Scottish power still taking money after cancelled D/D

gord115

I have recently changed suppliers and cancelled my direct debit to Scottish power so I could check my final bill was correct and pay by cheque.
However I noticed they were still taking money of differing amounts from my account. I was told by my bank that they were allowed to do this because I had authorised the D/D in the first place.It turns out I had 5 direct debits set up with them. I signed for only one!
Luckily they hadn't had chance to take more than they were entitled to.
Are a company allowed to take money from your account when you have cancelled a direct debit? And if so what's the point of cancelling them!

greyteam1959

You should have cancelled the direct debit with your bank as well.
Thats why they are still able to collect the money.
You should always cancel direct debits with your bank....in fact I cancel a direct debit with the bank FIRST and then with the company.
If you do it this way round there is no way at all anybody can carry on taking a direct debit.

Cardew

A DD mandate is an arrangement between you and your bank.

In setting up a DD you are authorising your bank to allow Company X to take variable sums from your account.

The DD authorisation is sent to your bank via Company X simply so they have details of your bank.

It follows that if you wish to cancel this arrangement with your bank, you should notify the bank of your wishes.

If you owe a company money, it is not surprising that they would wish to collect this money first.

gord115

mervyn11 wrote: »

You should have cancelled the direct debit with your bank as well.
Thats why they are still able to collect the money.
You should always cancel direct debits with your bank....in fact I cancel a direct debit with the bank FIRST and then with the company.
If you do it this way round there is no way at all anybody can carry on taking a direct debit.

I think you misunderstood me I had cancelled the direct debit with the bank.

Cardew

gord115 wrote: »

I think you misunderstood me I had cancelled the direct debit with the bank.

Then if the bank have paid money to the company, AFTER you cancelled with the bank, then you have a valid claim against the bank. They must repay the money into your account.

However that is if the DD you cancelled was the one against which the the sum was paid.

You said in the first post that your bank had 5 DDs from the company, and you only had signed one. Could the money have been collected from one of the other 4?

You need to investigate how they have 5 DDs.

anniecave

If there were 5 DD's and the bank cancelled only one of them then SP was perfectly entitled to take any of the others provided that they had given you notice they were intending to do so or you had asked them to. Not sure why you would have more than one DD though....

Assuming Scottish Power's systems were working properly they should only take the value of your debt as a direct debit anyway (not four times the value of the debt).

Direct debits are great, until either the originator messes up or you get a mix up trying to move a direct debit between current accounts. If a value is taken without authority or the wrong value is taken you can always dispute that with your bank and get a refund anyway. I have had to do this before.