Additional charge for paying one off by card, DD setup.

[#1]

really disapointed 5 year PN customer.
i changed my DD bank details with PN earlier this month and the DD details have been showing with my new bank for at least 4 days. yet today i got a message saying payment wasnt taken but i had 14 days grace due to a credit limit, or something like that.
so i carried on using today as i had some important work going on and was going to sort the payment issue later today, but no, every time i tried to use the net i just kept getting the PN message telling me i hadnt paid. so after not been able to complete the work that had a deadline and has now cost me quite alot of money i decided to pay via CC online to stop being hounded.
now, to add to my annoyance i have been charged £1.50 extra for paying my bill. how angry am i at this moment?
so to sum up.
payment due date 15th.
customer for 5 years always paid by DD.
changed DD details this month and showing for several days at my new bank as setup.
no DD taken by PN.
service halted other than abilty to pay the 1 months balance via card even though was given 14 days grace.
charged £1.50 for paying the invoice even though DD setup in good time.
i have been very happy with PN for all my time with them but i do make alot of decisions on companies i deal with on principles althougn i wont act on this one until i get a response and i have calmed down a bit.

[#2]

...to make things appear worse, i have checked and my usual day that the DD has been leaving my account is the 21st of the month, not the 15th...so i got no access and had to pay £1.50 extra because PN have done what exactly?
i now have a feeling that the DD will leave on the 21st aswell as the manual card payment i have been forced to make.

[#3]

Hi there,
The DD leaving your account on the 21st seems right though your billing date is the 15th of the month as it has been since you signed up (the delay is down to how long it takes the DD to be taken from your account, usually between 5-7 working days).
I'm afraid it takes 14 days for a new DD to be set up, as you submitted the new instruction on the 8th I'm afraid this isn't live as yet and as such wasn't live for us to request the payment on the 15th as is normally done. That being the case as you opted to pay by credit card there is the usual £1.50 non direct debit fee to take into account but I'll drop a ticket on your account regarding that - I can assure you though that you won't be charged again for this month and your DD will be active in time to take next month's payment so you won't be charged it again.
Hope that helps explain.

[#4]

problem resolved, thank you.
i would just like to add a couple of notes.
1. message when i changed DD details said it would take "5 working days" , i make that the 14th so shouldnt have effected bill/due/pay date.
2. pop up reminding me to pay was fine but also said i had 14 days to pay aslong as i didnt hit my credit balance but once the msg popped up a 2nd time i couldnt get rid of it without paying.
all sorted now but messages that dont tally with reality can only annoy.

[#5]

Noted, thanks for the feedback - we'll do what we can but I believe the 5 day text is part of the direct debit guarantee itself in which case I don't think we'll be able to change it. I will certainly put the idea forward though.

[#6]

I don't think the plusnet direct debit system is as slick as it could be either.
I recently changed bank accounts and used the automatic switching service to transfer my direct debits. My plusnet direct debit was the only one of around 15 that did not transfer smoothly. This meant I had the inconvenience of paying by card, and the £1.50 card fee.
Depending on the payment date, every other company either transferred the direct debit on time, or took a final direct debit payment from my old account before updating the details. Only plusnet's system seemed to delete the old direct debit details immediately.
I realise that there is a warning when you change the direct debit on the plusnet website, but in my case, it was the bank that sent the request to plusnet, so I was never shown a warning. Plusnet didn't have to action the request immediately if the new direct debit couldn't be set up on time. Explanations about the 'direct debit system being completely automatic' or 'working as designed' don't really help, since the design appears flawed in this case.
I don't see what I could have done to avoid the £1.50 card fee, so I find it petty that plusnet refused to refund it, when I hadn't done anything wrong.  I do accept it's petty of me to complain about £1.50, since on the whole I am very happy with plusnet.

[#7]

Just dropped you a PM alasdair, hope that helps. Sorry about the troubles with the DD there.

[#8]

Thanks Matt, all sorted now