Reclaiming years of direct debits and standing orders?

Bennage

Hi all,
I'm not sure if this is the correct board to be posting this on but it seems close enough. Please let me know if it's wrong.

I have just had a horrible time going through my father's finances and have discovered that he is paying for a VAST amount via direct debits and standing orders for things that he has no need for or haven't even existed for years.

An example of this is 3 x quarterly standing orders to the Carphone Warehouse:
2 x £22.25
1 x £26.75

I believe these are payments for insurance on phones that he hasn't had for years. I am in the process of finding out how long they have been coming out, but I'm pretty sure it's been a looooong time.

Is there any way of potentially getting any of this money back?
Is it more or less possible for direct debits and/or standing orders?

Bearing in mind that my father is rather old and not as quick as he used to be (to put it mildly), is there anything out there that can be used to help him, i.e. a company taking advantage of a mentally incapacitated individual?

There's a total of 32 different standing orders and direct debits. We have no clue as to what some of them are for so will have to spend a considerable amount of time investigating.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

TIA,

B

System

You could write a letter to the company involved (on your father's behalf), signed by your father, with proof of when the insurable item ceased to exist and ask if they would refund the premiums paid between that date and now. (And obviously ask them to cancel the insurance effective immediately)
The letter could also ask the company why they have not been sending renewal documentation to your father over the years - if that is the case.

I believe it would only be refunded as a good will gesture by the company because individuals must take responsibility for managing their own finances.

For those direct debits that you do not recognise, you can ask your father's bank to identify the payee in more detail and as a last resort you could cancel any unidentified D/Ds and wait for the letter from the company to inform you of a failed payment, then take action from there.

dzug1

Do you have power of attorney? If not you need to get working on it - it takes a while.

And if not, for the present, your father has to do everything* - the bank (and indeed any company) should refuse to talk to you.

* even if that consists mainly of signing letters you have prepared for him

pmduk

I suspect it will be considerably more difficult with standing orders as these are initiated by and controlled only by the account holder.

agrinnall

I read a thread recently, probably on the Insurance board, where it was stated that it should be possible to reclaim insurance payments where there was in fact nothing to be insured (i.e. the insurance company had no risk of a claim being made). Quite how you would prove that the mobile phone being covered was not still in your father's possession I don't know, although if the payments were to cover any phone rather than a specific one then paying 3 premiums at the same time would pretty clearly be unnecessary.