Early billing and payment taken?!

[KSEH41]

Hi all, has anyone had an issue in August of an early bill and early payment taken. My payments are due to be taken on 5th of the month, but what should be paid on 5th September has actually been taken on 30th August.

and when I logged in to check the billing dates what usually a 27th or 28th bill date, this latest one is 21st! 
This has ended up in an overdraft penalty as there is nothing in the bills account until the last day of the month (31st August) ready for Septembers bills.

[KSEH41]

@ferguson 

Ah I also thought it was a separate email about changes. 
unfortunately and probably stupidly I pay little attention to the bill email other than to see that it is a bill and not a different thing with info on it. 
moved a year of same price and same date I see little point in reviewing the bill info in detail. My fault this time. 
there does however seem little reason for such a big change. 

[KSEH41]

@Lasamarc 

Agreed! 

[KSEH41]

@ferguson 

Hi, sorry for a late reading and reply to these forum messages.

yes we do personal transfers between accounts. No an incoming bacs for this account. Also as someone else mentioned. There was no email (to me at least) or I wouldn’t have had an issue with the early bill/payment. 
nice to know that some people were aware of this happening so answers my question at least 🙂 thank you. 

[Lasamarc]

Yes a bill arrived on 22nd which was a bit of a surprise as it is not usually until the 28th. it gave no reason for the early generation only indicating the date payment was to be made.  This is my point, change with no reasonable explanation.

As you can see these dates are not the Bank Holiday weekend so we can rule out that excuse.

[ferguson]

Sorry, just to be clear, did they send you your usual bill notification email on 22 August? I am not talking about anything separate.

But leaving all that aside I broadly agree with you. That's why I have gone into My Account and moved my chosen payment date to the 8th of the month. If they manage to somehow drag that into the previous month, then I give up!

[Lasamarc]

I can understand the bank holiday disruption and change for certain payments etc. but that is a very poor excuse for generating a bill 8 days early and taking a payment 6 days prior to the agreed date. This should be on or soon after not prior to any agreement, there is little point in declaring a payment date if TalkTalk are just taking payments when it suits them.

With regard to me missing the e-mail, I can assure you I haven't missed any such message, I received the bill with the payment details but no explanation for the changes. My mailbox and junk mail are free of any such message. Just because as you say " they are obligated to send" it does not mean that the did actually send. 

Had I been notified of the reason for changes to my payments, and not just getting a bill generated early out of the blue, I would not have raised the matter through these posts.

[ferguson]

It can do. For example if I am due a payment in on the same date of every month, then I will get it early if it falls on a weekend or Bank Holiday. 

And they are obligated to send you a notification email each month, you may have simply missed it.

[Lasamarc]

Does it really matter what day of the week it is ? I didn't realise that TalkTalk's computer differentiated days or does it shut itself off at weekends ? .  I had the same billing and payment discrepancy but no warning e-mail as you suggest. 

[ferguson]

@KSEH41 

I had exactly that with the same billing and payment dates. Bear in mind that 31 August was a Saturday, so I am not sure what regular incoming payment you were expecting then? Unless it is one of your own accord of course. And TalkTalk did send an email notification on  22 August so they did give notice of the earlier payment date.

None of that excuses why they throw regular budget plans into such disarray, though.

[Gliwmaeden2]

There's been a couple of other customers posting about it this weekend, @KSEH41.

I'll flag the issue for staff attention.