Debit card warning

Johnraka

I do have a number of creditors that I have been making arrangements with, one of whom is Harvey & Thompson pawnbrokers.
The balance with them was £500, I made a debit card payment to them on the 24th of this month for £10 (the agreed repayment amount) which was to be followed by another £10 today.
I tried to make a payment on my mortgage this afternoon only to find that there were insufficient funds, Yup!
You guessed it...
H&T took the whole lot in 2 hits, one for £10 as agreed, then they went for the balance of £480.
And guess what?....
The building society/Bank can't do a single thing about it... why?
Well, if you buy in a shop you use your pin - THAT is your authorisation.
If you use a ATM machine you use your pin - THAT is your authorisation.
If you use the web you are only protected by the integrity of the company you are dealing with - they CAN take more than you authorise but risk a legal case if they do, the same rules apply to a phone transaction.
However!!!
If you pay a loan company by debit card after reaching an agreement following financial difficulties there is nothing to prevent them taking the full amount any time they choose.
There is NOTHING you can do about this, and I do mean NOTHING!
The telephone agreement I reached with H&T was denied by their staff (and no, they don't record telephone conversations!).
The final word from the bank was that I can dispute this by filling out a form at my local branch but that is no guarantee I will get my money back or force H&T into honouring their agreement.
Please be aware that anybody who has your debit card details on their system CAN claim as much as they want from your account and there is nothing you can do to stop it - the fact that you have given them your details is sufficient authorisation, the fact that the payee may be acting either fraudulently or contrary to an agreement (be it verbal or written, and YES a verbal agreement IS legally binding!) is irrelevant.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
The repurcussions of this is that I am now unable to pay my mortgage and face possible court action for breach of my agreement with the mortgage lender.

Please be careful... You cannot trust the Banks, Building Societys or it seems the loan companies.
If they are chasing you for payment insist on a payment book from them, do not set up a Direct Debit as this also allows them free access to your bank account, any overpayment has to be challenged and claimed back - in the mean time YOU are out of pocket!
Standing orders are better as you specify a given amount and can stop them at any time.
Yours in Anger and frustration... Johnraka

Gemmzie

That's awful and I'm not totally convinced that's legal. If you set up a DD then yes they can take any amount but not from a card payment.

blackwidowz

Thanks for the heads up, i pay somethings like this.
I think i may cancell that and ask for a book.

Johnraka

According to Halifax the only thing I can do is fill out a 'Dispute form', they will then go back to H&T and 'ASK' for the money back, they may even go as far as investigating the whole story but if H&T say there was no agreement the Halifax have no power to claim that money back no matter what I say.

Scary stuff, it scared the hell out of me I can tell you, won't be so free in making debit card payments in future.
Had it been a cheque I could have had it stopped...
Makes you think doesn't it?

doodledo_2

:eek: OMG thats awful :eek:

Jenna

Hey,

So sorry to hear that the loan company did that! How rubbish! And bl**dy cheeky too.

I can't believe that providing your debit card details to an organisation is sufficient to authorise any transaction onto it - I had a quick look on Google and the following is an extract:

"If money is fraudulently taken from your current account or credit-card account, and you haven't been negligent with your card and PIN, then you are only liable for the first £50 of any theft. However, if you've carelessly revealed your PIN (perhaps by writing it down on a document kept with your card), then you will foot the entire bill -- and learn a valuable lesson about information security!"

I would contact the Trading Standards people and ask their opinion. A verbal agreement is legally binding and they should not have taken the full amount.

It's on your side that there were 2 transactions - one for the agreed amount, and then one for the remainder. If you had agreed with them the full amount, why would they have needed to take 2 payments?

Hope you get this sorted!

Homework

It is called something but I cannot remember the name, sorry. If you make a payment to a company and agreed that they can take a card payment on a future date or on regular future dates then the bank considers you to have made an agreement with them and anything that is then taken is not their problem as you made the agreement to let them use your card and the bank has no proof that you did not say they could take it all. It's something like a recurring debit card payment it is called.

It happened to us at one point when they took 3 times the agreed amount. The bank told us that they had tried larger amounts and been declined before taking this payment but we had no proof that we hadn't told them to take additional funds. We were also told that they would be able to request more money when they wanted.

My husband lost his card that day and reported it to the bank who issued a new card that had different details on it. We got a phone call about 2 weeks later complaining that our card did not work and to give them the details again which we declined to do. Even if they had only taken 1 payment then the next one was not due for another month but yet in their phone call they complained our card was being declined 2 weeks later.

Justin_GB

This is worrying, Like a lot of others I expect I pay my creditors with a debit card by phone, in fact one of my creditors ONLY accepts this way of paying debt. So we are saying once you have paid once with a debit card the credit company can make as many withdrawal's from your account as they like and for as much as they like and there is nothing you can do about it? This is very scary indeed, but what is the answer?

BWZN93

Homework wrote: »

It is called something but I cannot remember the name, sorry. If you make a payment to a company and agreed that they can take a card payment on a future date or on regular future dates then the bank considers you to have made an agreement with them and anything that is then taken is not their problem as you made the agreement to let them use your card and the bank has no proof that you did not say they could take it all. It's something like a recurring debit card payment it is called.

It happened to us at one point when they took 3 times the agreed amount. The bank told us that they had tried larger amounts and been declined before taking this payment but we had no proof that we hadn't told them to take additional funds. We were also told that they would be able to request more money when they wanted.

My husband lost his card that day and reported it to the bank who issued a new card that had different details on it. We got a phone call about 2 weeks later complaining that our card did not work and to give them the details again which we declined to do. Even if they had only taken 1 payment then the next one was not due for another month but yet in their phone call they complained our card was being declined 2 weeks later.

Its called a continuous payment authority and they are indeed incredibly difficult to cancel. Best thing to do in this instance is 'lose' your debit card and get a new one. They use the PAN number (the 16 digit one) instead of bank account and sort code number as a direct debit does.

My best advice is to never set one of these up as they cause more headaches than the problem they are supposed to solve The best form of payment is a Bill Payment (BACS) however - none of that 'wrong date/wrong amount taken' nonsense as you are in complete control.

Jo x

Johnraka

Yes, but I did not authorise a continuous payment, I told them that I would phone today to give them another payment once the funds had cleared in my account. (Sorry I didn't make that clear), the agreement was that I would pay another £10 today (Friday) but would phone them to give them my card details once I was certain that funds had cleared otherwise I would be hit with a charge for the bounced payment request...

Homework

It's proving it to the bank that is the problem, you need them to admit to the bank that they took the payment without you giving authority to do so and that is hard to do. Hope you are lucky with it.