Disgusted At Setanta - Is this legal?

mleonard79 · 28 July 2007 at 2:23PM

Hi Everyone,

I set up a setanta subscription 2 years ago in order to watch Scottish football. At the time it was paid annually and the subscription payments were taken out of my Barclays current account from a Visa debit card in my name. I noticed that the last annual payment was the 4th of August last year and for the last two years they've just taken it automatically. As they now seem to be charging a monthly subscription fee of £9.99 though I wanted to know whether I would be charged this from here on in or if I would still be charged an annual subscription. So I phoned them up - only to be told that they couldn't discuss this account with me as it's not in my name!! :eek:

I nearly exploded. Apparently it's in my mum's name - I assume what happened is they've put it in her name as the viewing card for Sky that's attached to it is in her name but even so I made it clear this account was to be in my name and it has my bank details attached to it. I set it up, I paid for it and it's my details on the account. So why on earth have they put it in my mum's name when she's never spoken to Setanta in her life?!! The customer advisor said that he couldn't tell me that but that if I'd wanted it in my name I could have had it in my name - trying to get through to him that I did tell them to put it in my name was virtually impossible.

The really ridiculous and worrying part, however, is that he insisted that everything on the account is in my mum's name including the bank details. This had me doubting my sanity for a moment but I quickly pulled out my bank statements and I have both bank statements for Aug 05 an Aug 06 and the subscriptions clearly came out of my account so how is that possible??! I thought if a company tried to put a card payment through with the wrong name (albeit wrong first name) it would be rejected

I feel it's tantamount to fraud on their behalf.

The even better bit is that my mother left for a holiday 2 hours ago :rotfl: So I can't even get her to phone them and shout at them that it's my account. They're basically saying that they can't tell me if money (it would be over £100 if annual payment) is going to be taken out of my account next week despite the fact it's my bank account it will be taken from. I could be someone who would receive charges if my account went into overdraft but they have said they wouldn't refund any charges - as it happens there's no danger of that but that's not the point. :mad: Anyway I'm just wondering if anyone could clear up how on earth they were allowed to take money from my bank account for 2 years while asking for it in my mother's name?!!! Has anyone else had this happen to them? They'll be getting a very strongly worded letter about the utter incompetance on show as I'm fuming.:mad:

Regards

Michelle

hjb123 · 28 July 2007 at 2:33PM

I dont think the name of the person matters as I have direct debit set up in my name for the sky but my mums payment details?

The other thing you could do is ring the catalogue and pretend to be your mum and ask for the details to be put into the daughters name - I use my mums namewhen I order stuff from catalogue as its easier than having her there when I order and its in her name only but we both use it

mleonard79 · 28 July 2007 at 3:03PM

hjb123 wrote: »

I dont think the name of the person matters as I have direct debit set up in my name for the sky but my mums payment details?

The other thing you could do is ring the catalogue and pretend to be your mum and ask for the details to be put into the daughters name - I use my mums namewhen I order stuff from catalogue as its easier than having her there when I order and its in her name only but we both use it

Hi hjb123,

Thanks for the reply. I would phone them back up as my mum but I would be scared of getting the same person again :rotfl:

I'm not sure how you can have a direct debit in your name with your mum's bank details on it as a direct debit mandate form would need to have been sent to her bank wouldn't it? Do you mean that the Sky account is in your name but the payment details are in hers as that would make sense and be perfectly fine as far as I know.

My gripe is the fact they asked for a payment from my card but input her name as the account holder of the card which is blatantly not the case so it should not have been accepted - I don't think any payment with the wong name on it should be accepted legally should it

Regards

Michelle

hjb123 · 28 July 2007 at 3:11PM

Yeah with the sky account its in my name (so I can ring up if theres any problems and not have to have her there for the data protection thing) and the card that pays for it is in her name

Even if you ring up and get the same person on the phone you coudl still be your mum as you could say your daughter rang earlier and the details apparently arent in her name? Im always gettign confused for my sister or mum on the phone anyway as we sound so alike

pulliptears · 28 July 2007 at 3:19PM

Put a stop to the DD on your account until its resolved?

iceicebaby · 28 July 2007 at 3:27PM

There is no vaidation of a name to collect a payment. as long as the bank details/card no is valid thats all that is validated

mleonard79 · 28 July 2007 at 4:22PM

pulliptears wrote: »

Put a stop to the DD on your account until its resolved?

It's not a direct debit as such just a recurring payment I suppose.

There is no vaidation of a name to collect a payment. as long as the bank details/card no is valid thats all that is validated

Ah well that explains how they managed it then. I'm still furious though

Thanks for the clarification.

Regards

Michelle

mleonard79 · 7 August 2007 at 4:15PM

Hi Everyone,

Just to update - I got my mum to email them over a week ago while she was on holiday to tell them to put the account in my name immediately so I could talk to them about my own account. Unsurprisingly they didn't reply to this so when my mum came back yesterday I decided to phone them again. Before doing so though I discovered that they'd taken £180 out of my bank account that very morning :mad: They didn't send any notice of this even in my mother's name - they just took it.

It was exactly this I was worried about happening hence why i phoned them way in advance in order to prevent it! It's so infuriating. I really think it is out of order for them to charge me an annual subscription of £180 when the price now is £9.99 p/m - it is exactly the same product so what right have they got to charge so much extra for the same thing?! They're just trying to con existing customers into paying more and hoping they won't notice or won't bother to phone up and get them to change it. It's shocking really but not surprising.

Anyway I thought at least my mum's back, I can get this account put into my name and then get them to refund the £180 to my card and put me onto the £9.99 p/m deal. After spending an age on hold (on an 0870 number) I finally got through to someone and getting the account changed into my name wasn't a problem once they'd spoken to my mum but they refused to refund my money and change my account to the £9.99 price! They said that I would have to have phoned prior to the payment being taken if I'd wanted to get it swapped!!! I was almost speechless at that - I did phone way in advance to get it sorted out and they'd put the account in the wrong name and wouldn't speak to me about it! So the reply to that was "It's not our fault the account was in the wrong name and we couldn't speak to you" Whose fault is it then? Oh dear.

Anyway the upshot is I now need to write to their finance department to ask for my money back - it's utterly ridiculous and I'm even more fuming than I was in the first place :mad:

Regards

Michelle

Disgusted At Setanta - Is this legal?

Comments

Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply

🚀 Getting Started

Categories

Is this how you want to be seen?

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free