Fraudulent (erroneous?) Direct Debit

slopemaster

A couple of months ago, a one-off DD was taken out of my account by a company I've never heard of, and never had any contact with.
This is the first time (after many years of having multiple accounts) that this has ever happened to me, and I am curious as to how it happens, and how often it happens.

I have now sorted out the problem - though the bank were unreasonably difficult, first telling me to contact the company, then insisting I go into a branch, then telling me the time delay for refunds had expired. After much quoting of the DD guarantee rules (which I looked up) they have now agreed to refund both the DD and the overdraft fees entailed as a direct result.

All along they assumed that I must have set up a direct debit to this company and then changed my mind. Of course, I would be entitled to do that anyway - but the point is, I didn't. this transction was never authorised!

The company in question 'appears' (from its website) to be a respectable insurance company, tho' I've never heard of it.
So my guess is, someone simply typed the wrong account number so it came out of my account instead of someone elses.
Is that how it works? are there no checks? and how common is it?
The bank couldn't/wouldn't answer these questions, and I'm a bit jumpy after what happened.

Shakin_Steve

Company name?

agrinnall

There are no checks other than sortcode and account number, so if the company happened to mistype a number and got yours then the DD set up will go through.

Of greater interest is knowing which bank it was that blatantly disregarded and misrepresented their responsibilities under the DD Guarantee.

slopemaster

agrinnall wrote: »

There are no checks other than sortcode and account number, so if the company happened to mistype a number and got yours then the DD set up will go through.

OK, thanks, I thought it must be that.

agrinnall wrote: »

Of greater interest is knowing which bank it was that blatantly disregarded and misrepresented their responsibilities under the DD Guarantee.

Societe Generale

xylophone

Societe Generale

Johnny Foreigner .....:)

bigadaj

I reckon there's an easy £50 compo there if you want it by raising as a formal complaint.

agrinnall

Is it a 23-63-91 sortcode? If so that one does support DDs so they should be fully aware of the provisions of the DD guarantee (their other published sortcodes weren't found by a sortcode checker).

slopemaster

Dont recall off top of head - but I have got other DDs on the account

agrinnall

slopemaster wrote: »

Dont recall off top of head - but I have got other DDs on the account

I meant your sortcode at Societe Generale.