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Council 'stole?' money from our account ...
EntityUser
Posts: 1 Newbie
We pay our council tax by direct debit, every month on time, paid for! :T
Last years bill was paid in full, in fact they owe us money because we had to move to another property, that turned out to be a little cheaper!
.. We had received our bill last month indicating payments to commence on 25th April. Yet when checking our bank statement we found they had 'stolen?' £205 from our account over a week ago. :mad: This payment was not authorised, nor were we sent anything to say they would be taking this money out!
After spending an hour on the phone with them to get our money back, they said they couldn't give it back, only that we wouldnt have to pay for 2 months payments. We cannot afford to have over £200 taken out of our account, we budget very carefully for our bills, and they were not due anything until the 25th of April.
They said we would have to make an Indemnity claim from our bank to get the money back quickly. Yet our bank is over 30 miles away, & it cannot be done over the phone!
Cannot believe their attitude, not even an apology! So we cancelled the Direct Debit payments so that this would never happen again!
Wish we could do more, this is unbelievable service from a council, how can they be allowed to take payments other than agreed direct debits from our bank? :mad:
Last years bill was paid in full, in fact they owe us money because we had to move to another property, that turned out to be a little cheaper!
.. We had received our bill last month indicating payments to commence on 25th April. Yet when checking our bank statement we found they had 'stolen?' £205 from our account over a week ago. :mad: This payment was not authorised, nor were we sent anything to say they would be taking this money out!
After spending an hour on the phone with them to get our money back, they said they couldn't give it back, only that we wouldnt have to pay for 2 months payments. We cannot afford to have over £200 taken out of our account, we budget very carefully for our bills, and they were not due anything until the 25th of April.
They said we would have to make an Indemnity claim from our bank to get the money back quickly. Yet our bank is over 30 miles away, & it cannot be done over the phone!
Cannot believe their attitude, not even an apology! So we cancelled the Direct Debit payments so that this would never happen again!
Wish we could do more, this is unbelievable service from a council, how can they be allowed to take payments other than agreed direct debits from our bank? :mad:
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Comments
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Nobody has 'stolen' your money! It's a mistake...contact your bank and claim the money back via the DD guarantee...money should be back in your account in a couple of working days.0
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What? Never heard of that before.EntityUser wrote: »They said we would have to make an Indemnity claim from our bank to get the money back quickly. Yet our bank is over 30 miles away, & it cannot be done over the phone!
Well you will have to set up another one soon to pay this year's council tax (or have the hastle of doing it manually).EntityUser wrote: »So we cancelled the Direct Debit payments so that this would never happen again!
You can.EntityUser wrote: »Wish we could do more...
As Gordikin says... use the Direct Debit Guarantee to get your money back.
They are not allowed to do that.EntityUser wrote: »...how can they be allowed to take payments other than agreed direct debits from our bank? :mad:
Have you read the Direct Debit Guarantee?
There is a link to it in the thread entitled...
READ ME FIRST PLEASE . . . Useful links, Resources and FAQs0 -
Is this April 1?0
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I've had similar problems. I've switched most DD's to Standing Order now.0
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