iii introducing quarterly £20 charge

tonyhamm

:money:IMMEDIATE ACTION on iii.co.uk fees:
Phone/write your bank where they have taken money from without your explicit permission with the dates and ask them for a debit card chargeback on these 'cardholder not present' transactions. Ask to speak to a supervisor if you don't get someone who sounds like they know about this.

This will simply reverse the debit card transactions with the merchant. You have 120 days to do this with Visa on a debit card transaction - so do it soon. (Be aware - They may also stop your debit card and send you another one so no more transactions can take place.)
http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/sale-of-goods/your-rights-when-paying-by-credit-card/chargeback-on-credit-and-debit-cards/


If you are unaware of changes in Terms to a contract, REGARDLESS of another party imposing conditions - stating that they will only ever communicate with you through 'secure messaging'. There is no contract. You will have had to have logged in and read these messages before the changes to terms apply, or the contract will be deemed unfair by a court (common law).

For very obvious reasons - ALL Parties to a contract HAVE TO be informed of any changes to a contract, but the important thing to remember is the onus is on the party doing the change in terms, to make sure that you are fully aware of the new terms and can demonstrate the other party has been properly informed. This is an absolute. There is no contract if one party is has been left uninformed of later changes to the contract. With a major change of terms like this, they would have to take all steps including a letter notwithstanding any supposed pre-agreements to only use secure messaging for communication.

(See Unfair Terms common law : http://www.e-lawresources.co.uk/Unfair-terms---regulation-by-common-law.php)

Because iii.co.uk should have logged when the customer read any changes via secure messaging, iii.co.uk would of course know whether or not the customer was fully informed at all of the upcoming changes in the contract.

If the customer did not read the message, in order to apply the changed contract fairly, iii.co.uk, would have had no choice but to inform the customer by other means - i.e.by letter, of any changes of terms to the contract for the contract to be deemed fair and enforcible.

BTW: it doesn't really matter if they say they don't collect this data - because they should have done, and the onus is on them to prove you have read the new terms, and not on you to prove you did not.

Thus in my case - there is no enforcable contract because I did not log in, not just log in - I mean log in and actually read the messages - to see any changes in terms from free to fees, and no letter was sent to me. So there is no contract in law there.

Regardless, they simply took money from my bank via my visa debit card without my permission.

In fact, its easy to argue that such a significant change from a free service to fees for an internet service would require a customer to actually have to 'opt-in' by agreement (tick box when logged into the account) ad receive a receipt of the transaction to be deemed fair.

This should be the position the regulator should take on all such major contract changes via the web.

For your Bank/FSA/FSO if ever you need explain the dispute with the merchant iii.co.uk you can say that ;

"iii.co.uk wrongly charged me for fees, when there was no agreed contract between us for such charges.

There was no contract with this merchant because they did not communicate to me, as a party to a contract, in a fair and reasonable manner, of major changes of terms to the contract, (from no fees, to charging fees) which they have to do by Law. (Common Law, Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations 1999 S5.1 and S5.2). Furthermore, iii.co.uk have the capacity to know I had not been informed of such changes and have dealt with me in a underhand manner, not behaving with 'good faith' (in a fair, honest and reasonable manner) which is also required by common contract law. Needless to say, I did not send any acceptance to any offer made regarding the new terms.

Obviously the Regulators - the Office of Fair Trading, the FSA and FSO, FSCS have massively fallen down on the job here in their duty to protect the consumer. I cannot understand why such a gross abuse of the basics of common contract law for millions to the totally unbalanced benefit of these powerful financial companies doesn't get the regulator clamping down. I cannot help thinking that iii.co.uk will have given £250,000 to the chairman of the Tory party, or something similarly corrupt has taken place here from the well connected network of politicians and powerful corporations who run this country to hammer us plebs.

coolfan wrote: »

I am very very disappointed..

I'm not a regular trader and I haven't logged back to iii's online system for quite a long time.

Yesterday I found that they charged me 40 pounds for two quarters. How can they do that without any communication. I called them. They said they did send me two secure messages... no phone calls, no letters, only two secure messages???

This is not like banks change their interests rates. They actually take money off people's account. The better way is that they ask people and wait for the comfirmation. If they haven't received anything by a certain date, they would then freeze people's account. If people would like to trade again, they have to re-active and agree with iii's changes.

All I can see is that they kick the ball to us and say we should check everything and they just take money away as soon as they can.

Is this legal??? I do not want to use their service any more. Robbery!!!

chazza

You sir deserve a medal!, I wish you posted this yesterday as my bank is playing silly bggers along with iii, but i have taken a copy of your message incase they want to pass the parcel. excellent post :T

tonyhamm wrote: »

:money:IMMEDIATE ACTION on iii.co.uk fees:
Phone/write your bank where they have taken money from without your explicit permission with the dates and ask them for a debit card chargeback on these transactions. Ask to speak to a supervisor if you don't get someone who sounds like they know about this.

This will simply reverse the debit card transactions with the merchant. You have 120 days to do this with Visa on a debit card transaction - so do it soon. (Be aware - They may also stop your debit card and send you another one so no more transactions can take place.)
http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/sale-of-goods/your-rights-when-paying-by-credit-card/chargeback-on-credit-and-debit-cards/


If you are unaware of changes in Terms to a contract, REGARDLESS of another party imposing conditions - stating that they will only ever communicate with you through 'secure messaging'. There is no contract. You will have had to have logged in and read these messages before the changes to terms apply, or the contract will be deemed unfair by a court (common law).

For very obvious reasons - ALL Parties to a contract HAVE TO be informed of any changes to a contract, but the important thing to remember is the onus is on the party doing the change in terms, to make sure that you are fully aware of the new terms and can demonstrate the other party has been properly informed. This is an absolute. There is no contract if one party is has been left uninformed of later changes to the contract. With a major change of terms like this, they would have to take all steps including a letter notwithstanding any supposed pre-agreements to only use secure messaging for communication.

(See Unfair Terms common law : http://www.e-lawresources.co.uk/Unfair-terms---regulation-by-common-law.php)

Because iii.co.uk should have logged when the customer read any changes via secure messaging, iii.co.uk would of course know whether or not the customer was fully informed at all of the upcoming changes in the contract.

If the customer did not read the message, in order to apply the changed contract fairly, iii.co.uk, would have had no choice but to inform the customer by other means - i.e.by letter, of any changes of terms to the contract for the contract to be deemed fair and enforcible.

BTW: it doesn't really matter if they say they don't collect this data - because they should have done, and the onus is on them to prove you have read the new terms, and not on you to prove you did not.

Thus in my case - there is no enforcable contract because I did not log in, not just log in - I mean log in and actually read the messages - to see any changes in terms from free to fees, and no letter was sent to me. So there is no contract in law there.

Regardless, they simply took money from my bank via my visa debit card without my permission.

In fact, its easy to argue that such a significant change from a free service to fees for an internet service would require a customer to actually have to 'opt-in' by agreement (tick box when logged into the account) ad receive a receipt of the transaction to be deemed fair.

This should be the position the regulator should take on all such major contract changes via the web.

For your Bank/FSA/FSO if ever you need explain the dispute with the merchant iii.co.uk you can say that ;

"iii.co.uk wrongly charged me for fees, when there was no agreed contract between us for such charges.

There was no contract with this merchant because they did not communicate to me, as a party to a contract, in a fair and reasonable manner, of major changes of terms to the contract, (from no fees, to charging fees) which they have to do by Law. (Common Law, Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations 1999). Futhermore, iii.co.uk have the capacity to know I had not been informed of such changes and have dealt with me in a underhand manner, not behaving with 'good faith' (in a fair, honest and reasonable manner) which is also required by common contract law.

Obviously the Regulators - the Office of Fair Trading, the FSA and FSO, FSCS have massively fallen down on the job here in their duty to protect the consumer. I cannot understand why such a gross abuse of the basics of common contract law for millions to the totally unbalanced benefit of these powerful financial companies doesn't get the regulator clamping down. I cannot help thinking that iii.co.uk will have given £250,000 to the chairman of the Tory party, or something similarly corrupt has taken place here from the well connected network of politicians and powerful corporations who run this country to hammer us plebs.

tonyhamm

Banks may try to abrogate their duties, simply because sub £100 purchases are not covered by section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act, however they do have agreements in place with the Card Companies so that merchant disputes have to be resolved following procedures (i.e. Chargeback). If they are not playing ball in this respect - inform them that you will write to the FSA immediately about it.

http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/making-a-complaint/how-to-complain-about-financial-services/starting-a-financial-complaint/

chazza wrote: »

You sir deserve a medal!, I wish you posted this yesterday as my bank is playing silly bggers along with iii, but i have taken a copy of your message incase they want to pass the parcel. excellent post :T

antonio1

That was an excellent post, v helpful for those affected. However I'd add the caveat it's a bit bullish in the legal view set out. For example the general legal position is that the business must indeed notify the contract change but it isn't ordinarily obliged to verify you've read the notification. An obvious example: if the notification is by letter, they aren't responsible if you don't open the letter!

The same applies to secure messaging. The question is whether it was an agreed method of communication. In my view it was and moreover they email you to notify there's a waiting secure message. If a person didn't receive the email and therefore had no reason to log in to read a secure message, question would be why. I also recall specific emails setting out the changes were sent out, albeit I can't recall from this thread whether everyone consistently received them.

So people shouldn't assume the change would be deemed unfair under the Unfair Terms Regs cited. But..... these certainly read as good arguments and in reality noone is going to court over this so what a judge would make of it is by the by. Practically given the history of this, I wouldn't expect iii to object to a refund of charges for someone genuinely maintaining they haven't read the notifications of the charge changes. If they do, debit card chargeback is a good idea, albeit it's down to the banks' policy as pointed out. Ultimately there's still the FOS -they decide complaints under a rather woolly fairness approach, rather than the strict contractual legal position (but don't assume they'd not blame the customer for not reading secure messages, they're not necessarily as pro consumer as you might expect).

SnowMan

SnowMan wrote: »

I have an ongoing case with the Ombudsman at the moment as a result of the HL introduction of a platform fee at short notice and their charging people hit by the platform fee to move their funds elsewhere (for example multiple re-registration fees).

I don't want to say too much until the case has been looked at but I will report back on the outcome.

Some posters seem to be having problems which may involve complaining and then potentially taking the matter to the Financial Ombudsman if it isn't resolved with iii.

So thought it might be useful to mention the outcome of my own complaint against Hargreaves Lansdown about unfair terms following the introduction of platform charges, which includes links to information that the Financial Ombudsman would take into account in making a decision (for example the FSA January 2012 guidance), see this post.

tonyhamm

You have to have both an Offer and Acceptance before a contract is valid.

iii.co.uk cannot simply state your silence because you didn't log in and read their communication method is your Acceptence of the new terms. The onus is on the party making the changes to directly send the other party the offer (new terms).

The other party then has to actually accept the new terms for the contract to be valid. Silence is NOT acceptance.

And if someone is overdrawn or bears costs because of the illegal iii.co.uk direct debits taken without the cardholders premission from their current account, they are fully entitled to ask for damages on top of the refund from the FSO/FSA.

Punantive damages should be sought by the regulator here, because its easy to make the case that iii.co.uk's conduct in abusing such basics of contract law was 'calculated' to make a profit for the firm. They know 99% of iii.co.uk customers caught this way, not knowing the law, will feel iii.co.uk must be able to do this legally and they have no options.

Also they may think they must have the regulators permission to do this as there has been nothing from the regulator about it!

In my case there has been no refund from iii.co.uk, and no reponse to my secure messaging complaint. I will be going to the regulator and asking for damages in addition today.

antonio1 wrote: »

That was an excellent post, v helpful for those affected. However I'd add the caveat it's a bit bullish in the legal view set out. For example the general legal position is that the business must indeed notify the contract change but it isn't ordinarily obliged to verify you've read the notification. An obvious example: if the notification is by letter, they aren't responsible if you don't open the letter!

The same applies to secure messaging. The question is whether it was an agreed method of communication. In my view it was and moreover they email you to notify there's a waiting secure message. If a person didn't receive the email and therefore had no reason to log in to read a secure message, question would be why. I also recall specific emails setting out the changes were sent out, albeit I can't recall from this thread whether everyone consistently received them.

So people shouldn't assume the change would be deemed unfair under the Unfair Terms Regs cited. But..... these certainly read as good arguments and in reality noone is going to court over this so what a judge would make of it is by the by. Practically given the history of this, I wouldn't expect iii to object to a refund of charges for someone genuinely maintaining they haven't read the notifications of the charge changes. If they do, debit card chargeback is a good idea, albeit it's down to the banks' policy as pointed out. Ultimately there's still the FOS -they decide complaints under a rather woolly fairness approach, rather than the strict contractual legal position (but don't assume they'd not blame the customer for not reading secure messages, they're not necessarily as pro consumer as you might expect).

grey_gym_sock

whilst an offer and an acceptance is needed to create the original contract, i doubt that it's needed to vary the contract, providing the original contract specifies an alternative procedure by which it may be varied. the parties have had a "meeting of minds", forming a contract which includes the alternative procedure, so why shouldn't it be binding, in general? (IANAL.)

i wouldn't try relying solely on contract law in general. there are important exceptions for consumer contracts, placing consumers in a stronger position than they would otherwise be in; see the link in SnowMan's post for how he used that against HL.

don't be over-confident. the law is a minefield.

tonyhamm

Had phoned earlier about getting a chargeback on each iii.co.uk via my bank.

Got some letters from the bank about this in the post today, one a authorisation letter, another to contact someone at the banks Visa Disputes dept by phone, which I did.

They simply asked if any goods had been delivered by iii.co.uk - I said no and they said OK, they will do the chargeback when they get my authorisation letter.

Sent off the Authorisation letter and thats that hopefully.

antonio1

As I wrote you made some good arguments but some is just not legally accurate. Having worked in the legal profession for nigh on 20 years, I know what I’m talking about. Here’s iii’s variation clause:

"If we give you at least 20 Working Days' advance notice we may change the Agreement for any valid reason and if it is reasonable to make the change."

As you can see from the wording, iii weren’t positively obliged to: a) ensure you read the notification; or b) obtain explicit acceptance. The clause is clear and is a typical, legally effective clause in consumer contracts. It’s called a unilateral variation clause-have a look in Halsburys Laws or Chitty on Contract in your local library, the leading texts. Businesses, eg BT, raise their charges this way all the time!

The first issue being did they provide advance notice (ie was it received by secure message, linked by a separate email). It’s going too far to say because an individual may not have read the message received, it doesn’t constitute notice. That’s not the law.

The second issue being whether the clause as operated offended the 1999 Regs (significant imbalance in customer obligations-see reg 5). That is where iii were in difficulty. There being no cost free way to avoid the charges, given the transfer out fees.

Consumer complaints are to the FOS, not the FSA. The FOS can take a broad fairness view, as I wrote, whatever the contractual dispute legal merit. But you won’t get exemplary damages in a contractual dispute in England and certainly not from the FOS, obtainable under very limited circumstances under UK law, it’s more a US law concept.

tonyhamm wrote: »

You have to have both an Offer and Acceptance before a contract is valid.

iii.co.uk cannot simply state your silence because you didn't log in and read their communication method is your Acceptence of the new terms. The onus is on the party making the changes to directly send the other party the offer (new terms).

The other party then has to actually accept the new terms for the contract to be valid. Silence is NOT acceptance.

And if someone is overdrawn or bears costs because of the illegal iii.co.uk direct debits taken without the cardholders premission from their current account, they are fully entitled to ask for damages on top of the refund from the FSO/FSA.

Punantive damages should be sought by the regulator here, because its easy to make the case that iii.co.uk's conduct in abusing such basics of contract law was 'calculated' to make a profit for the firm. They know 99% of iii.co.uk customers caught this way, not knowing the law, will feel iii.co.uk must be able to do this legally and they have no options.

Also they may think they must have the regulators permission to do this as there has been nothing from the regulator about it!

In my case there has been no refund from iii.co.uk, and no reponse to my secure messaging complaint. I will be going to the regulator and asking for damages in addition today.

lisyloo

As I wrote you made some good arguments but some is just not legally accurate.

So in summary should banks have done a chargeback?
I've got my money back direct from iii, but my bank weren't helpful and it's something I would like to know to be informed about my choice of bank.
Nat West have seriously gone down hill in the last few years.

I knwo their call center people can't be expert lawyers, but neither should I be expected to be either.