Confused

p4r4s1t3

hi all,

last year we moved house, i left my barclays current account empty, and didnt inform them of a change of address, because i no longer wanted to use this account, i left it vagrant.

now, a year later, i took out a contract with orange around 2 months ago. i instructed orange to take the money via direct debit out of my LLOYDS TSB account. afterwards, i cancelled the direct debit and opted to phone up and pay when the money was due. at no point did i mention to orange that i wanted the money to come out of my barclays account - its not even registered in my current address, has no money in it and iv only just found the card.

20 minutes ago, i recieved a call from barclays saying i owed them £175 and i had to set up a payment today. i've opted to pay £80 a month. now this is the funny part.

the reason i am this far overdrawn is because a direct debit has been set up on my BARCLAYS account by ORANGE. not once did i instruct them to do this - i didnt even know the details for this account because i'd lost my card and i havent used it for a year.

so orange have unlawfully taken £36 out of my barclays account, spiralling me into £175 worth of debt, and they have obtained the details for this account elsewhere, because i didnt give them these details over the phone or in writing - any details i gave them were for my LLOYDS TSB account.

can anyone give me any advice? I feel like orange have stolen money off me, spiralling me into this debt, and i didn't even give them confirmation to do so.

p4r4s1t3

Update -

i phoned barclays who told me that orange took the money.

i phoned orange, who said yes we took the money, and we were instructed to by mobiles.co.uk, the company where i bought my contract - these are the people who apparently had my barclays details.

i called mobiles.co.uk, who asked for my sort code for barclays - 20-02-77 - and after quoting that to them, they told me "thats not the account we have on file..we have a lloyds tsb sort code, call our customer service".

called mobiles.co.uk customer service, who told me they have no authorisation whatsoever to set any direct debit up with any orange customer.

i don't care who set what up, i want to know who has these details, who has given them out and i also do not want to pay almost £200 due to someone elses mistake.

hopefully somebody here can give me some advice, 15 minutes speaking to indian call centres, pressing 1 and 2 and 7 and 9 and 1 and 4 and 8 and i feel like my head is about to explode. what a ridiculous pressure to be put on somebody just before christmas.

scottishlass

Could it not be that someone got hold of your bank details at your old address and have used them? Do you not think it may be a good idea to put a stop on the account until you can find out what information Barclays may have sent to the old address.

p4r4s1t3

normally, i would accept this as a possibility, however if someone was using my details, i think it's unlikely that they would use them to set up a direct debit to pay for my line rental.

plus, no correspondence ever came through the post, i opted to recieve correspondence via email and view statements online.

update - i went to barclays, they gave me the number to the debit card misuse department, i phoned them, and got no further.

here is a summary of who said what -

barclays - you owe us money
orange - we were given details from mobiles.co.uk
mobiles.co.uk - we didnt give orange the details, call orange
orange - the best thing you can do is cancel the direct debit (no sh*t?)
barclays - call the debit card misuse line
debit card misuse line - call orange
orange - call mobiles.co.uk

im getting absolutely nowhere, everybody is just passing the book. however i have been given the name and department at orange of the person who authorised the direct debits.

NAR

OP, could I suggest you remove your sort code from post #2, you shouldn't really share that sort of information online.

geordie_joe

NAR wrote: »

OP, could I suggest you remove your sort code from post #2, you shouldn't really share that sort of information online.

Why not? All anyone will know from that is the OP's username and a sort code for a branch of Barclays.

Mikeyorks

NAR wrote: »

.. remove your sort code from post #2,

Sorry, but that's really OTT paranoia. The sort code isn't personal data - you can find out the sort code for all Banks quite readily eg ;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sort_Codes_of_the_United_Kingdom

p4r4s1t3

yeah, sort code only specifies the branch location :j