Despute with Orange Home

OliverHaddon

In 2005 I setup a dialup account with a company that subsquently has been takenover by Orange Home. I used the sevice for a few months and then canceled the account, I assumed wrongly that the direct debit would also be canceled and Orange have carried on taking money from my account. I really should have picked up on this earlier, my fault I know.
I told my bank and they made an indemnity claim earlier this year and they have put the money into my savings account, which I have kept until the matter is totally resolved.
I setup the direct debit online. I have never recieved any direct debit mandate to sign and return or made a verbal agreement to pay. I have also have never been informed that they are removing monies from my account or that they wish to renew the mandate over the last four years!
Orange said that they infomed me via email that they were removing money. However the email was being sent to an email address that is a part of the orange account, which I did not use or access, because I thought that the account had been closed as I requested.
Orange are now threatening to take the matter further and have requested I pay this money back to them plus interest.
Please can you help me, what can I do?

macman

The payee cannot close a DD! Only the account holder can do that, so it's your responsibility to do so when you cease a service. However Orange should not have continued to take payments.
You say that you only used the service for a few months, so is not part of this dispute to do with a charge by Orange for early termination, as presumably you signed up for at least 12 months? What you don't say is whether you ever received any confirmation from Orange to acknowledge your request to terminate the account.

OliverHaddon

I never recieved anything from the previous company or from orange home at anytime, until I stopped the payment and my bank had reclaimed the money.
My bank said that I should have had to had the agreement in writing or made a verbal agreement, that is why they were willing to place an indemnity claim. Is this correct?

macman

So how did you cancel the service? By phone, by letter? And what was the minimum contract term?

OliverHaddon

macman wrote: »

So how did you cancel the service? By phone, by letter? And what was the minimum contract term?

I canceled in on the web, it was 4 years ago and I did not keep the paperwork.

mrtom21

You cancelled on the web? Very few providers agree to cancel online as it gives them very little chance at retention they normally insist it is over the phone or via letter. If you do something like this on the web you need to keep a record of it. I pay bills online and I always get a screenshot of my receipts.

CrabPaste

OliverHaddon wrote: »

I canceled in on the web, it was 4 years ago and I did not keep the paperwork.

It's not possible to cancel online. You can only cancel by calling Customer Support or writing to the Rotherham address.