Curry's "product support" for a laptop

BlackDouglas

A few months back, I bought a new laptop for my wife at Curry's. My wife also wanted a CD rom drive to load some old software onto it and the salesman offered to throw it in for free if we signed up to "Product Support". He said we could cancel the "product support" after the first month.

After a month, which we had marked on the calendar, I went into our bank account and looked for the direct debit so that I could cancel it. Nothing. I looked for a standing order. Nothing. Strange, but I thought it looked as if we weren't paying anything out for this.

Subsequently, from checking my outgoings, I found that we were paying Curry's £10 per month directly from my card (so on our statement it showed as a POS "point of sale"). We were not told at the time that this is what would happen. It has taken me several long phonecalls to our bank to finally get this cancelled.

This strikes me as extremely sharp practice. I didn't know that you could unwittingly sign up to such a thing. Has anyone else experienced anything similar?

bris

Cancelling the payment doesn't cancel the contract, have you told them you want to cancel or just assumed cancelling the payment will take care of it?


Why would you assume it was a DD, charging the card is also a valid way of collecting payments no sharp practice, checking the bank account after the first month would have easily found it.

Aylesbury_Duck

As above, it's not sharp practice. What form did you sign to authorise the monthly payments? Did you keep your copy? It would have explained how the payments were to be taken. As bris says, cancelling a DD would not have cancelled the contract anyway, you would have had to contact them in writing (or whatever the contract says was required).

BlackDouglas

Thanks guys. Reassured to know it is reasonable practice. It's just not something I'd ever come across before. I've always done this sort of thing by direct debit or standing order previously, which is why I assumed this was something similar.

I've written to them to tell them I'm cancelling the contract.

Aylesbury_Duck

Hopefully you're still up on the deal?

BlackDouglas

Sadly no. I won't be taking on anything similar in future. Lesson learned.

ChrisK....._3

Currys dont acknowledge any consumer laws which is why I wouldn't buy anything off them if was the only store in the world.

BlackDouglas wrote: »

A few months back, I bought a new laptop for my wife at Curry's. My wife also wanted a CD rom drive to load some old software onto it and the salesman offered to throw it in for free if we signed up to "Product Support". He said we could cancel the "product support" after the first month.

After a month, which we had marked on the calendar, I went into our bank account and looked for the direct debit so that I could cancel it. Nothing. I looked for a standing order. Nothing. Strange, but I thought it looked as if we weren't paying anything out for this.

Subsequently, from checking my outgoings, I found that we were paying Curry's £10 per month directly from my card (so on our statement it showed as a POS "point of sale"). We were not told at the time that this is what would happen. It has taken me several long phonecalls to our bank to finally get this cancelled.

This strikes me as extremely sharp practice. I didn't know that you could unwittingly sign up to such a thing. Has anyone else experienced anything similar?

mattyprice4004

I'm not their biggest fan, but it's more than a bit silly to suggest they conform to no consumer laws at all.