forum. I wonder where this will lead... http://www.zerogain.com/forum/showthread.php?t=23616

[I-S]

So, to finish this off... (hopefully!).

I spoke to Kirsty the day after she posted on the other forum thread, and she suggested that I make the DD indemnity claim for the full £194, and she would sort things out such that I received the month's broadband and phone for free, for the inconvenience.

So, I did that and within a couple of days the bank had given me the money back. However, Kirsty works for vodafone mobile, and was thus unable to credit my landline account - instead she credited the same amount to my mobile account, and I had to sort out the month's payment to vodafoneathome.

So, I rang up to do that and the payment got declined (it later turned out that they'd entered the expiry in wrong). I tried to check things with the bank, and got confused messages from the bank, and so tried to go to the branch - the queue was out the door so I gave up for that day and would try again the next day.

The next day, my bank account showed a £170 credit - Vodafoneathome had refunded the money. This was exactly what I had asked for and exactly what they told me they would not do! So now I had it back twice...

I phoned them up once again, and was told that a senior manager had looked at the case and decided that it was "ridiculous" for them to hang onto that amount of money. Funny really, since that's exactly what I'd told them more than a week earlier. I pointed out that they had said they weren't going to refund it and hence the DD indemnity that I had gone through and told them that they should have spoken to me about this before refunding it. They did not disagree...

I paid (once again!) the balance in order to restore everything to where it should be. This SHOULD be the last of it... however, they seem to have significant capacity for screwing it up, so I don't live in hope.

In summary, it seems vodafone mobile are more on the ball than vodafoneathome. When I have a little more time on my hands then I will consider what to do next...

[Spirit]

Glad you got somewhere with it in the end Isaac

Hate it when people don't know the :rulez: