Pricewatch queries: Shocking charge for a nonexistent electric car

A reader called Jim called us from the Dublin nursing home where he lives.

"I am an old-age pensioner and I am used to checking my bank balance over the phone at least once a week," he told us. At the end of February he was alarmed to discover that €90.56 had been debited from his account by a company called Charge Now.

“I had never heard of this company, and I told the person in the bank that. I told him that the money had been taken inappropriately and I thought they would give it back to me,” he says. Quite the opposite happened: at the end of March, when he called his bank again, he was less than pleased to be told that rather than having the money returned to his account a further €86.56 cent had been taken by Charge Now.

“I had to find out who this company was,” he said. “I am not used to these sorts of things and I have no experience of the internet. I don’t really have access to email either, although I do have an iPhone.”

A bank official told him Charge Now "was something to do with BMW cars". "I never had the pleasure of owning a BMW and I don't own a car today, so I had no idea why the money was being taken from me or any idea what to do."

He went to his local Citizens’ Advice Bureau, and one of its staff tried to help. She sent an email to BMW on his behalf asking why he was being charged for something he had no knowledge of. He received and email in response – which he read on his iPhone – from a BMW employee, saying that he would have to make contact directly with Charge Master. “First I was told it was Charge Now, and then I was told it was Charge Master. It was very confusing,” he says.

He had no idea how to make contact with either Charge Now or Charge Master so he contacted his bank, Permanent TSB, again. He was told that he would have to get on to the company and the bank effectively washed its hands of the situation. “I wanted to be assured that I would get my money back and that no further payments would be deducted from my account, but that assurance was not forthcoming,” he said.

That was when he decided to make contact with us. We were able to establish that Charge Now is a “service run in co-operation with BMW”, which gives subscribers “access to over 4,000 charge points across the UK” to power up their BMW electric car. Subscribers get access to rapid chargers from only £2. There is a member log-on the Charge Now website, allowing people to track their recharges and a monthly summary of charges is sent to them by email and everything.

It seems unlikely in the extreme that a man without a car – never mind a brand new BMW – would sign up to such a service, so clearly something somewhere had gone awry.

We contacted Permanent TSB, which said: “We are very sorry to hear of this issue. We can confirm the transactions occurred as set out, and one of the managers in our customer complaints team will contact the customer directly to resolve the issue.”

An expensive legacy at Virgin Media

Ciaran Delaney was doing some financial spring cleaning for a relative and discovered that she was on a Virgin television package called Digital Max. It seemed she was paying more than the advertised rate for such an offering, so he called the company. It was described by Virgin Media staff as a "legacy package" and he was told it was the exact same as the Horizon Max package.

The only real difference is that the Digital Max package is €43.50, whereas the Horizon Max package is €35.

He asked why she was paying more for a legacy package and was told that she had never asked them to put her on the cheaper package.

“Better still is the fact that she wasn’t provided with the box to receive the services she was paying for. She hasn’t had an upgraded box since 2007. Now that I got on to them, they are couriering a box out today,” he says. She was paying about €100 more per year than she needed to. How many other people are getting shortchanged like this?”

We contacted Virgin and a spokeswoman appeared to suggest it was the customer’s fault – at least in part – that they were on a higher tariff.

This is the statement in full: “All new offers are open to existing customers to avail of. The reason the customer remains on the package highlighted is partly due to the customer not having opted in to receiving marketing information. It is entirely at the customer’s discretion to do that, but it means we could not inform them of the latest offers or promotions.

“Over the years, we have advised customers who are opted in for marketing of our best features, packages, prices and discounts. Where customers are not opted in for marketing we direct them where to obtain information that may interest them, such as our website, without directly marketing services or products. We would most definitely have different service options for the customer to avail of.”

The statement concluded: “Following contact by a caller on behalf of the customer, we will be very happy to help in any way possible.”