Haha I finally got a response to my letter... after 3 MONTHS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In the meantime I got two "we're so sorry for the delay in replying but we're so busy" letters and messages on my answering machine about my letter but nothing actually mentionning ANY of the issue and strangely no "you can call me back at this number". At the general switchboard they were clueless... as always. Surreal don't you think? Imagine phoning someone with whom you're trying to solve an issue and leaving a message saying "I'm calling you about you problem... goodbye." Anyway in a nutshell it's a blank refusal to deal with any of the issues. Planning the next move which will probably be a list of charges and the threat of court action. In the meantime broadband national outages continue. 2 of them last week alone!!

Thanks for the reply Buzby I'm sending them a preliminary letter tomorrow Monday or on Tuesday depending on when I have time to go to the post office. I'll keep you posted on the progress

Hi Karen, First of all I would like to say that I sympathise with your plight since I am in the same situation and I thoroughly support your attempt to get these crooks to refund these charges. However I think you should not panic and there is certainly no need to cry, on the contrary you should make them understand you have the upper hand. I'm sending them a preliminary letter tomorrow and see how that goes. What I basically intend to do is send them a few letters (prelim asking them to explain their costs/request for refunds/LBA) stating clearly what the remedies are and then file a claim in court. I think this will cost me $60. If I lose then so be it!! I know I am right (morally) so I have no fear of confronting these gangsters. Since the death of Brezhnev, there are two Mr Niets left in this world: Vladimir Putin and me!!! Nothing but a full refund will do. I'll just try to keep it simple: Refund or court. Full stop. However I don't know if i'm right legally speaking... and this is why I will seek the opinion of a judge if they don't settle. I'll keep you guys posted in my thread: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/telecoms-mobile-fixed/109948-reclaiming-charge-virgin-media.html

Do we have a case for reclaiming charges from Virgin Media. I see a lot of people attempting it and I remember a succesful case last year from Martin against Telewest where funnily the settlement check had bounced. I am refering to both the non DD charge and the last payment charge of $10. However the sticky thread about non DD charge does not look promissing: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/telecoms-mobile-fixed-broadband/74802-penalties-not-paying-direct-3.html I would also like to point out the following: - For a year I had no idea these charges were levied since Telewest were hiding them. They never appeared on the breakdown of charges up until about a year ago, it was simply $10 added to the total. - The date by which the payment had to be in was never on the bill. How would you know you were late without this infomation? - I have been unable to pay my bill through their automated system FOR YEARS and it's infuriating. You have to go through the whole process only to be told "sorry I did not undertand that" at the last question!!! This has been going on for more than 3 years!!! This company makes it very hard to pay your bill!! - Finally last time I was disconnected, Customer Service screwed up my payment. I was told that their system were down but I could leave my payment details and it would be processed. It obviously never was processed and I ended up without Phone/TV/Internet at a time were I really needed it. I complained but not only did they ignored it, the guy on the phone was playing games with me disconnecting the line every 10 sec and finally hanging up!!! I reported this guy but they never got back to me. I think this will come as no surprise to VM customers. Their service is substandard from every angle you look at it. And of course I have all my bill going back more than 3 years to prove the above mentionned points. These charges look very much like penalty charges to me despite what Trading Standards had to say. And for those who think DD is convenient you probably never had the headache of trying to recover funds erroneously taken from your account. Once they have the money there are companies that will only offer you credits for future services unless you threaten them with court action. I simply don't understand how they can claim non DD payments cost them more to administer, they don't even bother fixing their automated payment system!!! For the last 3 years!!!!! If that's not a problem, non DD shouldn't either. Does anyone believe this will work for both charges?

Hi, Sorry for the rookie question but is this spreadsheet used for detailing charges just before issuing your claim (the sheet mentions the 8% court thing) or is it used as a schedule of charges used for the preliminary letter. Or are they designed for both ie for the preliminary letter I should change the 8% interest rate by the card's interest rate to calculate interest on the charges. Oh and one other thing. On the complex sheet why is there a 'statement balance', 'amount paid' and 'remaining balance' column? Isn't that irrelevant since the interest applies to the charges rather than the balance. I'm sure I must be missing something. Thanks.