Large ISP has set up a Recurring Payment on my credit card without my authorisation

olly300

I suggest you threaten to take the ISP to court for breach of contract.

Write a "letter before action" giving them 28 days to change payment forms. Then after 28 days if nothing happens write a letter giving them 7 days notice then after 7 days take them to the small claims court. Send all your letters by recorded delivery.

Your loss at the moment is probably the time you spent dealing with this issue. So much sure you have records of the phone calls you have made to them, and letters writing to them then calculate how much time it's cost you making a rate of something like £10ph. Then put this in your letters as the amount you will be seeking.

In addition raise a dispute with your credit card company verbally, then follow your complaint up immediately in writing again sending your letter to them by recorded delivery. (One credit card company I am with managed to lose my verbal complaint but took notice as soon as I raise a written complaint. ) At the end of your letter make it clear that if they are going to refuse to deal with the fraudulent transactions you will make a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

beaujolais-nouveau

olly300 wrote: »

I suggest you threaten to take the ISP to court for breach of contract. [et seq]

Thank you for this, Olly. I have kept a good paper trail so far, and I'll follow up on your suggestions. The sense of loss of control is truly horrible.

borders_dude

Are you certian they recieved your letters beyond doubt? have you given them enough time to respond?

udydudy

can i ask why have you still not named the ISP despite request from exel1966 and duggie1982? Can you please name and shame the ISP.

olly300

borders_dude wrote: »

Are you certian they recieved your letters beyond doubt? have you given them enough time to respond?

Agreed.

Unless the letters have been sent by recorded delivery and give the company a time frame of 28 days to respond before taking further action then, the company can easily argue that:
1. They haven't received the letters - a trick I've found used by companies varying from banks, insurance companies as well as ISPs
2. That you haven't given them a reasonable time frame to sort the issue out. - Some companies will argue that if you send them too many letters within a short time frame to sort the issue out that they couldn't deal with your requests.

I know that the Information Commissioner's office as one regulator will not consider complaints to them unless you have sent the offending company a letter sent by recorded delivery due to the practise of companies "loosing" letters that are to their disadvantage.

Also if you do go to court it helps to show that you have been acting reasonably if you can pull at a file of letters with associated recorded delivery slips.

chattychappy

Surely you just dispute the subsequent transactions with the credit card company?

From what you say, it seems you never authorised a continuing charge authority. You supplied your details for the purposes of a single (or two) transactions. They misused (perhaps innocently) your details to set up a CCA.

Jemma-T

Who is this company? What's the service (business or private)?

Why haven't you pursued the issuing bank? If it's unauthorised then it's unauthorised. Let the bank prove differently.

Obviously -unless you are not sensible- you should close that card account in the meantime.

All sounds a bit strange to me.

NickX

chattychappy wrote: »

Surely you just dispute the subsequent transactions with the credit card company?

Yep, agreed. There are procedures with the Card Provider for cases such as this. You just need to dispute the transactions in question.

exel1966

Jemma-T wrote: »

All sounds a bit strange to me.

So strange that it all sounds highly dubious !