Money taken from Account, Halifax won't help

Scots

I have an account with a web space hosting company. I've been with them for years with little problems but during the past year there has been lots of downtime, so I decided to move to another company and have moved all my websites over. However I forgot to cancel the automatic renewal with the existing company and the first I time I realised this was when they sent me an email saying £72 had been taken from my Halifax account. So I immediatly emailed them back saying I didn't want to renew, but they have refused to give me a refund saying I havn't followed their cancellation procedures. So I've paid for something I don't want. I went into my Halifax/BOS branch and they said there is nothing they can do about it.

During the year the company changed it's name which is partly why I didn't follow what was going on. So although I agreed to the amount with the original named company I made no agreement with the renamed company, if that helps at all.

Does anyone know if there is a way to get the money back ?

I'm thinking of a small claims court where I would claim not only this amount but also last years amount since the service I recieved was so bad that it made me go to all the trouble of moving my accounts.

I hate it when these sort of people/companies just give you two fingers. So I'm on a mission to make them wish they played fair to start with.

Any help, advice or ideas appreciated. Thanks.

ian_h

Firstly why would Halifax help? You had an agreement with a Company, you didnt follow the terms of that agreement in respect of cancelling it and now you want the bank who merely follow your instructions to help you get it back?

I dont mean to sound overly harsh because i appreciate its frustrating, was this payment made by :

Direct Debit
Continuous Card Authority or
Paypal Recurring Transaction

If you clarify how it was made we may be able to help find a way through it - also what is the company's cancellation policy, are they saying you are committed to a year or a month with them?

As with all agreements simply stopping a payment doesn't automatically stop the underlying agreement for the product or service.

thatsean

So if I understand correctly:

You provided them with a payment method and continuous authority when you established the agreement
You did not advise them that you wished to cancel
When you noticed that they had charged you in line with the agreement you advised them that you want to cancel
You are cross that they will not refund you
The business about them changing their name means little unless the services changed - they will have written or emailed you to say that as company a is now company b your contract and terms are now with company b


Can't see much coming of this, if you've not followed the ts and cs then they've not acted in a manner where suing them would help you, and by providing them with the card details you've authorised the charges - so Halifax cannot get involved.

Scots

Ok points taken. The reason I put the issue in this section of the forum is I was hoping the bank could help me. Thats because the withdrawal on my bank statment is shown as a Direct debit and i don't have a direct debit with the company. Well I think it's a direct debit becasue it say £72 DD on the statment. In fact I don't remember ever giving the company authority to automatically withdra from my card. Usually what happens each year is they email me and ask for the amount and I have to log into a payment section of thier website and make the payment.

And yes your right they did email me to tell me waht was happening, but as they changed their name I didn't recognise or realise what it was about. In fact I probably sent the email to my trash can along with all the other spam I get. I've never responded to any emails sent from that company name before and actually when I do communicate with the company their support forum is still under the old company name, so it's easy to get confused I would say.

I've been into my local Halifax and the manager said they can't do anything, so I will leave it at that for now.

Thanks for your input.