Direct Debits

I must pay my telephone/broadband service provider by Direct Debit, and while I am quite happy with both my telephone and broadband service, their billing leaves an awful lot to be desired. For all sorts of reasons, none of which I can fathom, all of my last 8 monthly bills have been wrong. The company have willingly admitted this, but it has brought something to light that I didn't know, and can hardly believe.
It seems the term 'Direct Debit' is a loose term which covers several different types of payments, my one being what is termed a 'Regular Payment' - regular in timing, not in amount. I had understood, wrongly, it seems that a responsibility of a company recieving a direct debit was that they would inform you beforehand what sums they were proposing to take from your bank acc, or credit card acc, so that if there was a dispute, it could be raised, and possibly rectified in time. However that isn't the case. With this particular company, once the bill is issued, it's pretty much a done deal, as they claim that any credit adjustments to a bill or account takes 10 days to process, by which time the direct debit has gone through. I checked this with the National Consumer Agency who told me that it would be covered by the Financial Regulator, who in turn advised me to contact the National Consumer Agency!
I am told by the Financial Regulator's office that there exists no legislation, regulations, or even guidelines as to how companies carry out these transactions, and that should a mistake occur, which God knows does happen, and should that mistake by the company result in Bank Charges for Overdraft fees, returned DDs, interest on a credit card acc, overlimit fees or any other charges, then it's just tough luck. The company freely admits the billing mistake and all the others, and promises, and does sort the bill out the 'next time around', in this case, the following month. For other companies this could be 2 months later, or even more, depending on their billing cycle.
I am bewildered that there is not even any semblance of protection for the customer in this.
Am I right about all this? I would appreciate any comments, information anything.
I do intend following this matter up with the National Consumer Agency and would appreciate others contacting them about this also.

Can you name the company you have having these problems with ? Not sure if it's allowed !
A colleague of mine had serious difficulties with one of these companies. In the end the only way she could get out was to actually cancel her Cr Card & get a new one. Company insisted on billing her for all sorts of charges that she hadn't been informed about & then were charging her to opt out of the service even though in fact she had never even got to use it.
They told her there had been a mistake & she would be refunded but she decided to jump the gun & cancel her card before they took any more out.
As a banker, I would never allow a DD to be charged to my Cr Card, which is what most of these companies suggest.
It's almost impossible to cancel a DD on a Cr Card, much easier if it's on a current a/c.
Good luck with your follow up. My friend just cut her losses.....

Thanks for your reply, Perplexed. The company concerned is Perlico and the reason the DD is against my credit card is to suit me, not at their suggestion, against my bank acc would suit them just the same. They freely admit their mistakes and I have a log of all calls made by me to them, numbering about 35 to date, and who I spoke to etc.
In fact, their errors on my bill have cost them to date, and not me, which is as it should be.
What amazed and amazes me is that any detrimental consequences of overcharging must be borne by the customer, until the company rectifies the matter at the end of the next billing period, and that there is nothing to even suggest to them that they do otherwise, either by regulation, or law.
Being the obsessive creature that I am, I will quickly catch any mistakes that they make and at least those will be redressed the month later. How many are not as particular in bill checking as I am? Quite a lot, I would think.
All comments would be appreciated.

fjgh15 said:

I am told by the Financial Regulator's office that there exists no legislation, regulations, or even guidelines as to how companies carry out these transactions, and that should a mistake occur, which God knows does happen, and should that mistake by the company result in Bank Charges for Overdraft fees, returned DDs, interest on a credit card acc, overlimit fees or any other charges, then it's just tough luck.

Click to expand...

Of course there are guidelines and rules and it is pathetic that IFSRA are not aware of them. The Irish Payment Services Organisation are the umbrella for these Direct Debit and Direct Debit Plus schemes.
There are two categories of Membership
• ordinary membership for those Banks which wish to act as Sponsoring Banks under and for the purposes of the Direct Debit Scheme; and
• associate membership for those Banks who wish to act as Paying Banks under and for the purposes of the Direct Debit Scheme.
The rules by which they sign up to operate to are available @

I have a direct debit set up to pay my monthly Perlico telephone and broadband but I receive my bill about 2wks prior to the money actually being taken out of my account. Just looking at my last bill. Posted out to me on 8th July 2007 advising that money will be debited from my account "on or after 22/7/07". I must say in my own experience I have had no difficulties with Perlico and I have no connection with them other than a very satisfied customer. I also had my account credited this month with 29.99 because my brother mentioned my name when he switched over to them.

I'm glad it's working out for you, Happy Girl, but do please keep checking the bills when they come in, especially if you're on a package of any kind, and be aware that by that time, it's just about impossible to rectify any mistakes made before the DD goes through. This is despite Perlico's Code of Practice stating that "We are committed to resolving your enquiry on first point of contact wherever possible. On rare occasions however if we a dealing with a particularly complex billing issue we will aim to resolve within five working days of initial contact." It has been explained to me that resolving a billing mistake doesn't mean fixing it, merely recognising it! As for the 5 working days? They explain that to issue any credit against an account takes 10 working days, and that will then be credited against the next acc. So what I would consider a resolution actually takes about 6 weeks, as the bill is indeed normally issued maybe 2 weeks prior to the DD being applied. But, sure, what do I know?
I'm oddly looking forward to monthly bill 9 of my 12 month broadband contract with them. Who knows what will happen? I still find their service pretty good, just the billing is a nightmare.
Keep the comments coming. All are welcome.

Update.
As I said in my original post, this DD (loosely called) is against my Credit Card and is more properly titled a "Regular Payment". Whereas IPSO has plenty of guidlines for their members on the timing and proccessing of Direct Debits against a C/A, there are absolutely none for "Regular Payments" and the Financial Regulator is correct about this, but IPSO are to look into this area shortly, so maybe we'll see some movement on this?
Crugers is rightly correct that under the DD scheme, if you recieve a bill stating that you owe €50 and the company takes €75, that you are entitled to go to your branch with bill in hand and demand the money there and then. If, however, the bill you recieved is wrong by €25, then that is a totally different matter, and any action you take to prevent them debiting your account could result in loss of service, you'd need to check your terms and conditions about this.
After reporting the error in the last bill to Perlico on 16th July, and them freely admitting that it was totally their mistake and putting in motion a credit to my account of the overcharge, I recieved a call from them on 3rd August (13 working days later) to say that the credit had gone through, been approved and would be applied to my account in the next bill. I don't like lending money to companies, especially out of my credit card account, but in the absence of any guidelines, regulations, or legislation on "Regular Payments" - it seems that if this is my payment option, that there is nothing I can do about the matter.
Keep checking your accounts, bills, invoices, all of them, everytime.

New Bill!!
The new bill hasn't actually had time to arrive as yet, but by checking the website and logging in several times a day, I was able to access it online before it's even been posted. The credit was applied to my account, but they also managed to charge me for July's broadband again, which I paid for last month.
After contacting them about this, I'm told that because I managed to tell them so early (before the bills were even issued) that this won't now be charged to me, and that measures are being put in place so that I don't have a 10th bill wrong in a row. Time will tell.
Keep checking those bills - everyone, everytime.
Cheers