ID Protection taking money from my account without permission...

LittlemissJJ

Hello,

I got my bank statement today for an account I no longer use on a regular basis and noticed that a card payment of £79.99 was paid to 'ID Protection'. I have not heard of this company before and was not aware that I had any such insurance. I have card protection with the bank itself. I phoned my bank and they gave me the number of the company who took the payment. I phoned them up and they say I have had the insurance with them since 2007 and that they have been sending the correspondence to my parents address (where I did not even live in 2007) and that the policy is under my mother's name, but uses my date of birth and debit card details, so therefore they say it must be me. I asked to be refunded but they said it was outside the cooling off period for this year so no refund was possible. I am assuming that they have been taking money from my account every year, without permission. I didn't set this up - it is in my mother's name, and even if she set it up she would not have the authority to give them permission to take the money from my account (and she would have put it in my name). They say it was up to me to tell them of my change of address and therefore i am responsible for not receiving the correspondence - but the correspondence was not even in my name! And my parents have not received any renewal letters to pass along.
Any advice on what my rights are would be greatly appreciated!

somethingcorporate

What does your mother day about it? since the insurance policy is in her name and at her address do you not think she would have set it up? Seems the most obvious answer to me!

patman99

If it's Payment Protection Insurance, then you can always do a reclaim as a miss-sold policy.

One thing that does strike me as odd, why has your mother never passed-on (or even told you about) any paperwork ?. Have you not returned to your mum's home in order to confront her about why she has used your bank details to set-up this insurance ?.

You do realise that if your mum did set this up without asking you, then the Bank and the Insurance provider will do her for fraud, so she may end-up with a criminal record.
But then again, anyone who sets up insurance policies on other people's bank accounts without their permission should be hung out to dry.

LittlemissJJ

She's going to look into it, but she has a policy with the bank that covers ID Theft so if she had received a renewal notice in the past month from this company and thought it was hers she would have cancelled it... either way the company still think it is mine due to the DOB...

LittlemissJJ

... btw I dont think for one moment that my mother would have set this up for herself and used my bank card for payment - I think it seems more likely that this company has cobbled together information from our family, such as my mother's name and my DOB, to fraudulently set up this account and take money...

somethingcorporate

From what you have posted it seems (to me) far more plausible that your mother set up the account rather than what you suggested but I will give you the benefit of the doubt for now.

Have you found out from your bank whether they have indeed been taking annual payments previously? If it is the first you have a much stronger case to argue the toss with the bank about it. If they have taken it every year it is going to be harder to argue it is fraudulent as it has been happening regularly.

agrinnall

If you only noticed an unexplained £80 going out of your account the fifth year it happened it would be easy to conclude that you've got too much money, in which case could you send me some:)?

misssarahleigh

My mum had a similar problem.

I asked the company to provide paperwork surrounding the policy. They created a long list of excuses as to why they couldn't provide this and I stated in that case you have no right to take any money from the account since you connot provide any evidence I signed a contract with you.

The company refunded.