Recurring Payments Warning! discussion

mumofteens45

im hopping mad,a foreign company from new zealand is taking money from my account 2 payments in the last 2 days,i had a free trial period over a month ago,and now seems they are taking payment for it,i have emailed them numourus times and get email failure,i cant contact them,can i stop them taking my money.:mad:

System

mumofteens45 wrote: »

im hopping mad,a foreign company from new zealand is taking money from my account 2 payments in the last 2 days,i had a free trial period over a month ago,and now seems they are taking payment for it,i have emailed them numourus times and get email failure,i cant contact them,can i stop them taking my money.:mad:

Have you read the MSE article that is mentioned in post #1 of this thread ?

MSE article : http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/recurring-payments

Read the answer to the question near the end of the article : "How do I cancel a Recurring Payment?"

muktavati

This is a very sneaky device which is often operated by overseas companies who prove difficult, if not impossible, to contact and resolve the issue.
I have nearly been caught out once ( realised, in time, what was afoot and never completed) but have been horrified by the stories of those who have lost significant amounts of money through this unfair practice.
Credit card providers operate a very dilatory procedure on so-called disputed transactions.
If it involved a large amount I would suggest considering changing yor bank so they have no money to pay out on your behalf.
I do not know whether the companies concerned would have any legal redress. It could be argued that the payment authority only had force in respect of the particular credit or debit card that was used at the start of the contract. And now that card was no longer in existence the company had not managed to get a refreshed mandate so they had no legitimate claim.
Just a thought - what do others think?

Pennyh17

Not done this before so am a bit unsure if I am in the right place.

But I have inadvertantly set up a recurring payment with a diet supplement company, posted from USA.
Is the info on this subject still relevant or have things changed since 2009.
I have written to them, recorded delivery and am hoping for a response but if they don't respond what can I do??
Anyone able to advise positively, would be in my heart forever.

Pennyh17

Not done this before so am a bit unsure if I am in the right place.

But I have inadvertantly set up a recurring payment with a diet supplement company, posted from USA.
Is the info on this subject still relevant or have things changed since 2009.
I have written to them, recorded delivery and am hoping for a response but if they don't respond what can I do??
Anyone able to advise positively, would be in my heart forever.

Kay.Samuels

Glad to see this issue raised in the weekly email. I had this recently with weight watchers, cancelled with them and got an acknowledgement via email, checked through my direct debits to cancel, etc. A month later out came the payment on my card!

Luckily for me they refunded and removed my card details but I was shocked they were allowed to just do this and in future will be very wary of giving out card details. In this case when I had joined WW I assumed the card details were for the initial payment and was happy with that, I had no clue they would or could repeatedly take from a debit card and wouldn't have given out my card details if I had known.

Ilovecubbage

We`ve had a letter telling us that we owe money for the last 6 years for some subscribscion, which we canceled by writing 6 years ago. #The payment never apeared in our statments so I don`t know how they managed to do it. we didn`t know that any money was going out only to their account without comming out of our account, if that makes any sence.
Luckily it was about £250 and the bank wiped it out eventually as they agread that it was thair mistake.
As far as I know you have to councel it with a provider and with your bank , just to be on the safe side. And councelling acount doesn`t stop them comming out.#
There was a program on TV about the american loosing wait pills company, how very difficult it was to councel it.
Try to google it for advise.

hansi

It's all very well to say don't use a recurring payment, but sometimes you don't have a choice. I have Home and Car Insurance policies with Aviva. I wrote to the about the payment on the Home cover, and I have a leter to say that there is no recurring payment, but on my motor policy, it states "

"Continuous renewal payment authority e.g. credit/debit cards.

Where you select or have selected a continuous payment method ( and there is no choice when you buy online!) you will be notified in writing prior to renewal and unless we hear otherwise, the policy will automatically be renewed. Unless you have advised otherwise, the renewal premium will be again collected from your debit/credit card from your specified bank account to ensure you are always covered"

Not entirely satisfactory, but at least they do let you have a choice by writiing prior to renewal.

magwump

Pennyh17 wrote: »

Not done this before so am a bit unsure if I am in the right place.

But I have inadvertantly set up a recurring payment with a diet supplement company, posted from USA.
Is the info on this subject still relevant or have things changed since 2009.
I have written to them, recorded delivery and am hoping for a response but if they don't respond what can I do??
Anyone able to advise positively, would be in my heart forever.

Hi

I did the same and have had several amounts taken out of my bank account, however, today I found an email address and sent them an email and they have said they have now cancelled my subscription and no more money would be taken. Here's hoping! Here is the email address I used
[EMAIL="meta_burn@advmetabilling.com"]meta_burn@advmetabilling.com[/EMAIL]
I hope this helps and good luck.

Mosman

It's crazy, I had the same problem with AOL who are owned by Carphone Warehouse/TalkTalk. They took money from me and when I tried cancelling the payment from my bank account, Barclays just referred me back to AOL. I called AOL's call centre based in India who said they would cancel, but this never happened.

After about 12 phone calls, I finally wrote a letter to AOL and they refunded me the money circa £100 and never took money again. At the same time I also lodged it as a fraudulent transaction with Barclays and they also took action not to let any payment go through.

At the end of the day when you cancel a contract & its payment that should be the end of it. Any process of taking funds from your card is in effect fraudulent as its not authorised.

My take on things is 1st cancel the payment from your bank or credit card. then cancel with the company and make the last outstanding payment by cash or cheque as a one-off. Better yet, just drag your feet when paying them.