Breaking a "Continuous Payment Authority" debit card transactoin

lepidopterist

Hi there!

(Hope this is the right forum for this);

I am trying to prevent a scheduled regular payment from leaving my Barclays bank account via my Visa debit card. According to the FSA's "Know Your Rights" handbook (p15) Barclays are legally required to prevent any payment.

Here's the relevant quote.

"However, you have the right to cancel them directly with your bank or card issuer by telling it that you have stopped permission for payments. Your bank or card issuer must then stop them - it has no right to insist that you agree this first with the company taking the payments".

Barclays have told me that this is "misleading", and claim to have no means of stopping the payment from coming out of my account. So now I have to report my debit card as lost, in order to get it stopped.

Meanwhile, it looks like either the FSA or Barclays is lying to me. Would appreciate any thoughts or suggestions as to who#s right, and what - if anything - can be done?

fermi

You are entitled to cancel it with Barclays.

If they haven't put systems in place that allow them to block the transactions, then they will have to refund them and any costs that you incur due to them.

Useful link: http://www.paullewismoney.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/the-continuous-payments-racket.html

meer53

Barclays are right, they cannot prevent a CPA payment from debiting your account.

Have you contacted the company who will be claiming the payment to cancel it ? If not they will just continue to do so until you tell them otherwise. If you have, then Barclays can refund and dispute any future payments for you once they have debited.

fermi

lepidopterist wrote: »

"However, you have the right to cancel them directly with your bank or card issuer by telling it that you have stopped permission for payments. Your bank or card issuer must then stop them - it has no right to insist that you agree this first with the company taking the payments".

The FSA are correct there.

You are not obliged to cancel it with the company taking payments. Though it is usually advisable to do so as well as issuing instruction to the bank to cancel.

However, if Barclays continue to let payments go out after you have instructed Barclays to stop the CPA, then Barclay must refund/reverse them.

There is no get out from that. No matter what bank staff may tell you to mislead you.

http://www.oft.gov.uk/business-advice/treating-customers-fairly/cpa-principles/

Under the PSRs, consumers can cancel any future transaction at any time up to close of business on the preceding day. The transaction can be cancelled either with the trader or the payment service provider (the customer's bank or card issuer). It is good practice to notify the trader, particularly where there may be an underlying contractual liability, but this is not a pre-condition for cancellation.

tweeniewoo_2

Barclays have a Visa disputes department - you need to speak with them and they will log the transactions which you dont recognise and also give you a reference number. Once you have this no more payments should debit your account - if they do any charges/debit interest incurred will also be Barcalys liability so they would have to refund this as well.
I'm sorry but i dont have the departments tel no but if you call Barclays/go in they should be able to provide you with it.
Good luck !

lepidopterist

Well, I instructed Barclays to cancel the CPA on the 19th December. the merchant made a withdrawal today.

I've phoned Barclays again; and despite quoting chapter and verse from the Payment Services Regulations, they insist they are unable to revoke the CPA, or refund my money. So now, we go to the authorities (and I have to cancel my effing debit card, which is hugely inconvenient).

What's my next step? Joint letter to the FSA and Financial Ombudsman?

antrobus

lepidopterist wrote: »

Well, I instructed Barclays to cancel the CPA on the 19th December. the merchant made a withdrawal today.

I've phoned Barclays again; and despite quoting chapter and verse from the Payment Services Regulations, they insist they are unable to revoke the CPA, or refund my money. So now, we go to the authorities (and I have to cancel my effing debit card, which is hugely inconvenient).

What's my next step? Joint letter to the FSA and Financial Ombudsman?

Formal written complaint to Barclays citing FSA rules;

However, you have the right to cancel them directly with your bank or card issuer by telling it that you have stopped permission for the payments. Your bank or card issuer must then stop them – it has no right to insist that you agree this first with the company taking the payments.

http://www.fsa.gov.uk/consumerinformation/product_news/banking/know_your_rights/payments

Take it to FOS if Barclays fail to cough up.

meer53

lepidopterist wrote: »

Well, I instructed Barclays to cancel the CPA on the 19th December. the merchant made a withdrawal today.

I've phoned Barclays again; and despite quoting chapter and verse from the Payment Services Regulations, they insist they are unable to revoke the CPA, or refund my money. So now, we go to the authorities (and I have to cancel my effing debit card, which is hugely inconvenient).

What's my next step? Joint letter to the FSA and Financial Ombudsman?

You don't need to cancel your card at the moment. If you instructed Barclays on the 19th and the payment was already in the system on the 19th (which it probably was) then thats why they won't refund you.

If i were you, i'd wait until the next payment is due, see what happens then. Stopping your card isn't going to make any difference at all.

If there is still a problem, you should make an official complaint to Barclays first and wait for the outcome of that before taking any further action. The FOS will expect you to do this first before contacting them.

fermi

antrobus wrote: »

Formal written complaint to Barclays citing FSA rules;

However, you have the right to cancel them directly with your bank or card issuer by telling it that you have stopped permission for the payments. Your bank or card issuer must then stop them – it has no right to insist that you agree this first with the company taking the payments.

http://www.fsa.gov.uk/consumerinformation/product_news/banking/know_your_rights/payments

Take it to FOS if Barclays fail to cough up.

lepidopterist wrote: »

Well, I instructed Barclays to cancel the CPA on the 19th December. the merchant made a withdrawal today.

Yep. You need to start that process of complaining formally right now.

To the bank first in writing. Then the FOS if they do not refund.

blckbrd

Wondering how you got on OP.

Barclays dispute team do claim not to have authority to cancel. Had a conversation with them just this evening.

The nice lady gave me an example of trying to avoid paying a loan by cancelling a card - the bank can't get in the middle. She then said they will put in a request to cancel and if a payment is taken they will refund it.

Utter double dutch but it's cancelled.

lepidopterist

It took them a while, but it's sorted now.

Barclays customer support is either brilliant or terrible, with no inbetween. Have had some very helpful and competent calls, and some extraordinarily bad ones. The representative who told me that the FSA's website was "misleading" was actually a call-centre manager, incredibly. Turns out some people are rubbish at their job! Who knew? Advice to anyone in a similar predicament - if you get stuck, put the phone down and try again.

For me, getting them to acknowledge that they have a legal responsibility to cancel and refund was the hard part; they said they would offer a refund, but even helpful second-line custy support types would swear blind they couldn't cancel the CPA. Eventually spoke to the right guy; it takes them 30 days to cancel the CPA, and in the meantime, they've refunded countless withdrawals by the merchant from my account.

Hope all goes smoothly for you, blckbrd!