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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Rebecca Smithers

Less than clear on milk payments

milk bottles
New invoicing system for milk deliveries causes problems for reader. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

I have used the milk delivery service Milk & More for nine years but when they switched to a new system they set me up as an online and offline customer. Despite paying my bills by direct debit, as always, I began to receive invoices from my milkman. On the new system it was not possible to contact him to inform him I was paying online. I phoned Milk & More several times to say there was an error and each time was told it was sorted. Now I have been told my account is with a debt collector. This has been going on for three months, and they don’t seem to communicate with the milkman. Although I was reluctant at first to cancel the order it got ridiculous: they demanded different sums until I became confused and overpaid. They still owe me money but I just want the harassment to stop.

MP, Nottingham

Yet another complaint about Milk & More, whose woes we have chronicled extensively here. The company was bought by dairy giant Müller from Dairy Crest in 2015 and has a national workforce of 1,100 delivering more than 100m pints of milk in glass bottles a year.

Concern about plastic waste has led to a surge in customers and a new website, involving the migration of 150,000 online customers, has piled on the pressure.

We contacted the company, which put its hands up and said in a statement: “We would like to extend our sincere apologies to MP for the mistakes that have been made with her invoices and can confirm that there is no outstanding monies owed on her account.

“We have spoken and written to the customer to apologise and explain the cause of the problem. Our investigation has shown that due to an unforeseen technical error, a duplicate account had been created and that showed that there was money owed on the account, when there wasn’t.

“We are very sorry for all the inconvenience and recognise that this situation should never have arisen and have taken steps to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.” We urge the company to sort out these technical glitches before it loses even more customers.

Email your suggestions to money@theguardian.com or write to us at Money, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. And do you have a problem readers could solve? Let us know.

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