Capital One CC closed or Not

fatboy88

Hi, my friend had a capital one CC and she rang to close the account in Nov 2007. After 6 months she suddenly receives a statement with £50 added on for card protection they put on for inactive accounts and is now demanding payment.
Can they actually do this and charge this amount which she never agreed to?

Has anyone experienced this?

Many thanks

Swanny79

fatboy88 wrote: »

Hi, my friend had a capital one CC and she rang to close the account in Nov 2007. After 6 months she suddenly receives a statement with £50 added on for card protection they put on for inactive accounts and is now demanding payment.
Can they actually do this and charge this amount which she never agreed to?

Has anyone experienced this?

Many thanks

Yes but you're friend is lucky! The first I heard of it was when a letter came through the door three weeks ago from Cabot Financial demaning payment of a debt from MBNA. Hours of faffing about with call centres revealed that a £50 card protection charge was added in 2006. I had closed the card in 2003 and moved in 2004. MBNA were obviously sending bills to the old address and obviously I wasn't replying!! (why would I tell an OLD credit card company I was moving???) I racked up payment penalties and interest of £147!!!! The card protection people re-funded the £50 without question seeing as they had been protecting a card that had been closed for 3 years, but MBNA have refused to waive the charges that they've added. Effectively charging me £147 for lending me nothing. I've had to pay the full £197 to Cabot as this was ruining my credit rating, and MBNA will not send the £50 re-fund straight to me. They are sending it to Cabot who will then send to me.

I found this in the Ts and Cs which shows that credit cards amazingly WILL still accept direct debit type payments after the card account has been closed - even for as long as three years:
10d After we close your account, you will still be personally liable to pay all amounts which become due to us, for example, any residual interest, any subscriptions and regular payments that you have not stopped or outstanding credit-card cheques. We reserve the right to apply interest on such amounts in accordance with this agreement.

Such a helpful attitude from MBNA means they will soon be receving letters demanding the refund of ALL charges relating to this account (not just this recent indescretion).

In summary - the credit card company is seemingly within it's rights to effectively re-open the card in this instance. But I would try getting on to the card protection people for a quick re-fund.

robnye

did your friend actually confirmation in writing from capital one, that the account was closed....

when i have closed ccard accounts in the past, i always asked for them to confirm in writing

fatboy88

I dont think she received any written confirmation but even phone conversations should be on their memo system. Was thinking of doing a data info request.

Didnt know they would still accept DDs after the account is closed

nomoneytoday

Its not a Direct Debit - its a Continous Payment
They can only be stopped by the originator not MBNA

Moggles_2

That's right. You can pay your credit card bills using direct debits from your bank account, but you cannot pay others (eg. card protection schemes) by DD using your credit card.

A regular payment from a credit card is termed a continuous payment authority. Once set up, you can’t cancel it. Neither can the lender. Only the company you've arranged to pay can do this.

methusala_2

absolute safe way to close a credit card account is to clear all debts on it as you normaly would. Wait for the paper statement saying 00.00 balance.
Then lose the card.
Report it lost.
That effectively cancels all future continuous payments on that card account unless you specificaly authorise them on your replacement card. When new card arrives ring and cancel the account.