Recurring Payments Warning! discussion

BucksBass

timbo58 wrote: »

Am I missing something here?
YOU didn't put a valid email address in so THEY couldn't send you an email confirming a payment?
Whose at fault? eh?

Well they "say" I put the wrong email address in but it's hard to prove either way. It's unlikely I did as I have had that email address for many years and I used it to sign up here and many other places. The big difference when you sign up for this board is you have to put your address in twice, wait for a confirmation email and then click a link to confirm your email address and gain access - Pretty standard practice these days. On the web site in question, there is one box for your email address and no checking of the email format is done so it accepts any old rubbish. Something went wrong when I entered my address.

Today, having spoken with my bank and the Citizens Advice consumer service and the trading standards contact for the area this site is located in, they all agree that the site must send written confirmation in a durable medium as required by the Distance Selling Regulations, and they have a duty of care to collect accurate and correct information to enable them to comply which they have clearly failed to do.

There's no advantage for me. I used the service once back in November when I thought I was buying a single piece of information. I haven't accessed any data off it since thay day.

I double checked with the bank today and they assured me that cancelling the continuous payment was perfectly within my rights and the company has no claim against me.

BucksBass

timbo58 wrote: »

I wonder if their terms make it a requirement for you to have entered accurate information? Just playing devils advocate here of course as of course the responsibility is at the very least then shared.

Well the terms on their site may well say that now but as I didn't receive a copy when I inadvertently signed up I couldn't possibly say what was in force at that time and as they have been unable/unwilling to send a copy email to the correct address I guess they don't know what was in place at the time either. Even if their T&Cs does demand correct information, there still remains the issue of not taking due care to collect the correct information. Any number of things could have caused my email address to become mangled which is why pretty much every site operates a two entry system with a confirmation email. The lack of care in other areas regarding DSR and EU ecommerce law demonstrated by this site shows that they really don't give a rats ar*e about doing things in the right and proper way.

As many people have told me and advised me, should this come to court there has to be an element of what is reasonable and it's reasonable to expect a web site that wants your email address to make sure it's got the right details from the right person.

Any way, it's all gone quiet since they said they were going to report it to RBS but then I guess RBS has more important things than getting £8.95 out of me :-)

niceandcrispy

Hi - ive come across the recurring payment problem with Love Film and the "auto-topup" that I have activated on a pay as you go account. This means that when I use up all my rental credits, or the period expires - they take another payment for a load of credits. They tell me that they cant stop this and its attached to a credit card. so do I have to get a new card number? or is there a way I can force lovefilm to terminate the arrangement. They say it was covered in terms and conditions - it certainly wasnt discussed!

woz89

A big thanks to the purveyors of useful information on this thread.

I have finally managed to cancel a recurring payment from a website of ill repute (alright, if I must, !!!!!!). After a computer broke I lost the details which would have allowed me to cancel through their website so they refered me to their billing company. Stupidly, I buried my head in the sand for 6 months or so, I have only been trying to cancel for the last 3 months. Despite my efforts, the company would parry my questions. They are based in America so sending them recorded mail wouldn't have been easy (or cheap) and I had to email them. They kept on telling me to call their helpline "for further assistance" but, alas, I was either put on hold or asked for information I wasn't prepared to start giving out over the phone.

The trick was to mention in an email asking for cancellation that "I will be using this email as evidence in a Visa dispute if my payment is not cancelled."

It may be coincidence but I received a reply back in minutes telling me the payment had now been cancelled and I shouldn't expect another charge on my account; it seems to have done the trick.

I should have been more sure as to what I was signing up to, but I wasn't aware of the existence of recurring payments when I signed up and I (naively) turned to my bank for assistance when I finally plucked up the courage to try to get these charges cancelled. This only wasted time.

The whole system is a mess. Recurring payments have no benefit for the consumer and I think they should be cleaned up (or, ideally, banned). I wasn't impressed with the little (and usually false) information I was given by my bank, although from reading this thread I can see that 1) they aren't the only ones and 2) the contract was between me and the retailer so I won't name them as they otherwise provide a reliable and fair service.

I've learnt my lesson, but as the MSE article mentions they exploit people like me being too embarrassed to do anything about it and ignoring the charges. It's taken 3 months of aggro (going into my local branch and having to tell the female advisor about it was pretty embarrassing) but I'm mightily relieved that the charges are now cancelled and I'm glad I got it out of the way.

My advice: Don't be embarrassed, deal with it head on and deal directly with the company. Record any correspondence you have with them, and make it clear that you understand your right to recover any future payments they take. If they continue to take payments, get your bank to issue a chargeback making sure you've provided them with all the evidence you have recorded.

Arthurian

Barclays told me (twice) they don't keep records of continuous payment authorities, so they couldn't possibly list them online. This doesn't seem to square with the situation described by other posters, whereby even if you report a card stolen, they can still take money from your account by referring to the original continuous payment authority which remains linked to your account through whichever card number you have. Could Barclays be telling porkies?

Misty7

BucksBass wrote: »

Well the terms on their site may well say that now but as I didn't receive a copy when I inadvertently signed up I couldn't possibly say what was in force at that time and as they have been unable/unwilling to send a copy email to the correct address I guess they don't know what was in place at the time either. Even if their T&Cs does demand correct information, there still remains the issue of not taking due care to collect the correct information. Any number of things could have caused my email address to become mangled which is why pretty much every site operates a two entry system with a confirmation email. The lack of care in other areas regarding DSR and EU ecommerce law demonstrated by this site shows that they really don't give a rats ar*e about doing things in the right and proper way.

As many people have told me and advised me, should this come to court there has to be an element of what is reasonable and it's reasonable to expect a web site that wants your email address to make sure it's got the right details from the right person.

Any way, it's all gone quiet since they said they were going to report it to RBS but then I guess RBS has more important things than getting £8.95 out of me :-)

What a relief to find out I'm not the only one suffering from unwanted automatic payments by the Forces United website. I signed up for 30 days and was shocked to see they continued taking payments, when I questioned this they said I was set up for automatic payments every 30 days and it was my duty to cancel this. I never received an email confirming the first payment and I did use the correct email so I suspect you did too. They claim very few, in fact less then 10 members, mess up like me by not reading the terms and conditions which state you will be charged automatically if you do not cancel, even if only signing up for 30 days! I think it is a disgrace and not something you would expect from such a website, the replies via their online chat are not very polite either. I have copied and pasted everything so I have a record. I want my money refunded and have every intention of going down every avenue to achieve this, maybe we should join forces (no pun intended:)) Is there anyone else having problems with Forces Reunited?

dalesrider

savagej wrote: »

The bank does know that payments are CPA's

They should be re-deployed given this has been in place since Nov 2009 and they only choose to do something now because a few people caught onto the law.

Only if the retailer marks the transaction as a CPA. And the vast majority are not.

Banks cannot block a retailer from taking payments, as much as they would like to do so in these cases.
The problem is the retailer who is failing in their duty to stop taking payments after being advised to do so.
Perhaps the FSA should target these companies... :eek:

As far as Visa goes, so long as a customer has advised the co to stop payments then the money can be reclaimed by their card provider. This was avaiable long before PSD was intorduced.

FSA should really have talked to Visa/Mastercard etc before they acted in the way they did. As Banks have a contract with these co to provide their cards.
So in effect by now having to take cancellation from a customer the banks are in breech of their contract with Visa/Mastercard. As CPA are covered in the bank/retailer/visa etc agreement to actually process these payments.

You have to remember that a CPA is a agreement between the person taking it out and the retailer. Banks have no part in these, or knowledge of these. As such is it wrong to expect the person taking it out to cancel it.... They had enough information to set it up, so should retain the details to be able to cancel it.

People have to take responsibility for their own actions...:T

bobblebob

I may have mentioned this in the thread before, cant remember. But i have a recurring payment set up and when that card expired, they emailed me saying they cant take payment and sent me a link to update my card details.

realaledrinker

Can't post a link as I dont subscribe, but in today's Sunday Times, in an article entitles 'beware trap at renewal' it was claimed that some insurers (specifically Admiral) are using the Continuous Insurance Enforcement rules, which took effect in June 2011, to claim that they are obliged to automatically renew a motor policy unless the insured tells them that they are moving insurers.

flossy_splodge

I had this recently with the RAC!!
I had cancelled months ago and had confirmation; then received an email which led me to suspect my cancellation had not in fact been acted on.
It was only by getting nasty and threatening exposure in the press that eventually they agreed they DID have evidence of the agreement to cancel and they could not explain why in fact they had continued to make payment.:eek:
I am STILL waiting for a promised telephone call to talk to me. This was agreed about 4 weeks ago.
Beware the RAC says I.