Unauthorised Payments Taken By NOW TV

Lip_Stick

Tokmon said:

Lip_Stick said:

Potbellypig said:

paulyz said:

visidigi said:

paulyz said:

visidigi said:

paulyz said:

They told me that there's been no suspicious activity on my account. The evidence they gave me of when and for how long the sports channel has been used is odd. It's odd that someone would watch it for one minute. I don't think my account has been compromised. The only thing I can think is that I have inadvertently signed up to the pass. This is why I want them to explain to me how the pass could have been set up, but they just keep giving vague answers. I would have thought there would be an 'I agree to set this up' button that you have to click, but I wonder if they have some way of setting up a pass without customers realising. Having read some reviews other people have left online it certainly seems this could be the case. In which case this could potentially be fraudulent.

You not being able to see what your actions achieve do not make it fraudulent.

It sounds like you signed up without paying attention (I have NOW and any such request requires confirmation to proceed).

This would be backed up by the outcome of the inquiry. I can't say with any level of confidence that NOW have done anything wrong here.

The fact you didn't notice for three months is on you I am afraid.

It shouldn't be possible to be able to sign up to paying for a subscription service without paying attention. I had an online chat with NOW yesterday and they told me it is possible to purchase a pass accidently and not realise it. That's the equivalent of walking into Currys and accidently buying a washing machine because you happened to walk past it on your way to look at the kettles. That's a very underhand and dishonest practice. 

The fact I didn't notice for three months is on me, I agree. However, the money was taken from me without my authorisation and I have pointed this out to NOW. If they had refunded me I'd be a happy customer and I'd still be paying them for the Entertainment pass I have had since 2015. I had no intention of cancelling it until this happened, so they'd have continued to receive my payment of £9.99 a month for the foreseeable future. Instead, they've now got nothing and will never get another penny from me. I'll also make sure I spread the word about what a terrible company they are. 

Be careful. You can't prove the accusations you are making - so 'spreading the word' is only going to get you into trouble. If you could then this sudden evidence of it can be done by accident would have been in your cases which was declined upon review.

Of course its possible to do this without knowing if it was your compromised account. Unless NOW have checked the IP's and further more reliable data/logs then they cannot say if it would be abnormal (as from their perspective it looks like you did it).

By all means vote with your feet if it makes you feel better, but reliable you can be held liable for spreading unfounded accusations.

Bank won't be interested given NOW will just say it failed their internal process and you took it to adjudication which also failed.

I'm just commenting on my own personal experience. This morning I got an email to tell me they have decided to have another look at my complaint. Watch this space.

I've read these plenty of times before. You'll be telling us NOW TV have refunded you next. They won't have, but you'll tell us this anyway.

What a nasty post that is, which goes against community rules. I wish this site would take more action against people like you as it is one of the reasons this section is dying.

If people aren't able to post what they think then that makes the forum far less useful. That post certainly isn't nasty and if you think that a post like that should be removed then i suggest you don't venture onto other parts of the internet where people actually post nasty things...

Lol. I've seen a lot worse than this post on the Internet of course. I'm quite well accustomed to unsavoury characters and info on the www. You might find it useful though to find out that 'nasty' can mean unpleasant, which the post was as it was accusing the OP of lying.

This part of the forum is supposed to offer guidance, advice and information. That previous post was pointless and seemed to be typical trolling. And if you think a forum is only useful when it allows such posts, you are very much wrong. I know of one that it very strict when it comes to replies, but the advice is often excellent.

born_again

Lip_Stick said:

This part of the forum is supposed to offer guidance, advice and information. That previous post was pointless and seemed to be typical trolling. And if you think a forum is only useful when it allows such posts, you are very much wrong. I know of one that it very strict when it comes to replies, but the advice is often excellent.

This whole forum is not moderated in the way that many others are. It is based on self moderation and users reporting posts. But over reporting posts or saying it's spam too many times gets you in trouble...

As a open public forum people are free to post what they want. So long as it is within the rules. But how many times have we seen someone told my many posters that do know what they are talking about that they will get nothing. Only for them to come back and say "Got a nice big hammer & flowers as well as my money back".
Do you take that at face value or think (insert you own thoughts here)?

Best action if you do not like what someone has posted is report & not then start a posting war on their post.

Tokmon

Lip_Stick said:

Tokmon said:

Lip_Stick said:

Potbellypig said:

paulyz said:

visidigi said:

paulyz said:

visidigi said:

paulyz said:

They told me that there's been no suspicious activity on my account. The evidence they gave me of when and for how long the sports channel has been used is odd. It's odd that someone would watch it for one minute. I don't think my account has been compromised. The only thing I can think is that I have inadvertently signed up to the pass. This is why I want them to explain to me how the pass could have been set up, but they just keep giving vague answers. I would have thought there would be an 'I agree to set this up' button that you have to click, but I wonder if they have some way of setting up a pass without customers realising. Having read some reviews other people have left online it certainly seems this could be the case. In which case this could potentially be fraudulent.

You not being able to see what your actions achieve do not make it fraudulent.

It sounds like you signed up without paying attention (I have NOW and any such request requires confirmation to proceed).

This would be backed up by the outcome of the inquiry. I can't say with any level of confidence that NOW have done anything wrong here.

The fact you didn't notice for three months is on you I am afraid.

It shouldn't be possible to be able to sign up to paying for a subscription service without paying attention. I had an online chat with NOW yesterday and they told me it is possible to purchase a pass accidently and not realise it. That's the equivalent of walking into Currys and accidently buying a washing machine because you happened to walk past it on your way to look at the kettles. That's a very underhand and dishonest practice. 

The fact I didn't notice for three months is on me, I agree. However, the money was taken from me without my authorisation and I have pointed this out to NOW. If they had refunded me I'd be a happy customer and I'd still be paying them for the Entertainment pass I have had since 2015. I had no intention of cancelling it until this happened, so they'd have continued to receive my payment of £9.99 a month for the foreseeable future. Instead, they've now got nothing and will never get another penny from me. I'll also make sure I spread the word about what a terrible company they are. 

Be careful. You can't prove the accusations you are making - so 'spreading the word' is only going to get you into trouble. If you could then this sudden evidence of it can be done by accident would have been in your cases which was declined upon review.

Of course its possible to do this without knowing if it was your compromised account. Unless NOW have checked the IP's and further more reliable data/logs then they cannot say if it would be abnormal (as from their perspective it looks like you did it).

By all means vote with your feet if it makes you feel better, but reliable you can be held liable for spreading unfounded accusations.

Bank won't be interested given NOW will just say it failed their internal process and you took it to adjudication which also failed.

I'm just commenting on my own personal experience. This morning I got an email to tell me they have decided to have another look at my complaint. Watch this space.

I've read these plenty of times before. You'll be telling us NOW TV have refunded you next. They won't have, but you'll tell us this anyway.

What a nasty post that is, which goes against community rules. I wish this site would take more action against people like you as it is one of the reasons this section is dying.

If people aren't able to post what they think then that makes the forum far less useful. That post certainly isn't nasty and if you think that a post like that should be removed then i suggest you don't venture onto other parts of the internet where people actually post nasty things...

Lol. I've seen a lot worse than this post on the Internet of course. I'm quite well accustomed to unsavoury characters and info on the www. You might find it useful though to find out that 'nasty' can mean unpleasant, which the post was as it was accusing the OP of lying.

This part of the forum is supposed to offer guidance, advice and information. That previous post was pointless and seemed to be typical trolling. And if you think a forum is only useful when it allows such posts, you are very much wrong. I know of one that it very strict when it comes to replies, but the advice is often excellent.

This is a discussion forum where people discuss and offer their opinion on the subject at hand. If someone thinks the OP is lying then i don't see any problem with them saying so because that is their opinion and it does follow a trend that a lot of members have seen on this forum in these kinds of situations.

No one on this forum should be offering any kind of "advice" on financial matters and even "guidance" is a bit of a stretch considering that everyone on here is anonymous so you have no idea who it is that is saying it and it's just some random persons interpretation of the situation. 

So considering this, being able to debate someone's statements and what they are saying and calling them out if you think they are not telling the truth is very important to ensure people aren't allowed to just post things that are a load of rubbish and then someone comes along and believes it because nobody has challenged them on it.

Yes in this case it's not that important if the OP is telling the truth or not and i think they are and don't agree they are going to lie about getting a refund but i still think it's important for people to be able to challenge things if they believe it to be wrong, or the forum will just fill up with a load of rubbish by people who don't know what they are talking about and anyone who disagrees will have their posts removed...

Potbellypig

Lip_Stick said:

Potbellypig said:

paulyz said:

visidigi said:

paulyz said:

visidigi said:

paulyz said:

They told me that there's been no suspicious activity on my account. The evidence they gave me of when and for how long the sports channel has been used is odd. It's odd that someone would watch it for one minute. I don't think my account has been compromised. The only thing I can think is that I have inadvertently signed up to the pass. This is why I want them to explain to me how the pass could have been set up, but they just keep giving vague answers. I would have thought there would be an 'I agree to set this up' button that you have to click, but I wonder if they have some way of setting up a pass without customers realising. Having read some reviews other people have left online it certainly seems this could be the case. In which case this could potentially be fraudulent.

You not being able to see what your actions achieve do not make it fraudulent.

It sounds like you signed up without paying attention (I have NOW and any such request requires confirmation to proceed).

This would be backed up by the outcome of the inquiry. I can't say with any level of confidence that NOW have done anything wrong here.

The fact you didn't notice for three months is on you I am afraid.

It shouldn't be possible to be able to sign up to paying for a subscription service without paying attention. I had an online chat with NOW yesterday and they told me it is possible to purchase a pass accidently and not realise it. That's the equivalent of walking into Currys and accidently buying a washing machine because you happened to walk past it on your way to look at the kettles. That's a very underhand and dishonest practice. 

The fact I didn't notice for three months is on me, I agree. However, the money was taken from me without my authorisation and I have pointed this out to NOW. If they had refunded me I'd be a happy customer and I'd still be paying them for the Entertainment pass I have had since 2015. I had no intention of cancelling it until this happened, so they'd have continued to receive my payment of £9.99 a month for the foreseeable future. Instead, they've now got nothing and will never get another penny from me. I'll also make sure I spread the word about what a terrible company they are. 

Be careful. You can't prove the accusations you are making - so 'spreading the word' is only going to get you into trouble. If you could then this sudden evidence of it can be done by accident would have been in your cases which was declined upon review.

Of course its possible to do this without knowing if it was your compromised account. Unless NOW have checked the IP's and further more reliable data/logs then they cannot say if it would be abnormal (as from their perspective it looks like you did it).

By all means vote with your feet if it makes you feel better, but reliable you can be held liable for spreading unfounded accusations.

Bank won't be interested given NOW will just say it failed their internal process and you took it to adjudication which also failed.

I'm just commenting on my own personal experience. This morning I got an email to tell me they have decided to have another look at my complaint. Watch this space.

I've read these plenty of times before. You'll be telling us NOW TV have refunded you next. They won't have, but you'll tell us this anyway.

What a nasty post that is, which goes against community rules. I wish this site would take more action against people like you as it is one of the reasons this section is dying.

You'll be happy to know I've been warned (warned, good god). But the facts are there for all to see across numerous threads like these. A new user comes along claiming some sort of injustice and then disagrees with everything anyone else without an emotional attachment has to say on the matter. This leads to the original poster in the coming days/weeks/months to claim that the company now agrees with them and they have been refunded and usually given some compensation to go along with it. 

Probably a good chance this won't happen on this thread now, for obvious reasons, but this won't be the last time a similar thread happens on here. If you think my post was nasty and it hurt your feelings, I apologise. But I mean, it wasn't. 

[Deleted User]

I've had a couple more online chats with NOW, which have shed some light on what may have happened. These quotes are taken directly from the transcripts of the chat. First of all I was told:

'This authority is only given to our members. If not you, someone purchased the membership without your knowledge or may be unintentionally without realising that the purchase has been made.'

So I asked how it can be possible to unintentionally purchase something and was told: 

'There are many situation where members purchase the membership while trying to watch some content on  TV or any supported devices without realising it.'

If there are many situations like this then something somewhere isn't right. 

I also asked for proof that I had agreed to the adding of a sports pass to my account. Whenever I ask this question I am provided with the date and time it was added, which only shows that it was added. It doesn't show that I agreed to it. The answer I was given was: 

'We don't have evidence here. We can only provide here the date and time when the membership was purchased.'

I also wanted to try to get to the bottom of how a pass could be added 'unintentionally without realising' so I asked how it is possible and was told:

'If member views sports content or access sports channel the membership gets added and as soon as added a confirmation email will be sent to it.'

So I asked:

'So, you're saying that if you accidently flick your tv onto a sports channel it adds a sports pass to your account? Why are you allowing that to happen? Why is a sports channel even available to accidently end up on if you don't already have a sports pass?' and the reply:

'is purchased on any device purchase button need to be press only then it gets added. For our members we have given option of adding payment pin which they can activate if they need it. .'

My reply:

'Then please provide me with evidence that I or someone in my household pressed a purchase button. As I've already said, it makes no sense for us to purchase a sports pass. Why don't you put the payment pin in place for all members and then let them take it off if they don't want it?'

The evidence offered to me again was the date and time the pass was added to my account, which isn't evidence of me agreeing to it. In light of this I've asked how they can justify not refunding me if they can't provide me with evidence of my agreement to the pass. So far they haven't provided me with an answer.

So, I'm beginning to get a better idea of what is going on. What bothers me is that it is so apparently easy to add a pass to your account and be none the wiser. It also bothers me that NOW are fully aware of this and continue to let it happen. 

[Deleted User]

Potbellypig said:

Lip_Stick said:

Potbellypig said:

paulyz said:

visidigi said:

paulyz said:

visidigi said:

paulyz said:

They told me that there's been no suspicious activity on my account. The evidence they gave me of when and for how long the sports channel has been used is odd. It's odd that someone would watch it for one minute. I don't think my account has been compromised. The only thing I can think is that I have inadvertently signed up to the pass. This is why I want them to explain to me how the pass could have been set up, but they just keep giving vague answers. I would have thought there would be an 'I agree to set this up' button that you have to click, but I wonder if they have some way of setting up a pass without customers realising. Having read some reviews other people have left online it certainly seems this could be the case. In which case this could potentially be fraudulent.

You not being able to see what your actions achieve do not make it fraudulent.

It sounds like you signed up without paying attention (I have NOW and any such request requires confirmation to proceed).

This would be backed up by the outcome of the inquiry. I can't say with any level of confidence that NOW have done anything wrong here.

The fact you didn't notice for three months is on you I am afraid.

It shouldn't be possible to be able to sign up to paying for a subscription service without paying attention. I had an online chat with NOW yesterday and they told me it is possible to purchase a pass accidently and not realise it. That's the equivalent of walking into Currys and accidently buying a washing machine because you happened to walk past it on your way to look at the kettles. That's a very underhand and dishonest practice. 

The fact I didn't notice for three months is on me, I agree. However, the money was taken from me without my authorisation and I have pointed this out to NOW. If they had refunded me I'd be a happy customer and I'd still be paying them for the Entertainment pass I have had since 2015. I had no intention of cancelling it until this happened, so they'd have continued to receive my payment of £9.99 a month for the foreseeable future. Instead, they've now got nothing and will never get another penny from me. I'll also make sure I spread the word about what a terrible company they are. 

Be careful. You can't prove the accusations you are making - so 'spreading the word' is only going to get you into trouble. If you could then this sudden evidence of it can be done by accident would have been in your cases which was declined upon review.

Of course its possible to do this without knowing if it was your compromised account. Unless NOW have checked the IP's and further more reliable data/logs then they cannot say if it would be abnormal (as from their perspective it looks like you did it).

By all means vote with your feet if it makes you feel better, but reliable you can be held liable for spreading unfounded accusations.

Bank won't be interested given NOW will just say it failed their internal process and you took it to adjudication which also failed.

I'm just commenting on my own personal experience. This morning I got an email to tell me they have decided to have another look at my complaint. Watch this space.

I've read these plenty of times before. You'll be telling us NOW TV have refunded you next. They won't have, but you'll tell us this anyway.

What a nasty post that is, which goes against community rules. I wish this site would take more action against people like you as it is one of the reasons this section is dying.

You'll be happy to know I've been warned (warned, good god). But the facts are there for all to see across numerous threads like these. A new user comes along claiming some sort of injustice and then disagrees with everything anyone else without an emotional attachment has to say on the matter. This leads to the original poster in the coming days/weeks/months to claim that the company now agrees with them and they have been refunded and usually given some compensation to go along with it. 

Probably a good chance this won't happen on this thread now, for obvious reasons, but this won't be the last time a similar thread happens on here. If you think my post was nasty and it hurt your feelings, I apologise. But I mean, it wasn't. 

I don't really want to get into an argument with you, but you seem to be suggesting that if you had not come onto this thread and made your original comment, it would have ended with me claiming that NOW had settled in my favour. I'm not a dishonest person and I really don't see what that would achieve anyway. I set this thread up in the hope that I'd find other people who'd had a similar experience of NOW so that we could perhaps try to stop this happening to more people in the future. 

Tokmon

paulyz said:

I've had a couple more online chats with NOW, which have shed some light on what may have happened. These quotes are taken directly from the transcripts of the chat. First of all I was told:

'This authority is only given to our members. If not you, someone purchased the membership without your knowledge or may be unintentionally without realising that the purchase has been made.'

So I asked how it can be possible to unintentionally purchase something and was told: 

'There are many situation where members purchase the membership while trying to watch some content on  TV or any supported devices without realising it.'

If there are many situations like this then something somewhere isn't right. 

I also asked for proof that I had agreed to the adding of a sports pass to my account. Whenever I ask this question I am provided with the date and time it was added, which only shows that it was added. It doesn't show that I agreed to it. The answer I was given was: 

'We don't have evidence here. We can only provide here the date and time when the membership was purchased.'

I also wanted to try to get to the bottom of how a pass could be added 'unintentionally without realising' so I asked how it is possible and was told:

'If member views sports content or access sports channel the membership gets added and as soon as added a confirmation email will be sent to it.'

So I asked:

'So, you're saying that if you accidently flick your tv onto a sports channel it adds a sports pass to your account? Why are you allowing that to happen? Why is a sports channel even available to accidently end up on if you don't already have a sports pass?' and the reply:

'is purchased on any device purchase button need to be press only then it gets added. For our members we have given option of adding payment pin which they can activate if they need it. .'

My reply:

'Then please provide me with evidence that I or someone in my household pressed a purchase button. As I've already said, it makes no sense for us to purchase a sports pass. Why don't you put the payment pin in place for all members and then let them take it off if they don't want it?'

The evidence offered to me again was the date and time the pass was added to my account, which isn't evidence of me agreeing to it. In light of this I've asked how they can justify not refunding me if they can't provide me with evidence of my agreement to the pass. So far they haven't provided me with an answer.

So, I'm beginning to get a better idea of what is going on. What bothers me is that it is so apparently easy to add a pass to your account and be none the wiser. It also bothers me that NOW are fully aware of this and continue to let it happen. 

What evidence do you expect them to be able to provide that you will be satisfied with?

In reality all they will ever have is a computer record stating the time and date when the purchase was made which is when the "purchase button" was pressed. In reality there really isn't any other evidence that they can provide apart from their own logs because it's a purely digital transaction.

For this log to be wrong then it would have to be a bug in the system that is randomly adding extra passes to people's accounts. But then it most likely be happening to a lot of people and they would be getting a lot of complaints and probably a news story about it. 

It's also strange that you say that you got no confirmation email about this but i don't think your going to get anywhere with this complaint if they are maintaining everything is above board.

I think all you can do is take it as a lesson to keep better track of your expenditure so you can spot issues like this earlier before it's too late.

[Deleted User]

Tokmon said:

paulyz said:

I've had a couple more online chats with NOW, which have shed some light on what may have happened. These quotes are taken directly from the transcripts of the chat. First of all I was told:

'This authority is only given to our members. If not you, someone purchased the membership without your knowledge or may be unintentionally without realising that the purchase has been made.'

So I asked how it can be possible to unintentionally purchase something and was told: 

'There are many situation where members purchase the membership while trying to watch some content on  TV or any supported devices without realising it.'

If there are many situations like this then something somewhere isn't right. 

I also asked for proof that I had agreed to the adding of a sports pass to my account. Whenever I ask this question I am provided with the date and time it was added, which only shows that it was added. It doesn't show that I agreed to it. The answer I was given was: 

'We don't have evidence here. We can only provide here the date and time when the membership was purchased.'

I also wanted to try to get to the bottom of how a pass could be added 'unintentionally without realising' so I asked how it is possible and was told:

'If member views sports content or access sports channel the membership gets added and as soon as added a confirmation email will be sent to it.'

So I asked:

'So, you're saying that if you accidently flick your tv onto a sports channel it adds a sports pass to your account? Why are you allowing that to happen? Why is a sports channel even available to accidently end up on if you don't already have a sports pass?' and the reply:

'is purchased on any device purchase button need to be press only then it gets added. For our members we have given option of adding payment pin which they can activate if they need it. .'

My reply:

'Then please provide me with evidence that I or someone in my household pressed a purchase button. As I've already said, it makes no sense for us to purchase a sports pass. Why don't you put the payment pin in place for all members and then let them take it off if they don't want it?'

The evidence offered to me again was the date and time the pass was added to my account, which isn't evidence of me agreeing to it. In light of this I've asked how they can justify not refunding me if they can't provide me with evidence of my agreement to the pass. So far they haven't provided me with an answer.

So, I'm beginning to get a better idea of what is going on. What bothers me is that it is so apparently easy to add a pass to your account and be none the wiser. It also bothers me that NOW are fully aware of this and continue to let it happen. 

What evidence do you expect them to be able to provide that you will be satisfied with?

In reality all they will ever have is a computer record stating the time and date when the purchase was made which is when the "purchase button" was pressed. In reality there really isn't any other evidence that they can provide apart from their own logs because it's a purely digital transaction.

For this log to be wrong then it would have to be a bug in the system that is randomly adding extra passes to people's accounts. But then it most likely be happening to a lot of people and they would be getting a lot of complaints and probably a news story about it. 

It's also strange that you say that you got no confirmation email about this but i don't think your going to get anywhere with this complaint if they are maintaining everything is above board.

I think all you can do is take it as a lesson to keep better track of your expenditure so you can spot issues like this earlier before it's too late.

My problem is that no one is aware of making a purchase. I have a suspicion that someone was flicking through channels and somehow ended up on a sports channel, which then added the pass to my account. What I don't get is how it is possible to end up on a sport channel if you don't have an existing sports pass. Surely you would need to buy a pass before you can visit a channel. I can honestly say that no one is aware of clicking any kind of purchase button for a sports pass. I have no reason to believe anyone in my family would lie about this because no one in my family is interested in sport. If it had been a movie pass that would be a different matter.

Like you say, for the log to be wrong it would be happening to a lot of people and I have found a fair few people on trustpilot and review.io who are complaining of the same thing as me. There may well be others who have not complained and just let it drop. It does make me wonder how wide spread this is.

With regard to the email that would have been sent. NOW told me they sent an email when the pass was purchased but that it had not been opened. I have not been able to find this email. I can only think that it ended up in my junk folder and got automatically deleted. The fact that they can see that the email was not opened surely further proves that I was unaware of the purchase being made.

Essentially though you're right, lesson learned!

visidigi

paulyz said:

Tokmon said:

paulyz said:

I've had a couple more online chats with NOW, which have shed some light on what may have happened. These quotes are taken directly from the transcripts of the chat. First of all I was told:

'This authority is only given to our members. If not you, someone purchased the membership without your knowledge or may be unintentionally without realising that the purchase has been made.'

So I asked how it can be possible to unintentionally purchase something and was told: 

'There are many situation where members purchase the membership while trying to watch some content on  TV or any supported devices without realising it.'

If there are many situations like this then something somewhere isn't right. 

I also asked for proof that I had agreed to the adding of a sports pass to my account. Whenever I ask this question I am provided with the date and time it was added, which only shows that it was added. It doesn't show that I agreed to it. The answer I was given was: 

'We don't have evidence here. We can only provide here the date and time when the membership was purchased.'

I also wanted to try to get to the bottom of how a pass could be added 'unintentionally without realising' so I asked how it is possible and was told:

'If member views sports content or access sports channel the membership gets added and as soon as added a confirmation email will be sent to it.'

So I asked:

'So, you're saying that if you accidently flick your tv onto a sports channel it adds a sports pass to your account? Why are you allowing that to happen? Why is a sports channel even available to accidently end up on if you don't already have a sports pass?' and the reply:

'is purchased on any device purchase button need to be press only then it gets added. For our members we have given option of adding payment pin which they can activate if they need it. .'

My reply:

'Then please provide me with evidence that I or someone in my household pressed a purchase button. As I've already said, it makes no sense for us to purchase a sports pass. Why don't you put the payment pin in place for all members and then let them take it off if they don't want it?'

The evidence offered to me again was the date and time the pass was added to my account, which isn't evidence of me agreeing to it. In light of this I've asked how they can justify not refunding me if they can't provide me with evidence of my agreement to the pass. So far they haven't provided me with an answer.

So, I'm beginning to get a better idea of what is going on. What bothers me is that it is so apparently easy to add a pass to your account and be none the wiser. It also bothers me that NOW are fully aware of this and continue to let it happen. 

What evidence do you expect them to be able to provide that you will be satisfied with?

In reality all they will ever have is a computer record stating the time and date when the purchase was made which is when the "purchase button" was pressed. In reality there really isn't any other evidence that they can provide apart from their own logs because it's a purely digital transaction.

For this log to be wrong then it would have to be a bug in the system that is randomly adding extra passes to people's accounts. But then it most likely be happening to a lot of people and they would be getting a lot of complaints and probably a news story about it. 

It's also strange that you say that you got no confirmation email about this but i don't think your going to get anywhere with this complaint if they are maintaining everything is above board.

I think all you can do is take it as a lesson to keep better track of your expenditure so you can spot issues like this earlier before it's too late.

My problem is that no one is aware of making a purchase. I have a suspicion that someone was flicking through channels and somehow ended up on a sports channel, which then added the pass to my account. What I don't get is how it is possible to end up on a sport channel if you don't have an existing sports pass. Surely you would need to buy a pass before you can visit a channel. I can honestly say that no one is aware of clicking any kind of purchase button for a sports pass. I have no reason to believe anyone in my family would lie about this because no one in my family is interested in sport. If it had been a movie pass that would be a different matter.

Like you say, for the log to be wrong it would be happening to a lot of people and I have found a fair few people on trustpilot and review.io who are complaining of the same thing as me. There may well be others who have not complained and just let it drop. It does make me wonder how wide spread this is.

With regard to the email that would have been sent. NOW told me they sent an email when the pass was purchased but that it had not been opened. I have not been able to find this email. I can only think that it ended up in my junk folder and got automatically deleted. The fact that they can see that the email was not opened surely further proves that I was unaware of the purchase being made.

Essentially though you're right, lesson learned!

I have NOW, but I have Sky Sports through VM - I just went to the NOW app on my TV, clicked on a sports channel and was clearly informed I needed to buy a pass to view this content. The same happens with all the web TV apps, they show you content or ads to get you to take up new services - thats why you see things on all websites, apps etc. to up sell you. They make it clear you are buying something when you do click or attempt to view.

NOW have also said they send a confirmation to your email account (which they do for me each time I try and cancel and they offer me a half price deal, those pesky blighters).

You don't have that, you don't have any evidence that you purchased the pass or not, they have evidence of a date and time it was purchased. That leads me to believe you're either logged into another device/TV somewhere or your account was accessed by a third party and they purchased the pass and removed the email proof from your email account (as it and the NOW account was compromised).

That's why they say its not fraud, as to them, and the systems they have it looks completely legitimate...

[Deleted User]

visidigi said:

paulyz said:

Tokmon said:

paulyz said:

I've had a couple more online chats with NOW, which have shed some light on what may have happened. These quotes are taken directly from the transcripts of the chat. First of all I was told:

'This authority is only given to our members. If not you, someone purchased the membership without your knowledge or may be unintentionally without realising that the purchase has been made.'

So I asked how it can be possible to unintentionally purchase something and was told: 

'There are many situation where members purchase the membership while trying to watch some content on  TV or any supported devices without realising it.'

If there are many situations like this then something somewhere isn't right. 

I also asked for proof that I had agreed to the adding of a sports pass to my account. Whenever I ask this question I am provided with the date and time it was added, which only shows that it was added. It doesn't show that I agreed to it. The answer I was given was: 

'We don't have evidence here. We can only provide here the date and time when the membership was purchased.'

I also wanted to try to get to the bottom of how a pass could be added 'unintentionally without realising' so I asked how it is possible and was told:

'If member views sports content or access sports channel the membership gets added and as soon as added a confirmation email will be sent to it.'

So I asked:

'So, you're saying that if you accidently flick your tv onto a sports channel it adds a sports pass to your account? Why are you allowing that to happen? Why is a sports channel even available to accidently end up on if you don't already have a sports pass?' and the reply:

'is purchased on any device purchase button need to be press only then it gets added. For our members we have given option of adding payment pin which they can activate if they need it. .'

My reply:

'Then please provide me with evidence that I or someone in my household pressed a purchase button. As I've already said, it makes no sense for us to purchase a sports pass. Why don't you put the payment pin in place for all members and then let them take it off if they don't want it?'

The evidence offered to me again was the date and time the pass was added to my account, which isn't evidence of me agreeing to it. In light of this I've asked how they can justify not refunding me if they can't provide me with evidence of my agreement to the pass. So far they haven't provided me with an answer.

So, I'm beginning to get a better idea of what is going on. What bothers me is that it is so apparently easy to add a pass to your account and be none the wiser. It also bothers me that NOW are fully aware of this and continue to let it happen. 

What evidence do you expect them to be able to provide that you will be satisfied with?

In reality all they will ever have is a computer record stating the time and date when the purchase was made which is when the "purchase button" was pressed. In reality there really isn't any other evidence that they can provide apart from their own logs because it's a purely digital transaction.

For this log to be wrong then it would have to be a bug in the system that is randomly adding extra passes to people's accounts. But then it most likely be happening to a lot of people and they would be getting a lot of complaints and probably a news story about it. 

It's also strange that you say that you got no confirmation email about this but i don't think your going to get anywhere with this complaint if they are maintaining everything is above board.

I think all you can do is take it as a lesson to keep better track of your expenditure so you can spot issues like this earlier before it's too late.

My problem is that no one is aware of making a purchase. I have a suspicion that someone was flicking through channels and somehow ended up on a sports channel, which then added the pass to my account. What I don't get is how it is possible to end up on a sport channel if you don't have an existing sports pass. Surely you would need to buy a pass before you can visit a channel. I can honestly say that no one is aware of clicking any kind of purchase button for a sports pass. I have no reason to believe anyone in my family would lie about this because no one in my family is interested in sport. If it had been a movie pass that would be a different matter.

Like you say, for the log to be wrong it would be happening to a lot of people and I have found a fair few people on trustpilot and review.io who are complaining of the same thing as me. There may well be others who have not complained and just let it drop. It does make me wonder how wide spread this is.

With regard to the email that would have been sent. NOW told me they sent an email when the pass was purchased but that it had not been opened. I have not been able to find this email. I can only think that it ended up in my junk folder and got automatically deleted. The fact that they can see that the email was not opened surely further proves that I was unaware of the purchase being made.

Essentially though you're right, lesson learned!

I have NOW, but I have Sky Sports through VM - I just went to the NOW app on my TV, clicked on a sports channel and was clearly informed I needed to buy a pass to view this content. The same happens with all the web TV apps, they show you content or ads to get you to take up new services - thats why you see things on all websites, apps etc. to up sell you. They make it clear you are buying something when you do click or attempt to view.

NOW have also said they send a confirmation to your email account (which they do for me each time I try and cancel and they offer me a half price deal, those pesky blighters).

You don't have that, you don't have any evidence that you purchased the pass or not, they have evidence of a date and time it was purchased. That leads me to believe you're either logged into another device/TV somewhere or your account was accessed by a third party and they purchased the pass and removed the email proof from your email account (as it and the NOW account was compromised).

That's why they say its not fraud, as to them, and the systems they have it looks completely legitimate...

I was wanting to try this experiment to see for myself if this was the case. However, I've cancelled all my passes and I didn't want to risk accidently adding another pass. So I'm glad that you've done this and let me know what happens. Well, it seems that someone in my household must have bought the pass without realising what they were doing. I am annoyed though that it's that easy to do. They say that a PIN is available to set up to avoid this, but didn't inform me of this until after the event. I guess I have to admit defeat and move on. I won't ever be going back to NOW TV though!