BT Direct Debit, How To Beat It

BritBrat

Heinz wrote: »

The solicitor who challenged it via the courts lost the case.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/7319545.stm

There are time when the pragmatic approach is the sensible course.

I think she was asking the wrong question.

The question we are asking is if one process payment costs £1.50 monthly, why does the same process payment cost £4.50 quarterly.

One has to be unfair.

And why do I not have to pay it? and they never ask for it even though I pay using online banking and the payment company is seperate from BT.

I have no problem with paying by direct debit but I do if they charge for it.

Mytheroo

if i have no money, the DD will fail and BT will NOT get any money.

In other words, DD does not guarantee BT having money on a certain day

Mytheroo

from the report

''Last March, Trading Standards described the charges as "outrageous" and "unjustified" but BT said it cost more to process non-direct debit payments and that those customers were also more likely to forget to pay. ''

The question is, how much more? And customers who forget to pay get charged the £7.50 late fee

eslick

Mytheroo wrote: »

if i have no money, the DD will fail and BT will NOT get any money.

In other words, DD does not guarantee BT having money on a certain day

In 99% of the cases it does and in some cases you may go over drawn

Mark_In_Hampshire

eslick wrote: »

the direct debit guarantee ensures that a payment cant be taken before it is due and allow you to get the money back if either the wrong amount is taken or it is taken early.

That's a little bit of a contradiction. The DD guarantee provides no safeguards. It does not prevent the amount being taken early, twice, the wrong amount being taken, and so on. It does however provide a remedy which most Banks will honour to void off the mistake for you (some often try to claim you need to talk to the payee and the Bank has no responsibility, or does not honour the DD guarantee).

However should that cause you any consequential losses (e.g. a bank charge, or somethng else fails to be paid resulting in a fee from that payee), you're liable for it, even though you did nothing wrong. The payee is not liable to reimburse you.

eslick wrote: »

Not sure where the piece mentioned that its not secure, I work for a multi national and the amount of encryption that we and bacs provide I would say its very secure. Never heard of anyone hacking into a banks, company or bacs software. Have heard where your data can be used to set up debits but this I would say this isnt a case of the direct debit system been insecure more of other factors.

I would diagree here. If you gave me your debit card, I could not use that without the PIN. But, if you gave me your sort code and account number, I can set up as many direct debits on your account as I like just by using your sort code and account number. Your Bank won't check they were genuine (they will simply assume that you must have authorised them), and if you have the money, those DD's will be paid. I have seen four occasions in the past when I used to use DD when mandates to companies I had never heard of simply appeared on the account from nowhere thanks to a basic lack of security procedures.

The issue here is not whether it is "fair" or not. It is simply that by contracting out payment processing to a third party BT have sought to force us to have a relationship with that third party. So, if we refuse to accept that Term, I don't see that we need to pay the £4.50. It can be applied to our bill, but we have no responsibility to that third party to pay them anything.

That places us in a kind of deadlock, because BT are committed to provide our line for 12 months under the Terms we agreed. We do not agree to the changes proposed. Thus, I want to find out more about contract law to determine how the contract proceeds from here once we refuse those Terms.

This is an entirely different matter to whether it is "fair" or not.

eslick

Mark_In_Hampshire wrote: »

That's a little bit of a contradiction. The DD guarantee provides no safeguards. It does not prevent the amount being taken early, twice, the wrong amount being taken, and so on. It does however provide a remedy which most Banks will honour to void off the mistake for you (some often try to claim you need to talk to the payee and the Bank has no responsibility, or does not honour the DD guarantee).

However should that cause you any consequential losses (e.g. a bank charge, or somethng else fails to be paid resulting in a fee from that payee), you're liable for it, even though you did nothing wrong. The payee is not liable to reimburse you..

This is the guarantee if the amount is taken twice you speak to your bank and they correct it, your account appears as if nothing has ever occurred, so if and you go over drawn then you call the bank and they correct it, and you wouldnt receive any charges from the bank for going over drawn as long as the direct debit was collected correctly.
The Direct Debit Guarantee

• If the amounts to be paid or the payment dates change, the organisation collecting the payment will notify you normally 10 working days in advance of your account being debited or as otherwise agreed
• If an error is made by the organisation or your bank or building society, you are guaranteed a full and immediate refund from your branch of the amount paid
• You can cancel a Direct Debit at any time by contacting your bank or building society. We also recommend you notify the organisation concerned.

.[/quote]
I would diagree here. If you gave me your debit card, I could not use that without the PIN. But, if you gave me your sort code and account number, I can set up as many direct debits on your account as I like just by using your sort code and account number. Your Bank won't check they were genuine (they will simply assume that you must have authorised them), and if you have the money, those DD's will be paid. I have seen four occasions in the past when I used to use DD when mandates to companies I had never heard of simply appeared on the account from nowhere thanks to a basic lack of security procedures..[/quote]

Agree to some extent but I was actually talking about companies setting up direct debits, anyone can get your data and set up a direct debit its then up to you to check that it was set up but if they take money and it wasnt set up correctly as part of the guarentee then you get the money back.

Though disagree if someone had your debit card details wether its from the actual card or an old style receipt then even without your pin they could still get money or buy goods from your account. Some banks card numbers actually use your bank account number as part of the card number and they even have the sort code on the card to.

[/quote]The issue here is not whether it is "fair" or not. It is simply that by contracting out payment processing to a third party BT have sought to force us to have a relationship with that third party. So, if we refuse to accept that Term, I don't see that we need to pay the £4.50. It can be applied to our bill, but we have no responsibility to that third party to pay them anything.

That places us in a kind of deadlock, because BT are committed to provide our line for 12 months under the Terms we agreed. We do not agree to the changes proposed. Thus, I want to find out more about contract law to determine how the contract proceeds from here once we refuse those Terms.

This is an entirely different matter to whether it is "fair" or not.[/quote]

Completely agree with this.

Mark_In_Hampshire

eslick wrote: »

This is the guarantee if the amount is taken twice you speak to your bank and they correct it, your account appears as if nothing has ever occurred, so if and you go over drawn then you call the bank and they correct it, and you wouldnt receive any charges from the bank for going over drawn as long as the direct debit was collected correctly.

You'd think so, wouldn't you. And I wish this were true. But it isn't. On prior occasions where an error has been made resulting in a charge, Nationwide as was then refused to refund £79 in charges when a direct debit I'd cancelled got set up again by the payee after my contract with them had ended, and they attempted two payments which both failed since there weren't the funds to pay it, thankfully.

Perhaps it is ther policy of some banks to put you back in the position you should have been in, and I think this might once have been part of the wording of the DD guarantee. But it isn't any more.

eslick wrote: »

The Direct Debit Guarantee

• If an error is made by the organisation or your bank or building society, you are guaranteed a full and immediate refund from your branch of the amount paid

This does not say "and any charges imposed by your bank or consequential losses you face". It only says "the amount paid".

I queried this with BACS and the answer from the people who operate the sceheme confirms this:

Me wrote:

The wording of the guarantee, and the refund, remains vague and ambiguous. Perhaps an example would help:

As we have clarified, my Bank will not require any evidence or documentary proof from a payee that I have authorised them to debit my account.

I have a balance of £100 in my account.

A payee forwards a Direct Debit Mandate request, not authorised by me, to my Bank who action this, and the payee then requests payment of £200 under this false mandate.

My Bank refuse to pay the Direct Debit because I do not have sufficient funds available, and charge me £39 for doing so. No payment has been made to the payee, so there is no payment to the payee to refund here.

The Direct Debit Guarantee requires my Bank to immediately and without question refund the £39 charge, and any consequential charges, because “in the event of an error, your bank or building society must give you a full an immediate refund of the amount paid”

Is the above the correct interpretation of the protection offered by the Direct Debit Guarantee?

Thanks,
Mark

Reply was:

BACS wrote:

The guarentee does not cover any charges that you may incure.This would be a matter between yourself and your bank.

eslick

Mark_In_Hampshire wrote: »

You'd think so, wouldn't you. And I wish this were true. But it isn't. On prior occasions where an error has been made resulting in a charge, Nationwide as was then refused to refund £79 in charges when a direct debit I'd cancelled got set up again by the payee after my contract with them had ended, and they attempted two payments which both failed since there weren't the funds to pay it, thankfully.

:

Thats not good when it happened to us the debit was reversed and appeared as if nothing had happened on our account. A friend had the same issue recently a gym took the complete wrong amount, called his bank and they did the same. Its really strange as I thought they would debit and credit the account but they didnt just removed it completely. Hope you tool it further and got the money back in the end.

Possibly not all banks manage them in the same way.

Mark_In_Hampshire

In the case above, the charges took me beyond my overdraft limit by a few pounds, and more charges were added. I refused to pay any of them or bring the account back within the overdraft limit as demanded since the only reason it was beyond the limit was because of the charges, and demanded they void them off. They then closed the account and sent me a summons. I defended it, and heard no more.

Then I opened a new Bank account and told the Bank never to permit any DD mandates to be applied to it, and I haven't had the problem since.

On the basis of this it might be worth sending the BACS correspondence to my Bank, and ask them how they implement this.

Mytheroo

eslick, you, and everyone I know, has had a problem with DD, payments being taken twice, taken after cancelled etc.

Can you tell me about anyone you know who has, via internet banking, paid a bill twice or paid more after they have finished doing business with a company?

This is why DD is flawed. It costs me time and money organising all the mistakes, phoning banks, call centres, queues, going into my branch (I work odd hours, my spare time is between 1am and 6am).

I dont need the guarantee with internet banking, it's inbuilt