to wonder why all the little billing errors that companies seem to make all seem to magically be in their favour?

[breadandbutterfly]

An example: EDF, my energy supplier, put up my direct debit by £5 per month after I'd sent them my correct meter readings proving that my actual use was far lower than the estimated use they'd previously based my bills on. I can see this is because they've made 2 separate but glaring errors on my account. I shall have to ring them up and spend pointless minutes arguing with numpties, getting increasingly frustrated, to eventually (if I'm lucky) get back my own money which they have unlawfully taken; possibly I shall have to bring in ombudsmen. I weep at the thought of it; funnily enough, although the error was made about 2 months ago, I just can't bring myself round to making that call...

The restaurant I take my kids to for a 'kids eat free' lunch 'forgets' this on the bill. I point it out, it is rectified. But if I hadn't spotted it...?

This seems to happen routinely, that little errors creep in - easy to do. But why are the errors always, strangely in their favour? Why must I endlessly face the choice of either wasting valuable time contacting companies and complaining/getting my money back (time for which I am never reimbursed), or letting pounds and pounds of hard-earned money effectively be stolen every week?

If anyone out there has had good experiences of a company that either (a) never charges wrongly or (b) makes errors only in favour of its customers, please post here.

Thanks. :)

This could be a quiet post...

I took npower to the regulator ofgem as they overcharged me hundreds of pounds over a few years.

Scottish Power owe me £700 for over payment, still waiting for the cheque! Only got it as I called them to query why dd had increased so much.

Can collect by direct debit, but a refund has to be issued by cheque.

YANBU. Supermarkets are the same. I shopped at Tesco last week and several items were marked with offers on the shelf ("2 for £2" etc) but strangely I was charged full price at the till. You would think these offers would be programmed into their tills. At it was closing time I didn't bother to go to Customer Services , but grrr....

As you say, always in their favour. It has to be deliberate ....

YANBU, and coincidentally there was an article in the Guardian on Saturday about this (supermarket bills, specifically). The errors are always in the supermarket's favour. You couldn't take them to the civil courts over it because if you can be bothered to go back and complain, they give you the money, but I think maybe there's a prosecution for fraud in this somewhere - if they were random errors, some of them would be in the customer's favour just as a matter of statistics.

This is why I won't have direct debits for electricity or gas, by the way - at least when they get it wrong I can correct it before they take my money.

There's a thread on Style & Beauty about New Look having boots on sale for £10. Evidently there was an error, and the offer was supposed to be £10 off the normal selling price of the boots, so the boots for £10 were taken down quite quickly. Those who ordered have received their boots and only been charged £10 for them, so there are mistakes made that favour the customer which are honoured by the company.

That said, I have 100s of direct debit theft/overcharging/offers not being honoured stories and only the one above that benefits the customer.

Don't get me started on Talk Talk - they tried to take money from me every month for 6 months after I cancelled my contract - I had to go to the Ombudsman to sort that one out.

Sometimes, though not often granted, the supermarkets make errors that result in a windfall for the consumer. Like this story about Tesco and their pricing error with Terry's Chocolate Oranges (apologies for the DM link).

Sadly, these errors never happen when I'm around!

With regards to utility companies and their Direct Debits, they are supposed to write to you with notice before putting up the DD. We had a letter last week telling me Southern were putting our electric DD up from £26 per month to £35. I called them and told them I was not putting my DD up as (a) they had not read the meter recently so how could they know what our usage was, and (b) we'd only been in the house 2 months so it was impossible to tell what our average was!

I agree with you. I was on a very expensive EDF tariff (locked in for one year), after having been given incorrect advice re savings (worked out much more expensive). So now I can come off that package, I called them twice, waited each time for half an hour then to be told that it was not in my interest to switch, when I insisted, the connection was broken so I am still on the very pricey tariff.

At Tesco I have numerous times been overcharged, huge palava with customer services, although finally you do get it back.

Carphone warehouse charged me for things which according to their sales information was included in the package.

You have to check literally everything, it is very very annoying that many retailers are either incompetent or just untrustworthy.

Thanks - largely depressing reading. Looks like me and the ombudsmen may be getting friendly. :(

So much for companies making their profits by great business acumen. It's by ripping off customers, pure and simple. Working on the assumption that only a small number can be bothered to complain. :(

Ooooh, don't get me started!

The other thing supermarkets do that really pisses me off is when they accidentally put the price label for the budget product in front of the premium product, in the hope that customers will think, Oh what a bargain, and grab a couple without checking.

YABU to be wonder :)

YANBU to be cross.

Why shouldn't you be cross - it is basically deception/theft.

Tesco charged me twice for £20.02p worth of diesel a couple of months ago. I only noticed when I checked my bank statement. They gave it me back no problem but bet it wouldn't have gone back into my bank unless i'd gone and spoken to the manager!

I never really bothered looking in detail at my bank statements.. I bloody do now!

Yanbu.

Our supermarket lets you take a scanner round yourself while you do the shop and then pay at the end. It's a bit of a faff but I've found several errors as I've been standing in front of the label as I've zapped the product. It can't be that difficult to update the database? Irritates me to think how many 'special' offers must have been nothing of the sort.

YANBU and it's not just little errors either. Anglian Water have made a big mistake with the way they calculate customers' bills but I was only told about this when I queried why they wanted to raise my direct debit from £29 to £36 per month! Utility companies are particularly bad at this.

I set up a mail redirection with Royal Mail from my old address to my new one. It cost about £35 for 3 months. Three weeks in we hadn't received any post via the redirection, and a large envelope arrived from the new occupiers with our mail in. No attempt had been made to redirect the mail or to contact me to say the redirection was unsuccessful. I contacted Royal Mail only to be told that I wasn't entitled to a refund for the 3 weeks because it was my fault for not contacting them sooner!

I had changed my details on 80% of correspondence and it's not unfeasible that I could've gone 3 weeks without receiving anything from the remaining 20%. Am I supposed to have a fucking crystal ball to see whether anyone has sent me any post?! That is generally the point of letters - as notification.

Sorry, not totally related. I am just aghast that they had two addresses for me, are a fucking postal company, and didn't think to contact me on either or both addresses to inform me that the redirection wasn't going ahead. Oh and they happily took my money.

Rant over.

Well NTL (now virgin) buggered up my broadband bill (before it was all together) and didn't charge me for it for over a year, it was only when it changed to virgin they noticed. :D