Refund from Apple for mis charge

arkers13

Hi Looking for some advice - i have some charges on my bank account from Apple going back to 2019. I realise that i should have noticed earlier but due to long term illness and bereavement it was missed. On the chatbot Apple have agreed that these charges are incorrect and have refunded any charges from the last 60 days. They have then said my bank will recover the rest. I have waited patiently for the bank to respond (RBS - useless) and they now say it's not their problem as i should have sorted it earlier. Is there anything anyone can suggest to get this money back ( nearly £1k) waiting a call back from Apple but would welcome any suggestions - ombudsman etc. thanks Arkers

PHK

To advise you, we'll need to know more informatio  eg the nature of the charges and how you believe they came about?

arkers13

hi They are recurring payments of 16.99 & 9.99 that are identified by my bank as apple.com. Apple have acknowledged they have taken the payments but can find no purchases linked to them - not sure how they have got my details but transactions continued even when i had new debit card so must have been some sort of link to my account

eskbanker

arkers13 said:

I have waited patiently for the bank to respond (RBS - useless) and they now say it's not their problem as i should have sorted it earlier.

If you're saying that you didn't authorise these transactions then your bank is obliged to refund 13 months worth, unless you were deemed responsible in some way, as per https://www.fca.org.uk/consumers/unauthorised-payments-account

Why a refund can be refused

Your bank can only refuse to refund an unauthorised payment if:

• it can prove you authorised the payment
• it can prove you acted fraudulently
• it can prove you deliberately, or with 'gross negligence', failed to protect the details of your card, PIN or password in a way that allowed the payment
• you only told your bank about the unauthorised payment 13 months (or more) after the date it left your account

born_again

Re above.
As it has been going on since 2019, bank would take the stance that customer was aware of the payments. Or 'gross negligence' in reality for not checking account.

eskbanker

born_again said:

Re above.
As it has been going on since 2019, bank would take the stance that customer was aware of the payments. Or 'gross negligence' in reality for not checking account.

The reference to 'gross negligence' applied to failure to protect cards, PINs or passwords, rather than checking the account - it's obviously not an unreasonable expectation that a customer should read statements though.  I'd still argue that a bank should reimburse 13 months worth of payments (and FOS seems to take that view, at least sometimes) but can understand the opposite view....

arkers13

i do not receive statements - internert banking - think they are saying should have checked account - would it be worth contacting ombudsman? - do i have any recourse from Apple?

eskbanker

arkers13 said:

i do not receive statements - internert banking - think they are saying should have checked account

You do receive statements, but they're made available in electronic form rather than being sent in paper format, i.e. internet banking in no way excuses you from your responsibility to check them.

arkers13 said:

would it be worth contacting ombudsman?

Possibly, but you'd need to go through RBS's complaints process first.  What exactly did their rejection letter say?

arkers13 said:

do i have any recourse from Apple?

Difficult to say - the working assumption is presumably that someone else set up an Apple account/contract using your bank/card details, but if this was four years ago or more, then it would be hard to make anything stick.

DullGreyGuy

arkers13 said:

Hi Looking for some advice - i have some charges on my bank account from Apple going back to 2019. I realise that i should have noticed earlier but due to long term illness and bereavement it was missed. On the chatbot Apple have agreed that these charges are incorrect and have refunded any charges from the last 60 days. They have then said my bank will recover the rest. I have waited patiently for the bank to respond (RBS - useless) and they now say it's not their problem as i should have sorted it earlier. Is there anything anyone can suggest to get this money back ( nearly £1k) waiting a call back from Apple but would welcome any suggestions - ombudsman etc. thanks Arkers

Have you ever owned an apple product (iPhone, iPad, Macbook etc)?
Have you ever had a spouse, child, grandchild with such products and possibly lent them your card to pay for something?

In my experience a reasonable proportion of "unauthorized subscriptions" turn out to have been authorised but the cardholder just forgets they offered to buy a game or such for their grandkid and also didnt realise it was a subscription rather than one off payment but that doesnt invalidate their authorisation. 

arkers13

no checked all that and apple have agreed that they are not linked to my account and have refunded back 60 days - i am trying to recover the money before that

born_again

arkers13 said:

i do not receive statements - internert banking - think they are saying should have checked account - would it be worth contacting ombudsman? - do i have any recourse from Apple?

So how do you monitor your account?
banks by regulations have to send out at least a annual statement. 

As above post on Apple products.
Could be something on a old email address.

You need to get Apple to look at the account linked to the payments. Which can be done with finding all old email address's, family emails & devices, new/old held. It is them a case of asking could it relate to this? 
They will not tell you which it is due to GDPR, but you can get a yes/no answer by going through each one, without them saying which.