Are companies like Tescobroadband

ewan_husarmee

obliged to refund any closing balance automatically?

I assumed they would and 3 months later cancelled the direct debit. When they got huffy about this I checked my account and low and belold they owed me £15.10 still.

They refused to pay it back without a new DD.

Given that 1) there is nothing in the T&Cs covering refunds 2) no information on their web site telling you how to claim refunds 3) they threaten you with charges if you do not pay them every last penny you owe them 4) They can only refund via DD ( I find that most bizarre) or by tesco vouchers 5) It must take 5 minutes to handle the refund manually when there is a DD in place and an hour to handle awkward sods like me, are they deliberately aiming to "steal" closing balances that people forget about as a source of profit?

networkguy_2

I would ask them for a written explanation of why they need a new DD mandate, since you have closed your broadband account (and I assume, moved to another ISP). It will be interesting to see what they say as justification for needing to be able to 'debit' something, when they owe you.

Explain that if they don't respond, or preferably refund the sum immediately, you will use a consumer show on the radio or TV to get an answer from them and publicly query their request for a DD arrangement.

It'll be embarrassing for Tesco trying to explain to the BBC, and highlight the stupidity of their request. Hopefully they will see the mistake they are making, when it goes from some lowly member of staff who normally just follows a script to some supervisor or manager who sees the problem (or doesn't, and risks Tesco's reputation {and probably their own job} by sticking their head in the sand about this matter).

kwikbreaks

They aren't alone. I've had similar years ago with a mobile phone company ending up owing me a few quid. I don't recall who or how but I do remember having to phone and ask for my money back. I think they sent a cheque at the time.

networkguy_2

When I cancelled contract with T-Mobile in July this year (6 months before it was due to end) because of rotten signals, they sent me a couple of 'final' bills (second was in case I had been abroad and roaming, and any additional charges were not in time for the first) and as I was owed money (all £1.06) they indicated they would send me a cheque (which took about 6 weeks to arrive).

Seeing as they had been using direct debit for payments and knew my account number and sort code, they could have done a transfer, but I guess some people forget to deposit a cheque...

Timalay

No. I used to be with a smallish ISP called Entanet. When we moved house I decided to change isp's (moving with them was a bit of a faff). Well about 6 months later I was checking my bank statement, to find out a recent transaction from them. I thought this a was a bit funny, so I called them up, and they found out that they had changed me two lots of cancellation charges. The money was back in my account by the end of the month.