Charges on a cancelled Debit card - advice please!

jaibaby

xyz123 wrote: »

regarding ur debit card, is that account still active? and also when you cancelled did u think about what would happen to these recurring charges. you should have called sky to update your details....

Yes the account is still active. I thought they would be stopped (like any other recurring charges I have - a magazine subscription for example) And I just would have gone back to paying sky when I had the money in my account.

I am still not getting how what they are doing is ok. What would have happened if the person who stole my banking details before set up a sky account in my name. Those charges would be paid??? I always thought that once you cancelled a card, any charges linked with the card number would be cancelled. No matter who or what they were for. What makes sky any different? And why is it the bank can allow it to go through even if there are no funds on the card. I have just received a letter from the bank telling me that they are charging me £45 - 3 x £15 charges.
1 from paying sky at beginning of month and causing my account to go overdrawn. The second from paying sky at the end of the month and causing my account to overdrawn again. And the third for an unpaid Direct debit, which they were unable to pay because they had allowed this overcharge to go through!! I am sick of being overcharged and even more so of paying charges for having the pleasure :mad:

saf87

Have a look at http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/recurring-payments

Using a debit or credit card to pay for any kind of recurring service is always a dangerous and bad idea. Banks are powerless in stopping these kind of payments going through (short of closing the account). As you have found out cancelling the card has no effect on a recurring payment.

If sky wont refund the money you should ask your bank to charge back the transactions on the basis that you dispute giving authority for the amounts taken. You will proberbly be disconnected as the whole debit amounts will be reversed but this will give you a chance to sort things out with sky
Simon

jaibaby

I will be contacting sky again tomorrow and telling them to refund what they need to from the overcharge. They have done that the last time I was overcharged.

On the basis that the banks are "powerless" - the person on the phone told me that every payment on a debit card had to be authorised. Yet when I phoned them to stop the payment there was nothing they could do. And as I said before, I still don't get how they can allow a transaction to go through if there's no money in the account? Silly me, I suppose I should know these things