direct debit

[#1]

hi , has anyone managed to change there billing date? i wanna change mine from the 14th to the 28th of each month as thats when I'm paid and all my bills come out. i read somewhere on this forum that it has been done, but when i emailed plusnet to change it they said it can't be done. I've never known a company not change a direct debit before.....

[#2]

I'm sorry billing dates can't be altered I'm afraid.
The main reason for this is that your billing date is duplicated across a number of systems that handle the billing for different services.

[#3]

As the details regarding the account to take payment from can be changed,  why can't the billing date be tied to the same information source.
To answer my own question,  at a guess;  no one thought about it when it was first implemented and would now require too many changes in too many places for 'the powers that be' to contemplate changing it! 

[#4]

This is an oldish thread but it seems that several others have asked this question in other threads and none has received a satisfactory answer yet. Is there any movement on Plusnet's unwillingness to have direct debit dates to suit the customer?
I have asked their call centre about this and was just told that Plusnet chooses not to be flexible and to complain via the forum- not really a customer-focussed response. There is no technical reason why Plusnet can't do this, so I wonder what the real reason is. Many other more complex companies can do this. It helps with budgeting and avoids the risk of a bounced direct debit if the date is set to the customer's pay day or just after.
I may have to close my account just so I can move the date by a few days. Clearly, this is of no concern to Plusnet and will cause me some inconvenience.
Plusnet- please comment.

[#5]

Changing billing dates is not an easy option and they have no process for proportioning out the allowances or making adjustments to the fees to cover the shortened/longer period other than a manual adjustment. It certainly is not (and shouldn't be) an option available to the normal CSC staff.

[#6]

Hi there,
I'm certain we're neither unwilling or choosing not to be flexible with regards to this (by the way I'm sorry if you were told that).
Our billing systems at present simply don't allow for it to be done (as per my previous reply here).
We have certainly taken note of the mentions of this issue in these forums and this has been under discussion internally here so I promise to keep you guys up to date if we're able to make any movement with this. Personally, I sincerely hope we can as we do understand the reasons why customer may want to be billed on a specific date.

[#7]

Plusnet should work for their customers, since we give you your profits; I do not want to be moulded to the will of Plusnet to suit their commercial convenience if it inconveniences me. Changing the DD date makes no difference to the monthly payments. If Plusnet is not happy with the first new month being longer or shorter than the others due to the movement in the DD date, just use maths to pro-rata everything. This is a one-off action and is easy.
Adam has mentioned, "a number of systems that handle the billing for different services". That's right, there's the phone-line, the phone calls and the internet. That's three. Except that I paid for my line rental for one year in advance, so that leaves two services. The internet is a fixed monthly charge, as is the bulk of the phone bill. Then there's a small variable amount of the phone bill. All of these are paid in arrears (unless I stand corrected on the fixed charges) but we're not talking about legions of services, just two, both under the same company, and we're talking about a one-off change, not variations every month.
So, what's so difficult about it? Are you really unique in this respect, compared with all the other companies I have dealt with over the years? Can you please explain precisely?

[#8]

You've forgotten usage recording, the warnings that get applied as you approach your allowance, the way VMBU is presented, resetting of the allowance, discounts that may be applied for the first x months for new users. All of these and probably a lot more have to be addressed before you could roll out a facility to let the user pick their billing date.