Carphone Warehouse are stealing from me, HELP!

guitaristanime

Hi,
A long long time ago, I took out a contract with CPW.

Since, I have been charged a quarterly recurring amount of 27.95 by direct debit, I believe this is actually phone insurance costs but I am not entirely sure.

Now, the story goes that this contract was taken out back when I was not old enough to actually own my own contract, it was taken out by my mother and the charge was taken out of my current account by direct debit. Makes sense, I paid for it and it was fine.

But on ringing CPW on countless occasions to cancel this (I even have my own account with them now recently for another phone, though the contract was an upgrade through vodafone so no costs come from CPW only through a direct debit from vodafone themselves) I am unable to do anything as they say the account is needed to be dealt with by the account holder, when the account holder rings up they say that they can't change any payment details and say I will need to be there with her to pass the phone over.

I'm stuck as it is difficult for me to be in the same location at the moment, and they are draining this money from me. Even if I can't get it back, I would at least be happy if I could cancel it, though I fear just cancelling the direct debit from my online banking with Barclays will result in them either starting a new one, or fining me due to me stopping a contract (which I thought would of ended by now...)

Please please please help, I am at the end of my tether as another problem I can't fix is just icing on the cake right now.

Appreciate your time reading and replying. Thankyou.

onlypaddy

if you can prove that these payments have been taken in error, ask for a refund from your bank under the Direct Debit guarantee.

Since you're not the account holder, CPW should never have set up the direct debit to your account.

wayne99

sorry, but you will just have to bite the bullet and go to your mums and phone them together and sort the issue out, you have no authority on the account as its in your mums name.

What you can do is get your mum to add you to the Vodafone account or CPW account as someone who has authority on the account, only she can do this and until then you cant do anything due to data protection.

Why cant you just avoid all this hassle and get together and sort it once and for all ??

If the money has been taken by direct debit then you can if a genuine mistake has been made claim the money back under the direct debit guarantee scheme, its called a direct debit indemnity claim your bank can do this for you if you cannot get a refund sorted by the person who has claimed the funds, some banks will credit your account instantly, some in 48 hours some in 6 weeks it varies from bank to bank.

If it is a re-occurring transaction on your debit / credit card that's a different story all together.

If you are in a contract and you stop the direct debit and do not pay what you are contracted to do so then you will start the process of having a ruined credit file, or should i say your mothers credit file if the contract is in her name.

premierfella

...and you will obviously be cancelling the direct debit immediately as a first step.

Is this a Lifeline policy? The terms online indicate that the policy is effectively cancelled "if you do not pay the premium at the agreed time".

Edit: I'm assuming that the quarterly amount being taken is being debited under a direct debit instruction that is separate from the mobile phone monthly payments.

vaporate

And switch to pay as you go when it is cancelled.

guitaristanime

I apologise for the lack of reply, things cropped up.

Fortunately I managed to get to the bottom of this, I got the old file out and went through my last 5 years of invoices and things.

To clear things up it was a lifeline policy, the reason that they weren't cancelling it before is because they are a seperate team to CPW. Having now rung the right team the policy has been cancelled, even though they told me I had to be with them for another 3 months according to the contract. I wasn't willing to argue the point as I was just glad it was finally cancelled.

Unlikely that anyone will find this by a search and face the same issue but just incase you want to be asking to cancel the policy, not the payment

lessons learnt, though to be fair this was near enough 5 years ago now.

Thanks for your input everyone, and no I won't be switching to pay as you go. My mobile replaced my landline already to save money :rotfl: