Easyspace - how to dispute an unauthorised auto-renewal with your card issuer

NFH

I am posting this in order to help anyone who has suffered unauthorised services charged to their credit card or debit card by Easyspace, which is a UK registrar of domain names.
I paid £12.97 using my American Express card to Easyspace in 2023 to transfer registration of my domain name to Easyspace, including a 1-year extension to its expiry date. This was Easyspace's main and only obligation. I did not opt in or give my express consent to any subsequent services to be carried out at a later date.
Despite no obvious indication in the purchase process, Easyspace's terms and conditions state:

3.9 AutoRenewal is a service offered by Easyspace to protect the customer, whereby products and services, except those subscribed to on a monthly basis, will by default be automatically renewed prior to expiration date.

3.10 Unless otherwise stated, the default renewal term for each service will be the same as the initial purchase term. All services will renew automatically unless AutoRenew is disabled via the Control Panel.

However, Regulation 40 of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 states:

(1) Under a contract between a trader and a consumer, no payment is payable in addition to the remuneration agreed for the trader’s main obligation unless, before the consumer became bound by the contract, the trader obtained the consumer’s express consent.

(2) There is no express consent (if there would otherwise be) for the purposes of this paragraph if consent is inferred from the consumer not changing a default option (such as a pre-ticked box on a website).

(4) Where a trader receives an additional payment which, under this regulation, is not payable under a contract, the contract is to be treated as providing for the trader to reimburse the payment to the consumer.

The purpose of this legislation is to prevent, and provide a remedy for, businesses that disingenuously charge consumers for default options without the consumer's express consent. No payment is payable under paragraphs 3.9 and 3.10 of Easyspace's terms and conditions because this legislation invalidates these two paragraphs. Statutory rights override contractual terms.
Easyspace sent me an e-mail almost 11 months after the original charge stating "You don't have any packages due within the next 30 to 60 days which are set up for Auto Renewal". Despite this, only 35 days later, without my authorisation and without any communication of the transaction amount in advance, Easyspace charged £25.50 to my American Express card for renewal of the domain name, which was a different service from my original purchase a year previously. Although Easyspace sent me a contradictory subsequent e-mail two weeks before the charge informing me of a renewal of my domain name, this communication did not specify any transaction amount, which implied that the renewal would be the same as the the previous year's charge of £12.97.
Given that Regulation 40(4) requires that "the contract is to be treated as providing for the trader to reimburse the payment to the consumer", Easyspace was contractually bound to reimburse the unauthorised £25.50 to me. Without any legal basis, Easyspace threatened "should a dispute be opened against the payment, and found in your favour, the domain would become the property of Easyspace". Therefore I first transferred my domain away to another registrar and then raised a dispute with American Express, who agreed with me and charged the £25.50 back to Easyspace. Well done American Express, who are consistently better than other card issuers at handling disputed transactions.
It is immaterial that Easyspace incurred a wholesale cost payable to the domain name registry for renewal of my domain name, because Easyspace renewed my domain name without my consent at a retail price of £25.50 to which I had not agreed and of which I had not been notified. This wholesale cost to Easyspace is a result of its own malpractice and therefore is a loss that Easyspace must bear.
If anyone else suffers from unauthorised renewal services from Easyspace, then you can contact your card issuer and cite the above legislation. However, it is important to transfer your domain name away from Easyspace before raising a dispute with your card issuer, otherwise Easyspace might withhold your domain name in line with its above quoted threat.

born_again

Sadly it's not unauthorised, as you agreed to retailer T/C. There is no need when card details are used for any notification of renewal. That is up to you to make a note of when due.

So unless you have cancelled before renewal then you have no redress via your bank.

A chargeback has no relation to any legislation. As card regulations are over & above any legal rights.

So Amex have simply refunded (go away money) in this case. Unless Amex regulations are different to Visa/Mastercard 👍

NFH

born_again said:

Sadly it's not unauthorised, as you agreed to retailer T/C. There is no need when card details are used for any notification of renewal. That is up to you to make a note of when due.

As I wrote above, statutory rights take precedence over terms and conditions. Therefore it is irrelevant that I agreed to the terms and conditions.

born_again said:

So unless you have cancelled before renewal then you have no redress via your bank.

I have every redress with my card issuer (American Express is NOT a bank), because of the contractual term created by Regulation 40(4) quoted above.

born_again said:

A chargeback has no relation to any legislation. As card regulations are over & above any legal rights.

A chargeback is governed by contractual terms, in this case by the contractual term created by Regulation 40(4) quoted above.

born_again said:

So Amex have simply refunded (go away money) in this case. Unless Amex regulations are different to Visa/Mastercard 👍

American Express did not swallow the loss as they often do, becuase Easyspace contacted me to complain that I had raised a dispute after transferring the domain away.

born_again

Bank is a generic term here.

As to chargeback, contract terms have nothing to do with them. As I said they are card regulations that are over & above your legal rights. 
Card regulations have their own rules. As above your legal rights are not one of them in this case.

As far as your case goes. Unless a continuous payment authority has been cancelled prior to funds being taken there is no chargeback right, under Visa/Mastercard.

Appears Amex take a different line👍 

Glad you got it sorted. 

NFH

born_again said:

Bank is a generic term here.

No, "bank" is a narrow and specific term. The wider generic term is "card issuer". American Express is a card issuer (of credit cards and charge cards), but it is not a bank.

born_again said:

As to chargeback, contract terms have nothing to do with them. As I said they are card regulations that are over & above your legal rights. 
Card regulations have their own rules. As above your legal rights are not one of them in this case.

Card issuers routinely carry out chargebacks where the card holder can provide evidence of a breach of contract. In this case, there was a breach of the contractual term created by Regulation 40(4) quoted above. I have explained above the legal argument to present to card issuers when raising a dispute that will persuade card issuers to carry out a chargeback, because I understand from searching online that this issue is common with Easyspace.

born_again said:

As far as your case goes. Unless a continuous payment authority has been cancelled prior to funds being taken there is no chargeback right, under Visa/Mastercard.

I did not knowingly create a continuous payment authority. Easyspace retained and reused my card details without my express consent.

Olinda99

normally when you purchase something there is a little box to tick saying 'I have read the t and c and agreed to them' or something like that 

the auto renewal terms were in the t and c

to be fair, not sure how widespread actually reading the term conditions are when purchasing something ! nevertheless I assume the box was there and you ticked it

that said you may have a case if the auto renewal terms were hidden deep inside so that any normal person would find difficulty finding them and understanding them

NFH

Olinda99 said:

normally when you purchase something there is a little box to tick saying 'I have read the t and c and agreed to them' or something like that 

the auto renewal terms were in the t and c

to be fair, not sure how widespread actually reading the term conditions are when purchasing something ! nevertheless I assume the box was there and you ticked it

It's irrelevant, because another contractual term, which was created by Regulation 40(4), took precedence over the T&Cs.

Olinda99 said:

that said you may have a case if the auto renewal terms were hidden deep inside so that any normal person would find difficulty finding them and understanding them

Yes, it could be a misleading omission under Section 6 of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, but the legislation that I quoted above is more specific to this scenario and carries greater weight.

Olinda99

yes but the regulation you quote says that no payment can be taken unless the consumer gives express content and this cannot be done by a pre-ticked box 

what I was asking was did you tick the box yourself giving your express consent to the terms and conditions. ie was there some statement on the website saying I agree to the terms and conditions please tick this box

NFH

Olinda99 said:

what I was asking was did you tick the box yourself giving your express consent to the terms and conditions. ie was there some statement on the website saying I agree to the terms and conditions please tick this box

Any general consent give to terms and conditions in respect of the trader's main obligation is not express consent to every provision of those terms and conditions, particularly provisions that create additional obligations that are distinct from the trader's main obligation. That is exactly what the legislation is intended to prevent.

I would also add that there's an unticked box below the card details labelled "Use this card for Auto-Renew" and "All services are automatically set to Auto-Renew (which can be turned off in your control panel). Your details are held securely and never shared". Easyspace used my card details for auto-renewal despite the tick box being unticked, and carried out the auto-renewal without any notification of its price until after the transaction had been carried out.

DullGreyGuy

NFH said:

born_again said:

Bank is a generic term here.

No, "bank" is a narrow and specific term. The wider generic term is "card issuer". American Express is a card issuer (of credit cards and charge cards), but it is not a bank.

American Express UK is not a Bank, American Express is a bank as it is subsidiaries in various other countries too. There is no singular English definition of "bank" and it varies between legislations, the PRA for example says it's an entity with Part 4A permissions but the UK Infrastructure Bank, as created by an act of the same name in 2023 doesn't hold Part 4A permission.

NFH said:
I did not knowingly create a continuous payment authority. Easyspace retained and reused my card details without my express consent.

Can't say what the digital journey was 12 months ago but right now you have to actively tick a box to agree to the terms and a separate one to authorise card retention for CPA. As its deep into the purchase process you cannot use Wayback Machine to view its previous layout

Olinda99

well obviously I don't understand contract law because to me you entered into a contract with certain terms and conditions one of which was the auto renew (which seems prominently displayed with an option to turn it off on control panel). 

all contracts have terms and conditions and to say that some don't apply because they involve extra payments sems strange to me 

as you know lots of things sold with auto renew including car insurance, house insurance, mobile phone air time etc are all these contracts enforceable?

the legislation you refer to seems to say they can't take extra money unless you've expressly agree to it which is what you did when you took out the contract initially?