online subsciption from Credit Card - CANCEL

terencemichaelhowe

Today I found a recently collected CPA payment to Ancestry.com that should have been cancelled in 2006 the year that the Lloyds TSB Debit card ran out. They subsequently collected six payments with the banks approval. I have stopped this and recovered two payments and am still £400 short. Not quite believing this could happen I aproached two Lloyd bank sources independantly. If I tried to purchase anything with a defunct 2006 card they would not authorise it, but rep-etative payment (CPA) yes they would ok it. This is immoral, unfair and crazy. Is this just LlodsTSB?. There must be thousand of people out there like me who believe that an old defunct card cant be used. Reading other mail on these sites I see that the bank does not probably even consider the card or its date but just regards this as a private transaction with Ancestr,com and my bank account.
Any ideas how much further I can take this with the Bank? Resources available could be the media or the financial ombudsman?? All replies are welcome

meer53

To stop a CPA it really is advisable to cancel it with the company. You can't assume that just because your card expires the money won't be debited, as you have discovered.
I think your best course of action is to make an official complaint to your bank and await their reply. How come you've only just discovered these transactions ? Lloyds will ask this question and why you haven't queried it before now. If you've already been refunded £200 by Lloyds (or was it Ancestry.com ?) i wouldn't expect anything further from them though. If you don't get anywhere then you can always take it to the FOS.

6 years is a long time not to notice something on your account.

terencemichaelhowe

Thank you for your response
I am sure that it does look strange from a rural viewpoint
Since 2006 I have been working away in six different countries. Not picking up one item per year on bank statements was easy. Not every one has the time or inclination to scrupulously examine home accounts in fine details when involved in this type of lifestyle. I am now retired and looking at this type of detail and the chinks between the paving stones. The £180 I received was from Ancestry .com . I will be writing a letter of complaint to Lloyds and following that one to an upper division of Ancestry.com.
Do you know if all banks or any other banks have the same policy as Lloyds?
regards
T

SnowTiger

lisyloo wrote: »

My own interpretation of this is that you have to have "stopped permission" before you can legitimately tell your card issuer that you have done so.

Apparently not. MSN article here: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/banking/2012/05/consumers-wrongly-advised-about-regular-payments:

The FSA says in most cases, for ease, CPAs can be cancelled by telling the company taking payments from your account.

However, you can also cancel them directly with your bank or card issuer, without agreeing this first with the company taking payment.

Zkfw

OK - I rang my Credit Card company again and they confirmed that no other payments will be made to the company concerned.

Secondly, they confirmed that all too many people think by cancelling their cards that this stops the payment - it does not!

The best way to do it is to contact credit card copmpany and tell them that you have tried to contact the company concerned and that you "withdraw" permissions to continue the payments - they will then start a "disputed" transaction, and the company in concern, if they want to pursue it, will have to contact the customer (me). Now considering that they refuse to answer their phones etc, I would relish them contacting me.