Suspicious payment

Malcolm0704

Can someone help? I have a suspicion company called BE SMART UTILITIES, with the reference PSL against it nd a reference number. But I can not find any reference online to a company called BE SMART UTILITIES or PSL. Not of the references to PSL are none that I recognise. My bank suggested to cancel the DD for the time being, but it being a DD they can ask for the payment again. They said need to talk to the direct to cancel further payments. 
Can any help with the knowing of this company so I can contact them.  Thank you

Malcolm0704

Sorry the suspicious payment is coming out of my bank account as DD, so I must know what it is but I don't.

colsten

They can ask for the DD to be set up again, and you can cancel it yet again. 

MovingForwards

https://besmartuk.com/ that company?

eskbanker

Malcolm0704 said:

I can not find any reference online to a company called BE SMART UTILITIES

The very first link when I Googled that is https://besmartuk.com/, a utilities company called Be Smart....

molerat

PSL are a genuine company that take the direct debits for smaller companies - Zog and Neon Reef use them - which saves the cost of setting up systems themselves and usually show up as PSL re xxxxxx on your bank statement.  Who supplies your energy / broadband ? Possibly someone has accidentally typed in a wrong bank account number whilst setting up an account and if so you should simply cancel the DD and the company should get back to their customer.  I doubt there is any nefarious intent here.

RG2015

molerat said:

PSL are a genuine company that take the direct debits for smaller companies - Zog and Neon Reef use them - which saves the cost of setting up systems themselves and usually show up as PSL re xxxxxx on your bank statement.  Who supplies your energy / broadband ? Possibly someone has accidentally typed in a wrong bank account number whilst setting up an account and if so you should simply cancel the DD and the company should get back to their customer.  I doubt there is any nefarious intent here.

If someone accidentally typed in my bank account number when setting up an account wouldn't there need to be some checks before they collected a direct debit?

Ballard

RG2015 said:

molerat said:

PSL are a genuine company that take the direct debits for smaller companies - Zog and Neon Reef use them - which saves the cost of setting up systems themselves and usually show up as PSL re xxxxxx on your bank statement.  Who supplies your energy / broadband ? Possibly someone has accidentally typed in a wrong bank account number whilst setting up an account and if so you should simply cancel the DD and the company should get back to their customer.  I doubt there is any nefarious intent here.

If someone accidentally typed in my bank account number when setting up an account wouldn't there need to be some checks before they collected a direct debit?

I'm not sure that there are any checks. Things may have been tightened up but when I worked in a department that covered DDs five years ago there wasn't a check. The direct debit was set up electronically and we'd either receive a printed version of it (if it had been setup online) or the signed mandate. This was for an agency bank so there was no way that anyone could have known whether the details were valid until we received them.

NottinghamKnight

People should get notification of a new direct debit which may have come in after the famous Clarkson Greenpeace donation.

RG2015

NottinghamKnight said:

People should get notification of a new direct debit which may have come in after the famous Clarkson Greenpeace donation.

Thanks. I didn't know that this could ever have been possible.

By the way, I googled it and I found a story that it was £500 to the British Diabetic Association, which apparently was one of the few organisations that did not require a signature for setting up a DD in 2008.

colsten

It occurred to me the OP, and perhaps others, might be unaware of the Direct Debit Guarantee. Even if any money was taken from your account through a Direct Debit you have not authorised, the guarantee ensures you will get your money back.