Continuous payment authority fraud

minismith

Firstly, thanks in advance for reading this post and for any advice with how to proceed.

I pay monthly in advance by continuous payment authority on my Mastercard credit card for a service. Payments are usually processed within office hours (9am - 4pm) and at the beginning of the month (1st - 4th depending on where a weekend falls).

Recently, the service provider initiated collecting December payments early (29th Nov) and outside of office hours (12:15am). Subsequently a little over 12 hours later, customers were informed by email that no further service would be provided. No further contact with the service provider has been possible.

For each customer, these monthly payments may be on average around £50, so are not a significant loss individually. However, it is possible that there may be 400 customers in total, representing a fraud of maybe £20,000.

What can the customers do to get their money back? Surely the service provider can't get away with it? :mad:

elsien

Chargeback on your credit card?

[Deleted User]

Simplest way is to do a chargeback with your card provider.

DoaM

As above, and also cancel the CPA.

minismith

Thanks. Yes I intend to initiate this with Lloyds this morning. I read that banks are obliged to cancel the CPA too and can't refer customers to the service provider.

What about customers who have the CPA on a debit card?

[Deleted User]

The same. Simply request a chargeback.

bris

A charge back on the debit card. Charge backs work for CC and debit cards.

minismith

Is the service provider obliged to return the funds? Or can they not just ignore the chargeback request?

DoaM

I suspect the OP was more asking about the "cancel the CPA" point (or maybe I'm wrong?) ... the answer is the same - instruct the card provider to cancel it.

OP - chargeback is a voluntary scheme provided by VISA and Mastercard; it has no legal backing so you're subject to the T&Cs of the scheme. Usually they will action a chargeback but the other party has the option to dispute it, so make sure you have your evidence lined up and clear.

One question though ... were payments taken in advance or in arrears? i.e. was the payment just taken meant to cover November 2019 or December 2019?

[Deleted User]

minismith wrote: »

Is the service provider obliged to return the funds? Or can they not just ignore the chargeback request?

The card provider is the one who does the chargeback. It's not a request.

If the service provider disputes it, they will need to make their case to the card provider.

minismith

DoaM wrote: »

I suspect the OP was more asking about the "cancel the CPA" point (or maybe I'm wrong?) ... the answer is the same - instruct the card provider to cancel it.

OP - chargeback is a voluntary scheme provided by VISA and Mastercard; it has no legal backing so you're subject to the T&Cs of the scheme. Usually they will action a chargeback but the other party has the option to dispute it, so make sure you have your evidence lined up and clear.

One question though ... were payments taken in advance or in arrears? i.e. was the payment just taken meant to cover November 2019 or December 2019?

Thanks. Yes, actually I meant could you initiate a chargeback on a debit card CPA.

Regarding the payments, they were taken in advance. So the payment taken 29/11/19 was for December (only).