Plus £1.50 charge to pay by credit card

[#1]

Just to address one point guys, the majority of the complaints (principle aside for the moment) are surrounding the fact that a customer may not have enough cash to pay their bill, and so would be penalised more if they pay by DD when the payment request fails.
This is the crux of the problem, for customers who pay by card there is less focus to make sure funds are available, and as such the payment failure rate for credit cards is much much higher.
It's not about generating profit, it's about covering costs which are directly incurred from this subset of customers.

[#2]

Then perhaps instead of a £1.50 surcharge on those whose card payment has never failed you should have had a £25 surcharge for a failed payment.

[#3]

I'm fairly sure that wouldn't get past the unfair terms regulation as £25 would not be representative of the costs involved to deal with a single failed payment.
IANAL of course. But I'm sure if we had implemented a charge of £25 for failed fees the comments in this forum would be just as bad, if not much worse.

[#4]

Why not levy a charge that is representative of the costs involved in handling a failed payment?  This would be legal as it is excessive charges that are not allowed.  For all I know the relevant body might deem £1.50 per month excessive for failing to pay by direct debit.
@jelv: I did get the January email.  It was the wording of this email that I was referring to.
BTW: The direct debit guarantee does not always work.  My last bank refused to reverse one direct debit because they did not like the reason I gave.  I made a formal complaint but they did not change their decision.  I left that bank shortly after that.

[#5]

@mapletree: Santander?

[#6]

No.  It was Nationwide.

[#7]

Could be significant that the CEO of Nationwide is ex-Santander!

[#8]

Quote from: mapletree

BTW: The direct debit guarantee does not always work.  My last bank refused to reverse one direct debit because they did not like the reason I gave.  I made a formal complaint but they did not change their decision.

Well that really does fill me with confidence as I ponder changing to Direct Debit.

[#9]

To be fair I would prefer to hear what the reason was that the refund was refused as I have had no issue with the DD refund scheme. Also the company who made the error usually will pay any charges occurred because of their error.

[#10]

Money was taken erroneously from my account by direct debit.  I did have a DD set up with this company but they had no reason to take any money at that time.  The reason I gave the bank was "I don't owe this money".  This did not satisfy them and they would not reverse the payment.  I know this breaks the DD guarantee rules but they did it anyway.  Therefore I have proof that the DD guarantee does not always work.
Getting compensation for any consequent charges is a situation I would prefer to avoid since it is often difficult and time-consuming to get money out of companies.

[#11]

Presumably you showed them some sort of statement or similar from your account with the company as proof, why didn't they accept it?

[#12]

I can't believe that more people maxout on their credit cards than fail to have funds in their bank account. In all the years I've had CC (and that's a very long time) I've never maxed out. But I've been down to the last few pence in my bank account which I'm sure loads of people have specially around holidays and Christmas.
When I was in business I never once had a CC payment fail but had a lot of cheques bounce.

Quote from: Mand

This is the crux of the problem, for customers who pay by card there is less focus to make sure funds are available, and as such the payment failure rate for credit cards is much much higher. It's not about generating profit, it's about covering costs which are directly incurred from this subset of customers.

[#13]

Just as an after thought. If I get done for speeding should I ask my neighbours to pay a proportion on my fine. I've been with PlusNet for seven years and never missed a payment on two accounts I pay for by CC. Now I'm being asked to pay £1.50 a month because others fail to pay. If the £1.50 was for a failed payment fair enough but not FOR paying!

[#14]

Quote from: jelv

Presumably you showed them some sort of statement or similar from your account with the company as proof, why didn't they accept it?

They did not dispute the fact I did not owe the money but they claimed it is not a valid reason for a DD reversal!
However this was far from the worse "mistake" that they made.

[#15]

Just as another thought - Was it not the office of fair trading that stopped utility companies charging people extra who paid by pre payment meter? Maybe this is an avenue we need to look at as all customers who pay by CC are being asked to pay for those who fail to pay. Totaly wrong and unjust.