Does the company I set up a CPA with know my bank account number?

MidnightVoice

On a contract-free service, paid for via CPAs, and which you can stop/start at will, you might have multiple accounts, deliberately or accidentally, across multiple debit/credit cards, and find from your bank account that you are paying more each month than you thought you should be. Which probably means that on one of those accounts, you didn’t stop the service when you thought you had. The details on your bank statement say the payment is to the company operating the service, but not to which account, nor from which card.

So you ring the company operating the service, and they tell you that they can only help if you tell them the affected card number, or the affected account number. But you don’t know either of these details for the unexpected payment, and indeed you are not even sure which of several possible payments for that amount is the rogue one, just that there is one more than you expect.

So how do you resolve this? Who knows what? Does the service provider know your bank details, or does the card company act as a cut-out? Does the bank know more than is shown on the statement, and could tell you if you asked them?

I’m asking not because I have these problems, but because I need to know how to help people who do have various aspects of these problems.

The Bank of England has a brilliant KnowledgeBank article on how card payments work, which is well worth a read, but doesn’t go as far as covering CPAs, though the aggregation described may come into, and complicate, these arrangements. But as I am apparently not yet allowed to post links, Google for bankofengland/knowledgebank/how-do-card-payments-work, I f you are interested.

All help with these questions gratefully received, BTW

D3xt3r5L4b

Contact your bank to cancel the CPA.

And learn to keep track of your incomings and outgoings. 

MidnightVoice

 D3xt3r5L4b
Thanks for your reply, but you are perhaps confusing me, as an advice-giver with one of my advice-needers 😢

Nebulous2

Give us a clue- what type of service is this? 
I can't think of anything of that nature. I have Netflix and Strava on a CPA, but have never opened a new account, certainly not multiple ones. Do these people use multiple email addresses as well, can't the account be tracked by the email? Try to log in, get told you have the wrong details, click 'forgot my password and they'll send details. You can then cancel your payment. Alternatively if it is coming out of your bank account, you'll know which debit card is used - the one from the account. 

I think a bit of housekeeping could resolve this quite easily.

sourcrates

Usually these companies have an online presence, or the same procedure can be done over the phone, its simple to just update your details to the card you want to pay with, that automatically cancels the previous payment method.

MidnightVoice

Nebulous2 said:

Give us a clue- what type of service is this? 
I can't think of anything of that nature. I have Netflix and Strava on a CPA, but have never opened a new account, certainly not multiple ones. Do these people use multiple email addresses as well, can't the account be tracked by the email? Try to log in, get told you have the wrong details, click 'forgot my password and they'll send details. You can then cancel your payment. Alternatively if it is coming out of your bank account, you'll know which debit card is used - the one from the account. 

I think a bit of housekeeping could resolve this quite easily.

Not Netflix, exactly, but that sort of thing. Email account recovery doesn’t work by the usual method, the one you describe, and yes, people have multiple accounts, and don’t know which one is affected.

I am percolating on your observation that any bank account ties back to just one debit card; it’s not quite true, because CPAs on old cards that you had can still be in force, and I am not sure if these move onto the new card number or not (yet another question!). Or people suddenly wake up to the fact that they have been being charged for a year back, during which they changed debit cards. But it certainly should be largely true, and thus make it irrelevant whether the CPA holder knows the bank account number or not, as you can go back and check (part of) the debit card number on the CPA holder’s website.

But this isn’t working for some people for some reason(s), so I will have to go back over some old examples, and try to figure out why not. Food for thought there, though; thanks for the insight.

And yes, nothing that cant be avoided by a little housekeeping, checking bank statements every month, as all good MSE users are enjoined to do. But with this service, you learn that people lead pretty chaotic lives, sign up without always understanding what they are getting into, and despite the fact that they can ‘cancel any time’ (and they really can) somehow manage not to. Ho hum.

phillw

If they can cancel at any time then it would seem wise to just inform the company that they will be cancelling all CPAs and that they wish to close all accounts in there name. I'd do this on the phone and in writing and get a signature. Give them enough details to match up, so previous names and addresses. The act of giving notice and cancelling the CPA should be enough. If they chase for money you have evidence that you cancelled.

born_again

MidnightVoice said:

On a contract-free service, paid for via CPAs, and which you can stop/start at will, you might have multiple accounts, deliberately or accidentally, across multiple debit/credit cards, and find from your bank account that you are paying more each month than you thought you should be. Which probably means that on one of those accounts, you didn’t stop the service when you thought you had. The details on your bank statement say the payment is to the company operating the service, but not to which account, nor from which card.

So you ring the company operating the service, and they tell you that they can only help if you tell them the affected card number, or the affected account number. But you don’t know either of these details for the unexpected payment, and indeed you are not even sure which of several possible payments for that amount is the rogue one, just that there is one more than you expect.

So how do you resolve this? Who knows what? Does the service provider know your bank details, or does the card company act as a cut-out? Does the bank know more than is shown on the statement, and could tell you if you asked them?

I’m asking not because I have these problems, but because I need to know how to help people who do have various aspects of these problems.

The Bank of England has a brilliant KnowledgeBank article on how card payments work, which is well worth a read, but doesn’t go as far as covering CPAs, though the aggregation described may come into, and complicate, these arrangements. But as I am apparently not yet allowed to post links, Google for bankofengland/knowledgebank/how-do-card-payments-work, I f you are interested.

All help with these questions gratefully received, BTW

A CPA is not contract free... It is a rolling contract.
If you do not know the details of the card/email used then more fool you. You should have received a confirmation email on signing up.
If you have multiple accounts, then run through all of them with the company.
Supplier only know the details you have provided them with. Nothing else.
Banks knows nothing more than on the statement. Unlike a DD there is not mandate. A CPA is a agreement between user & company. Bank has no part in it other than honouring a request for payment. There is not even a list of CPA.

These companies get new card details by Visa Account updater (if they pay) mastercard run the same. But even if a card is stopped/expired or account closed. They can still claim the funds as per their card agreements.

The only way to stop them if the company will not assist. Is to contact your bank and ask them to block that company. Which if you have more than one account with them, will stop them all.

MidnightVoice

phillw said:

If they can cancel at any time then it would seem wise to just inform the company that they will be cancelling all CPAs and that they wish to close all accounts in there name. I'd do this on the phone and in writing and get a signature. Give them enough details to match up, so previous names and addresses. The act of giving notice and cancelling the CPA should be enough. If they chase for money you have evidence that you cancelled.

‘Cancel’, in this context, means to stop the ongoing subscription on a single service, possibly just temporarily, while keeping the account, and possibly other services, still active. It does not mean closing your account(s), which is quite another story, and slightly more difficult than obtaining the plans for a Vogon hyperspace bypass.

Oh, and there is no phone, by the way. To talk to them, you use an online chat service. Which is actually quite straightforward, as long as you can avoid the hair-trigger inactivity timeouts.