using cards on line 2025+

robtes

I have become increasingly alarmed at a type of payment system used for online purchase of subscriptions.  As members here will no doubt have experience the dirty tricks played with certain subscription services eg streaming, magazines, website services - especially AI and so on.  Payment for goods is normally through a recognised CC payment of Paypal so never a problem etc.  There was a system of control available with prepaid debit cards but it was phased out ca 2023 and so most articles here from that age are no longer relevant - sadly.  Indeed all these devious service sellers no longer accept any such form of payment even from the respectable Mastercard.
You may have experienced with subscription accounts that it is often made difficult to legitimately cancel a service subscription within its agreed timeframe (say weekly/monthly yearly - look at the small print).  Its all the more annoying when notwithstanding, this subscription continues to be debited from your card.  It seems most of these services use and outsourced billing service as the presentation is largely the same format.  Trying to raise a complaint let alone a refund for an delinquent deduction often becomes a time wasting exercise.  Years ago I signed up for a monthly subscription to the Telegraph Paper.  I grew tired of it etc and cancelled the sub.  Yet it continued to debit my card monthly despite my protests (I swear the TG knew about this malfeasance).  The credit card co was no help as it claimed I had made a contract and knew nothing about a cancellation and this must be done by the merchant (the billing service not the TG - in the small print).  It took 6 months before I finally got off the hook.  The same thing happened with a big publishing house of hobbyist mags - took 6 months to get unhooked. NEVER AGAIN.

Now if this topic gains interest I will post episode 2 of my weary experiences. I do invite others to contribute their bad events here because I believe this is a growing area of fraud that is outside the FSA . Trading standards etc that we have come to rely on.  It will become all the worse as AI system take over - I leave that to episode 3 more bad news.  MSE is a highly respected guardian of consumer rights - those are being trash AWS 

Hope this helps
Robin

eskbanker

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/recurring-payments/ explains the mechanism I believe you're referring to - it does have fewer consumer protections than the direct debit alternative, but can be cancelled by the card provider if you know enough detail.

fifeken

robtes said:

Now if this topic gains interest I will post episode 2 of my weary experiences.

No thanks.

robtes

eskbanker said:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/recurring-payments/ explains the mechanism I believe you're referring to - it does have fewer consumer protections than the direct debit alternative, but can be cancelled by the card provider if you know enough detail.

Well thanx 10^6 for that info, I didnt find it and its certainly not common knowledge made aware to the consumer.  My disagreement over a sub to the Telegraph duly and legitimately cancelled but continued to charge me and it took many emails to the TG clerk responsible  to get off their hook.  The VISA credit card was no help and said I was under contract (monthly) and I had to get the merchant to cancel (ie the billing service).  Very bad news.  This was 10 years ago I was naive.  I had the same problem with a big Publishing House over a magazine sub - same dirty tricks.
So my dire warnings about these online service subs should be heeded.  They all seem tarred with the same business model  BEWARE

born_again

robtes said:

eskbanker said:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/recurring-payments/ explains the mechanism I believe you're referring to - it does have fewer consumer protections than the direct debit alternative, but can be cancelled by the card provider if you know enough detail.

Well thanx 10^6 for that info, I didnt find it and its certainly not common knowledge made aware to the consumer.  My disagreement over a sub to the Telegraph duly and legitimately cancelled but continued to charge me and it took many emails to the TG clerk responsible  to get off their hook.  The VISA credit card was no help and said I was under contract (monthly) and I had to get the merchant to cancel (ie the billing service).  Very bad news.  This was 10 years ago I was naive.  I had the same problem with a big Publishing House over a magazine sub - same dirty tricks.
So my dire warnings about these online service subs should be heeded.  They all seem tarred with the same business model  BEWARE

Back in the old days before many staff were actually aware of the Payment Services Directive especially front line staff & what that fully meant to card providers.
Even through it had been out since 2009 & Updated in 2015

MyRealNameToo

robtes said:

eskbanker said:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/recurring-payments/ explains the mechanism I believe you're referring to - it does have fewer consumer protections than the direct debit alternative, but can be cancelled by the card provider if you know enough detail.

Well thanx 10^6 for that info, I didnt find it and its certainly not common knowledge made aware to the consumer.  My disagreement over a sub to the Telegraph duly and legitimately cancelled but continued to charge me and it took many emails to the TG clerk responsible  to get off their hook.  The VISA credit card was no help and said I was under contract (monthly) and I had to get the merchant to cancel (ie the billing service).  Very bad news.  This was 10 years ago I was naive.  I had the same problem with a big Publishing House over a magazine sub - same dirty tricks.
So my dire warnings about these online service subs should be heeded.  They all seem tarred with the same business model  BEWARE

If you legitimately cancelled the subscription you would almost certainly have received some form of confirmation of the cancellation and could then use this for chargebacks against the erroneous payments taken after the cancellation. 

I certainly dont think taking payments after cancellation is a major issue nor a material business model. Given your experience are both with press subscriptions it could well be the same organisation behind the scenes managing the subscription and either there is a odd bug that you have unluckily triggered twice  or you didnt follow their cancellation processes properly - many of which require you to confirm you want to cancel multiple times before actually getting to the end of the process and actually cancelling it. 

There are some underhanded subscription models out there but these are often involving misleading advertising, free trials and preying on the fact the majority of people are careless and dont actually bother reading anything. Therefore they may be amoral but not illegal and the screen did actually display and you do actually agree to a free trial of 3 days then £50 a month automatic subscription for something worth a fraction of that. 

Finding the cancellation button, or realising you've subscribed to anything to start with, tend to be a bigger problem than payments being taken after the subscription has been ended (ignoring the cases that you cancel on the day payment is to be taken which may then be too late)

VISA in the UK are not customer facing, you speak to your bank not VISA themselves. In other territories VISA do issue their own cards/provide their own perks direct to consumers.