Is This Legal

Van_Driver

I hope you can help, I hire vehicles regularly from a company and have an account with them which I try to clear by cheque, as and when, they say I must clear within 30 days. (not unreasonable).

Once, I paid for a vehicle with a credit card and then a couple of months later they cleared the account I owed them using the card without my permission which meant they must have kept all the details.

I wrote to them saying this was unacceptable and must not be done again and that my details must be destroyed. Now, about three months later they have again used the card to the tune of £750 without my permission, where do I stand?

mo786uk

Are they refunding the money when asked?

They will prob be in breach of their agreement with the card people - notify them.

pvt

As Mo says, they're probably in breach of their agreement with their CC payment service, though I suspect you're also in breach of your agreement to pay your invoices on time. An assumption on my part based on your use of the word "try" in the first sentence of your post.

If they are charging your credit card after the invoices are due payment, then you're laughing, as they're giving you yet more credit at their own expense. Why would that be a problem? All you have to do is pay those cheques you say you write and send to your CC company instead of the rental company.

The simplest way to resolve this, if you're not happy, is to stop hiring vehicles from them.

Jariya

They shouldn't be doing this.

You clearly have a credit agreement with them.

A one off payment by CC doesn't entitle them to take further payments on that CC.
You are right in thinking that they should not be keeping hold of your CC details.

chattychappy

This should be a simple matter.

Irrespective of what you owe them, they cannot charge your card unless you have authorised the transaction.

Whilst it is appropriate to point this out to them, I wouldn't engage them further if they don't refund. It is the CC asking you to pay this charge, so dispute it with the CC. It is for them to prove that you authorised the transaction or that you were grossly negligent or involved in fraud.

One thing you need to check though. What did you originally agree to? Was what you signed a Continuous Payment Authority, in which case you might have authorised further transactions? Even if this is the case, you clearly withdrew the authority so after that they were not entitled to charge subsequently.

As I say, this says nothing as to whether you owe the car hire firm or not. That is a separate issue.

jonesMUFCforever

Is OP keeping to his side of any agreement? Does he pay on time - if not then using the card number is legitimate in my opinion - has he read their terms and condition on late payments and how they will use the card number?
Does the rental company still accept cheques as a method of payment?

As a first time poster I will give you the benefit of the doubt for now that you are not trolling,.

lisyloo

if not then using the card number is legitimate in my opinion

It's either legal or it's not.
If they have either a continuous payment authority OR small print that gives authority to take it if overdue then the OP might have agreed.
If the OP hasn't agreed then I don't think it's legal.
But what we don't know is whether it's in the small print or not.

grannyjo

if you cancel your card- mislaid- lost then credit card people will give new card with different number- they cannot take payments unless you give them this new number

YorkshireBoy

grannyjo wrote: »

if you cancel your card- mislaid- lost then credit card people will give new card with different number- they cannot take payments unless you give them this new number

Urban myth!...but I'll stand corrected if you can provide a reliable source for your claim.

If the company has previously presented transactions on the old card number the bank will link the two numbers together and still debit the account.

lily-bea

They can not do that without your permission! I work for a large hotel chain, and we are not allowed to do a Customer Not Present transaction without written permission from the card hold, with their signature on it. (I have had many people become very aggressive or rude at me when I ask for that written permission from the card holder, but we have to have it!)

All you have to do is call your card provider and the money will be refunded to you.

Can't go into more details as I will be giving away trade secrets! But I know for a fact they can't unless you signed something, a contract for example, to say it's ok for them to do a CNP transaction.

jonesMUFCforever

lily-bea wrote: »

They can not do that without your permission! I work for a large hotel chain, and we are not allowed to do a Customer Not Present transaction without written permission from the card hold, with their signature on it. (I have had many people become very aggressive or rude at me when I ask for that written permission from the card holder, but we have to have it!)

All you have to do is call your card provider and the money will be refunded to you.

Can't go into more details as I will be giving away trade secrets! But I know for a fact they can't unless you signed something, a contract for example, to say it's ok for them to do a CNP transaction.

How do you do telephone bookings then where it is a requirement to get a deposit?