Debit Card Chargebacks - Urgent Help

uncledougm

Hi
I have a Card Saver account with the Woolwich which comes with a Visa Electron card. The account gets statements every 6 months and has no online support - Woolwich dont offer any!!

I discovered recently that a certain company has been systematically charging my card for £15.99 for the past 12 months without my knowledge or consent. On three occassions there was not enough money in the account to cover the payment charged but Woolwich paid it anyway taking me overdrawn ( not sure how this works as its a debit card and I dont have an overdraft).

Anyway on discovering the charges I went to Woolwich to make a claim to get my money back. After filling out various forms and waiting a few days Woolwich advised me that Visa's policy is not to accept chargebacks after 3 months.

I am involved with a company that accepts Visa as a form of payment and we are subject to an 18 month chargeback period so I contacted Visa Europe and they told me that it is the responsibility of the bank. Woolwich claim its Visa's fault.

My question is does anyone know what else I can do to get my money back???? I am complaining to the bank and the Ombudsman but am not sure its going to do any good. Anyone else had similar problems and won?

Uncle D

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jonesMUFCforever

I am pretty sure that if a bank or building society offer you a Visa card then they have to provide statements on a regular basis purely to stop what has happened to you. I'm sure an eagle beagle will come along to confirm this. You could use this to get Woolwich to look again at your case.

What this does not explain of course is how this company got hold of your visa card details. Have you had any business with them at all?
If not then it is fraud and it should be treated as such and not a chargeback issue.

Please post back with further details.

uncledougm

Yes it is AOL. I contacted them and they cant find me in their system. I have cancelled the old card and had a new one with new number issued so they cant charge me anymore.

What I am concerned with now is reclaiming the money they stole from me. Any ideas? Just seems like between the bank and Visa no one wants to take responsibility or can be arsed to help out.

uncledougm

I signed up for a free trial with AOL which I cancelled after 4 days by email. Woolwich say that I can old get statements every six months. For some reason I have not had one for 12 months. I did complain a while ago but they wanted to charge me fees for copies. Even so how can your chargeback policy be 3 months if you only issue statements on the account every 6? I was just wondering if there are different rules for cards linked to debit accounts. I have scoured the Woolwich literature and their web site and cant find any mention fo chargeback period limits.

jamalfatty

Have you had dealings with AOL though? They must have got your card details from somewhere?

Assuming you have, has the contract with them ever been cancelled?

RCA_2

uncledougm wrote:

I signed up for a free trial with AOL which I cancelled after 4 days by email. Woolwich say that I can old get statements every six months. For some reason I have not had one for 12 months. I did complain a while ago but they wanted to charge me fees for copies. Even so how can your chargeback policy be 3 months if you only issue statements on the account every 6? I was just wondering if there are different rules for cards linked to debit accounts. I have scoured the Woolwich literature and their web site and cant find any mention fo chargeback period limits.

what email address did you send the request for cancellation to? did you recieve writen or verbal confirmation of the cancellation? its your responsibility to montior you own account and to double check that all transactions are correct.

uncledougm

I cancelled using AOLs own proprietary software system and the system told me the request had been received. Even so my question is one about how long the chargeback limit is. As a merchant if someone buys from me they can chargeback for any reason for 18 months. Woolwich claim they they are limited by Visa to a period of 3 months. Something somewhere doesnt seem to be right

RCA_2

i only work with credit cards which have a chargeback period of 90 days, but descretion to do past that (which is rare). can't you put your complaint in writing to AOL?

uncledougm

Am trying with AOL but they are generally unresponsive and dont seem to care. As I said we use Streamline to process our cards and they advise us regularly that a chargeback period of 18 months is now applicable on all cards. I am just trying to find out who sets the rules as Visa and Woolwich seem to be blaming each other

RCA_2

RBS (where i work) own streamline, and like i said all our chargebacks are 90 days so i'm not sure what you've been told.