Outfox The Market Direct Debit changes

harrowian

I have asked the ceo of the Spanish bank for support to stop these direct debits.

wild666

I had a reply from Santander this morning it claims that as they still have the mandate they can reopen it at any time but I have a notification that all transactions over £100 I am notified of I am going to drop it down to £50 and I have a mail tracker that tells me when a sent email is opened by the recipient. It only works in Firefox & Chrome so I have to open one of those browsers to extend the notification.

paters

editor1 wrote: »

@paters,

I'm aware OFTM is just branding and for invoicing services the actual name of the business entity we are dealing with usually shows up on bank statements, which should be Foxglove, however, it transpire they can use three different Business names to deduct funds from your account, and even this is not an issue with this poster, the issue is that many others who have Cancelled DDs are having them re-initiated via a plethora of business entities all registered to where Foxglove are operating from - does it not strike you as rather strange they can use up to 30 different named entities to set-up a DD payment scheme all allegedly associated with OFTM?

Anyhow, the more horror stories i'm coming across the greater my worry becomes, that said, at a personal account level we are not doing too bad, but I do now wish to be prepared for any eventuality given some major screw ups OFTM has made - the question is now can they survive until the end of the financial year on 30 March 2019, or will they hit the wall?

editor1, if you were aware of that, then why were you wibbling on about breaches of data regulations etc. in your previous posts?
The payee name on their direct debit instructions could just be the name of the bank account, again it doesn't necessarily mean it's a different business.
As to whether it's right or wrong for them to reinstate cancelled direct debits, the same should be asked about the customers cancelling them in the first place.
Unlike the cranks in that Facebook group, I doubt that the directors are up to no good and just out to line their own pockets. I would bet that their bank manager has forced their hand and they are just doing the best they can to keep the business afloat. If they do go under it's not just the shareholders and staff who lose out, the customers do too.

harrowian

"I doubt that the directors are up to no good and just out to line their own pockets. I would bet that their bank manager has forced their hand and they are just doing the best they can to keep the business afloat."
I don't think that makes it the right thing to do.
That matter is between them and the banks.

hubb

Still no response from my email sent to OFTM almost 2 weeks on and still they take my DD. My switchover (thank God) kicks in on the 21st, before the new price hike. If I cancel my DD I am a bit worried they won't refund my credit as they will no longer have my bank details.

paters

harrowian wrote: »

"I doubt that the directors are up to no good and just out to line their own pockets. I would bet that their bank manager has forced their hand and they are just doing the best they can to keep the business afloat."
I don't think that makes it the right thing to do.
That matter is between them and the banks.

What alternative do they have? Close-up shop and leave all the customers in limbo with a SoLR, leave Ofgem to pay back all the customers in credit, make their staff redundant just before Xmas...

alittleowl

Like so many others, I've still had no response to my complaints of three weeks ago. However, I've had a message from my bank, First Direct, this morning telling me that OFtM have now tried three times to reinstate the DD which I/my bank cancelled and "we are treating these unauthorized attempts to access your account as attempted fraud. We have taken steps to protect your account and have passed the relevant information to the police. It is possible that they may contact you for more information." Of course, I have no way of knowing whether they really are attempting fraud or whether they're just incompetent, and an alleged offence is a long long way from a criminal or even a civil conviction but, assuming FD (and possibly its parent, HSBC) are doing this for all its customers, it's really not looking good for OFtM.

wavelets

alittleowl wrote: »

Like so many others, I've still had no response to my complaints of three weeks ago. However, I've had a message from my bank, First Direct, this morning telling me that OFtM have now tried three times to reinstate the DD which I/my bank cancelled and "we are treating these unauthorized attempts to access your account as attempted fraud. We have taken steps to protect your account and have passed the relevant information to the police. It is possible that they may contact you for more information." Of course, I have no way of knowing whether they really are attempting fraud or whether they're just incompetent, and an alleged offence is a long long way from a criminal or even a civil conviction but, assuming FD (and possibly its parent, HSBC) are doing this for all its customers, it's really not looking good for OFtM.

:rotfl: .

editor1

@paters,

The information I've given out is correct, DDs are being reinstated by OFTM via numerous business entities registered at Frog Island, not two or three entities, but multiple - they have at least 28 businesses registered to the premises they operate from. Allegedly, after accusing me of not worrying enough, I'm now causing a panic - the fact remains its use of multiple businesses to re-instate cancelled DDs when customers are in dispute is worrying, or is this regular business practice in your opinion, for if I tried this as a Business operating with Visa or MasterCard I'd be in bloody prison!

Anthorn

paters wrote: »

What alternative do they have? Close-up shop and leave all the customers in limbo with a SoLR, leave Ofgem to pay back all the customers in credit, make their staff redundant just before Xmas...

Personally, I think everyone is going off on a tangent and speculating a result which may not be true. It could be that OFTM has identified a better business model and is progressing with that. Admittedly all the evidence points to cash flow but that might be masking the reality.

As I posted earlier in this thread, there are little differences between OFTM's new model and Powershop's model: Both require prepayment of energy and so energy costs more in winter than in summer. It's not by any means a budget scheme where annual cost is split into equal monthly payments as with for example EDF but it could turn out to be beneficial in the spring and summer when lower payments start.

Probably the only thing missing in a comparison between OFTM and Powershop is the discount Powershop customers get but that could easily be equalled by OFTM by paying interest on credit balances along the lines of OVO.