Direct Debit Guarantee - Advice on Indemnity Claims with Banks

orh*

Hello,

I'm new to posting on the forum, so apologies if this is not in the right section!

I've recently been helping my mum to get her finances in order and on checking with her what DDs she had coming out of her account, we noticing that a particular high street retailer has been taking £9.99 a month for a product after care packaged that she had cancelled (or at least was told she had cancelled) in May 2010. On calling the retailer, and cancelling the policy again, we obviously asked about seeking a refund of these fees, as my mum was under the impression that this had been cancelled. I fully appreciate that this has taken some time to be noticed, but my mum is not the most financially-minded of people and is (perhaps) a little too trusting when it comes to these sort of things, thinking that any payment coming out of her account is legitimate. When she cancelled this, it was done with the retailer, and again, to be safe, had this been me I would also have contacted the bank, but unfortunately, she did not.

I wondered, therefore, if anyone might be able to offer us some advice on how to proceed with making an indemnity claim through the DD Guarantee that her bank obviously align with. The retailer advised us that this is how we should proceed to seek these funds back, but I have no experience of this and so was hoping others might have?

I look forward to hearing from some helpful forum members!

YorkshireBoy

You don't make an indemnity claim. You make a DD guarantee claim and your bank makes the indemnity claim on the retailers bank.


As far as I know there's no time limit for DD guarantee claims...just that you let your bank know as soon as you are aware. However, it's going to be hard (for your mum) to explain away why she hasn't checked her bank statements for 6 years!

orh*

Thanks for your response. As I said, I appreciate that she should have checked this before, but she wrongly thought this was for a legitimate package - hence why she didn't query it, like I did when checking her statements for her.

I would be keen to hear from others should they have had any experience in making a claim against the DD guarantee.

agrinnall

What others have experienced really doesn't matter, just make the claim and see what happens. If it works, great, if not come back again to ask what else you can do.

orh*

I will obviously be pursuing this, but hearing about the experiences of others in making such claims could be helpful in terms of any do's and dont's, etc. and I thought the purpose of a forum like this was to allow people to share such experiences. As I said in my previous post, I will hold out to see if anyone does have any experiences to share.

colsten

Look at the DD site for guidance: https://www.directdebit.co.uk/DirectDebitExplained/pages/directdebitguarantee.aspx

societys_child

There aren't any "do's and dont's" with the DD guarantee.
The bank should refund the erroneous payment, however as it's many payments over 6 years, it will be more complicated. They may ask you to contact the merchant.

On calling the retailer, and cancelling the policy again, we obviously asked about seeking a refund

You don't say what their reply was?

YorkshireBoy

societys_child wrote: »

You don't say what their reply was?

See the 2nd last para in the OP.

societys_child

See the 2nd last para in the OP.

Ah, got it, they referred the op to the bank. Not a particularly helpful "high street retailer".

jonesMUFCforever

societys_child wrote: »

Ah, got it, they referred the op to the bank. Not a particularly helpful "high street retailer".

A lot of companies do this - expecting the banks to do their work for them.

bristolleedsfan

orh* wrote: »

I would be keen to hear from others should they have had any experience in making a claim against the DD guarantee.

I used appropriate template amending accordingly

https://www.directdebit.co.uk/DirectDebitHandyTools/LetterTemplates/pages/lettertemplates.aspx

Coop bank chose to message backwards and forwards for best part of a week rather than act on my instruction immediately

I was offered 25.00 compensation for the delay/stress/inconvenience, I asked for 50.00 - ended up with 60.00 :cool: