Direct debit guarantee for credit cards

King_Of_Fools

dealer_wins wrote: »

See this is what I cant understand.

They can refuse payments in some cases, yet they will still let payments go out of a closed account with a limit of zero. Makes no sense to me at all.

But the account is not closed with a limit of zero because the payment was pre-authorised when the account was open.

MarkyMarkD

The reason people believe that CPAs are unfair is simply because the DD arrangements are unfair - to the recipients of the funds.

It is simple common courtesy that someone wanting to cancel an agreement should inform the other party to the agreement.

But the DD guarantee and the DD processes don't require this - you can simply cancel your DD and the DD's cancelled. That's not fair on the person you have promised to pay the money to.

There's no real reason, therefore, why CPAs are any more unfair on the consumer - they are simply as fair as DDs ought to be.

Two wrongs don't make a right!

Lavendyr

That's all well and good, MarkyMark, but I believe Direct Debits are intended to protect the consumer from companies not stopping taking payments even when agreements have been cancelled.

For example, an ISP who shall remain nameless continued to take money from my mum's credit card more than 12 months after she had confirmed cancellation of the service with them. Even after repeated calls and letters they continued to take the money - whether due to greed or simple lack of communication within their company, I still don't know.

It's situations like these which make me grateful for DDs, because at least I am protected against these, sadly all-too-common, situations. CPAs ought to be fair, but owing either to the incompetence or unscrupulousness of many companies, they are not.