Reply To: Credit file – returned direct debit

[alex_l]

jj wrote:

I had a similar problem a couple of years ago. The difference was that my bank, NatWest, told me the payment would go through but actually blocked it. I transferred cash from savings and paid the following day, but was faced with a large interest bill that took months to sort out. Eventually, Virgin showed goodwill and refunded it – even though the problem was NatWest’s.

I don’t know if this is true for all Virgin credit cards, but mine is set up to collect the DD on the monthly credit card due date. Most card providers collect DDs several days earlier to allow time for a manual payment to be made of the DD has a problem, but Virgin doesn’t do that. If a payment is even one day late, interest is due on all payments from the original payment date. I had paid a £15,000 deposit for a car about 6 weeks earlier, so the interest payment was substantial.

The cynic in me believes that Virgin operates that policy because it’s very profitable for them when a DD is returned. If your account is like mine, you could be about to receive a large interest charge, I’m afraid.

The only good thing about my story is that nothing bad was reported to the credit reference agencies.

Yes. A stinging interest charge has now hit. Trying to raise with Virgin as to me it seems unfair they don’t notify us on the day. Not expecting much.

NorthernLass wrote:

Virgin are pretty merciless. I forgot to change my underlying card on Curve once and withdrew some cash. I was charged £12.50 immediately and daily interest. Fortunately I realised straight away and paid the whole balance off so the total charges were only about £14.

I always pay off my balance well before the DD date, it stresses me too much that they don’t take it until the final day!

I hadn’t twigged until this happened they take the payment on the due date unlike everyone else. Given this, the changes to reward flights and the iOS app only management I think I’ll be ditching it and switching to the Barclaycard avios.