Unsolicited household appliance insurance

IAmNotAnOctopus

My elderly mother-in-law lives alone in rural Herefordshire. Outside of a daily phone call and a weekly visit from my wife, she has little contact with the outside world. She's been getting regular cold calls from people purporting to offer household insurance, and has provided some of these people with bank details over the phone. This has allowed them to set up a direct debit, which my wife (who has power of attorney over her banking) has cancelled, believing that no further action would be necessary.

However, some of these companies are becoming quite persistent in demanding their money. Having searched the names of a few of them, this appears to be their modus operandi, i.e. cold call, pressure and intimidate until they get their pay day.

Nothing has been signed by my mother-in-law; the only commitment has been verbal, over the phone, at the time she gave them their bank details. Is she actually legally obliged to follow through with this, despite arguably being preyed upon by these companies?

knightstyle

Cancelling the DD does not cancel the contract.  Your wife needs to contact these companies and get them to cancel the contracts.  Yes a verbal contract is binding.

TELLIT01

The conversation would probably be recorded so they will have the 'proof' that your M-I-L 'freely' entered into the contracts.

You really do need to impress on her that she should never give over bank details.

DullGreyGuy

Are you sure these are insurance? Sounds more like firms in the warranty/service plan space.

Cancelling payments is not the same as cancelling a contract, same as your employer can't just stop paying you as a way of making you redundant/firing you. 

May be worth looking at something like Call Guardian or similar for her so that only known numbers can call her and everyone else goes straight to voicemail

eddddy

What do the cold callers say to your mother-in-law to persuade her to sign?

For example, I periodically get phishing cold-calls telling me that my washing machine warranty ran out last week, and I need to pay to continue my cover.

It's complete lies - in legal terms, at best it's misrepresentation, at worst it's fraud.

(As an aside, for my own amusement, I ask questions like "Do you mean the Bosch I bought from Currys" and they always reply "yes". So I say something like "That's a cordless drill not a washing machine". And leave them to bluster while I tell them all about my new cordless drill and DIY projects.)

So, as a starting point, maybe ask for a recording of the call.

Undervalued

IAmNotAnOctopus said:

My elderly mother-in-law lives alone in rural Herefordshire. Outside of a daily phone call and a weekly visit from my wife, she has little contact with the outside world. She's been getting regular cold calls from people purporting to offer household insurance, and has provided some of these people with bank details over the phone. This has allowed them to set up a direct debit, which my wife (who has power of attorney over her banking) has cancelled, believing that no further action would be necessary.

However, some of these companies are becoming quite persistent in demanding their money. Having searched the names of a few of them, this appears to be their modus operandi, i.e. cold call, pressure and intimidate until they get their pay day.

Nothing has been signed by my mother-in-law; the only commitment has been verbal, over the phone, at the time she gave them their bank details. Is she actually legally obliged to follow through with this, despite arguably being preyed upon by these companies?

Sadly, for this situation, in English law very few things have to be in writing and / or signed to be binding. In the vast majority of circumstances a verbal agreement is just as binding.

Given the power of attorney, I wonder if it would be possible for her bank to be instructed not to accept any new direct debit or other instruction without your wife's consent?

eddddy

Undervalued said:

Given the power of attorney, I wonder if it would be possible for her bank to be instructed not to accept any new direct debit or other instruction without your wife's consent?

That alone wouldn't be a solution.

If the MiL agrees to a contract (for example, agrees to pay £10 a month for insurance), if the £10 direct debit is rejected, it means that the MiL is very likely breaching the contract, and building up a debt at the rate of £10 per month.

IAmNotAnOctopus

Thanks for all the replies, folks. 

To answer one or two of the questions, M-I-L is over eighty and is lonely, and she sees these calls as a friendly voice, even though we've repeatedly tried to impress upon her that they're anything but. There's a certain amount of rebellion: on the advice of the bank, my wife took her mum's bank card off her a few years ago because she was actually making payments over the phone; of course, she can't do that now but she does still have her account number and sort code available which is enough to set up a DD. She still doesn't seem to understand why she doesn't have a bank card and I think some of this is a way to "get back" at my wife for taking it off her. 

There's also the feelgood factor of having made what she sees as an adult decision to take out insurance without the input of her daughter, even though we've repeatedly explained that if she wants domestic insurance we'll search for a reputable provider and take it out without the high pressure cold calls.

I can see she's going to have to pay at least some of these DD mandates. My wife works full time and really doesn't have the time (let alone the inclination or the forceful personality) necessary to get these contracts cancelled; these companies are remarkably insistent!

Thanks again for the advice.

Olinda99

to be honest if she cancels the DD there is not much they can do other than take an 80 year old to court - would they do that ?

eddddy

I'm not a particular expert on this - but in addition to possible misrepresentation, The Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 specifies a number of things the supplier must say/do before a contract can come into force.

If the supplier didn't say/do those things, no contract exists.

So it's worth listening to a recording of the phone call, and reviewing any documents received by post, to see if the regulations were met.



Here's an overview: https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesses

And here's some relevant parts of the legislation:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2000/2334/regulation/7
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2000/2334/regulation/8

user1977

If it's different companies, is she maybe on some sort of list of "gullible" customers? Sounds like she wouldn't agree to changing her phone number anyway but it might help.