Mobile Broadband continued Direct Debiting my bank account for months!

wavefinance

Hello people! I'm new to this site so I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this or if theres already been an other post about it but hope a bright mind can help me.

Back in 2010 I had a 2 year mobile broadband contract with Three ending in 2012. So, 1 month before it is due to end I call them and make sure to cancel and to end it there and then. Little as I know to my lovely surprise coming back from summer holiday and restart uni, turns out they've kept taking £10.88 every month from my bank account!!!:eek: Obviously I call them to find out what the hell is going on. "Sir, your contract was upgraded to blablabla" and they're not going to reimburse nothing. Taking something from someone without their knowledge is my definition of STEALING... after that I made sure the Direct Debit was canceled with my bank but they have stolen close to £100 from me. I'm a student and thats a hell of a lot for me!

My question is:
is there anything I can do to have my money back?! Or are they just gona get away like that...:mad:
coz right now I feel like going to my police station and say "Hey, Three has just stolen £100 from me"

thank you in advance for any help or advice.:)

StuC75

Contracts do not end after the 2 year period. but become rolling monthly agreements. For whatever reason it seems that you did not terminate the contract in the prescribed manner - did you get any confirmation of the notice you claim to have given??

As for payments by Direct Debit - claims can be made via your bank, but they would need confirmation of the cancellation you made..

patman99

Your mistake was to call them. You should have written to them instead & then gone on to cancel the DD the day after they took the final payment.

macman

One thing puzzles me. If £100 is 'a hell of a lot' for you, then how come you didn't look at your bank statements for over 9 months? 9 monthly statements and you didn't notice?
Or cancel the DD once you'd made what you believed to be the final payment?
As above, the contract does not end after 24 months, only your minimum term does.

wavefinance

thx for the replies guys! so;

First, I don't know anything about "rolling monthly agreements" and I don't if thats what it became. All I know is I called them one month before the contract was due to end (after 2 years) as said on the cancelation procedure. And made sure to the person on the phone understood I wished to terminate any service from them or contract and he confirmed.

Secondly, yes patman99 that's defiantly what I will do in the future so I am 100% safe. But as it was my first contract of this kind I was a bit naive about my options. I didn't know I had to cancel the DD at the end (I thought thats what I had done when called them!). I didn't even know I could cancel the DD (through my bank) until I realise they were not about to stop taking money from me and was force to search for a solution. That's when I found out. Way too late regrettably...

And lastly, macman you are right I should have payed more attention to my bank account fluctuation but as I said above and before. Confidently, in my mind this was over and shorted so I went away the entire summer vacation to my family home meaning I had no access to my usual monthly letter statement and I no real need to thoroughly look at my bank account online. Or else of coures I would've noticed before being back to the UK to start uni and none this would've happened.

Thank you for any further help!

macman

Only you can cancel the DD. Not the supplier.
The problem here is proving that you requested a cancellation, made worse by the time that has elapsed without query.
You said that you didn't check your statements 'over the vacation'-but based on the monthly and total amounts you say they took, you didn't check them for over 9 months.

wavefinance

Yes I realise that.
and if it is so important;

Timeline
March: Called Three to cancel.
April: Supposedly last payment.
May: Never thought of checking since I wasn't suspicious of anything.
June-September: Away
October: Returned for uni start, realised what was happening.
November: Trying to solve the problem
December: Still trying...
Jan: Found out I could cancel the DD my self so did it.

Cycrow

you need to read the T&C to find out how you are supposed to cancel the contract.
They usually have very specific procedures to follow, and if you dont, they wont cancel it.

i dont know what the procedure for 3 is, but with Vodafone they will not accept a cancellation over the phone, it must be done in writing.

all mobile contracts are minimum terms, not fixed terms

macman

So you noticed the problem in October 2012, cancelled your DD in January 2013, but are posting this at the end of May? You can understand my confusion.
Have you actually now given notice and cancelled (and had confirmation of cancellation)? Cancelling your DD does not cancel your contract.
If not, you are still in contract and likely to have a default placed on your credit file, which will trash it for 6 years.
That is much more serious than the loss of £100.

wavefinance

Yes the person to whom I spoke last made me understand it has been terminated but I would not be reimbursed...:mad:

Cycrow wrote: »

i dont know what the procedure for 3 is, but with Vodafone they will not accept a cancellation over the phone, it must be done in writing.

This does sound familiar. There could've been an email of some sort I wrote. I will search, thank you.