Be Excellent To Each Other

We used to be members of the AA. Three years ago, we got a new car and with it was free coverage for three years with Green Flag, so we rang up the AA and cancelled the membership. The membership was paid for by credit card.

Fast forward three years. The card itself was cancelled by HSBC about 18 months ago (by HSBC, after they wrote and said due to a "problem", they were replacing several thousand cards). It would have expired by now anyway.

This week, my wife checked her account and... the AA have taken out another years membership.

She went ballistic. Turns out that the AA didn't cancel the account, they simply "suspended" it because we mentioned we had three years with Green Flag. Three years are up, they reactivate the account automatically and take the money. They offered to cancel the membership - minus 14 quid "administration fee".

But how did they take the money from a cancelled and expired card?

The bank says that because there was a history on the account of the AA regularly taking that money at that time, the payment was automatically approved. The fact that the card is no longer valid is irrelevant.

This wouldn't happen with a monthly payment, btw. As when the card was cancelled, she had to ring up QVC with the new card details to take the final payment of a four month instalment.

She has now spoken to the Financial Ombudsman and got the following:

>>
Basically general law allows companies like the AA to do this and the Bank has to allow the money to be taken from my account because I previously OK’d it years ago and a replacement card account does not stop that – if the company asks the bank authorises it. :-0

Ombudsman said that the best way of paying this sort of thing – one off payment is by cheque. He said it’s not at all common with insurance companies or roadside assistance, but happens all the time with AOL and they’re a nightmare to contact!!! I asked if there were any electronic means of paying for such a bill (in the future) safely and he said that really a cheque was only the safe way to stop this sort of problem because once authorised, always authorised!!!! He did say that credit cards were the worst way for this sort of payment though. The AA only asked for a credit card!

Blimey.
<<

Credit Card? Issue a chargeback for fraud immediately. If you cancelled your account the AA have no right to take the cash 3 years later.

And then go in the bank and complain very strongly indeed for letting a company you have no current dealings with access your funds on a cancelled card without even asking. Law be damned, if my bank pulled that one they'd be getting told to shove it.

And then go in the bank and complain very strongly indeed for letting a company you have no current dealings with access your funds on a cancelled card without even asking. Law be damned, if my bank pulled that one they'd be getting told to shove it.

And then go in the bank and complain very strongly indeed for letting a company you have no current dealings with access your funds on a cancelled card without even asking. Law be damned, if my bank pulled that one they'd be getting told to shove it.

Do it three times, too.

Sheepeh agrees to the power three.

One 'this' for each time I agree with Shepeeh's identical posts.

I bloody well only clicked that once!

But yes, three times. That'll do it.

The account was merely suspended, not cancelled. This is what the AA do and the original conversation was over the phone. Apparently they sent a letter telling us of the reactivation, which surprise, surprise, we never got.

Leaving that aside, I thought it would be fair to make people aware that it is perfectly legal to take money via a credit card that has expired or been cancelled.

She's kicked off at the bank and they have immediately stopped all payment requests from the AA. However, that is the way the entire system is set up - a legitimate request will be authorised.

If you said "Please cancel my account, Mr AA Man" they can't "suspend" it for you. I'm assuming you did. I'd tell them to get to fucking fuck.

I used to work for a bank and it's funny that you mention AOL because I saw that pretty much every day! AOL were taking payments out on a card (credit or debit) and people could never get in touch with them to cancel them!

Like your story, they even took payments out on an expired card.

Definitely

We have. They've said they will refund "minus £14 administration fee" but a strongly worded letter is on its way, mentioning things like "Trading Standards" and "Financial Ombudsman"

I'd write to Watchdog, but I think Nicky Campbell is a cunt.

Although of course, if you cancelled the card, the card company isn't going to be able to get you to play it.

Thankfully Egg for one doesn't seem to allow this, They refused Bell trying to charge me for car insurance when I let it fail rather than argue with Bell about why I wasn't going to pay them £200 more than their own sister company.

You misunderstand. They've already taken the money.

Hang on, let's clarify here.

Do you have a new credit card on the same account or did you cancel it completely?

Because you implied the 2nd one, in which case they can give the AA all the money they like, you won't be giving HSBC any.

Simply, they can't charge you for an account you told them to close. Put this in these simple terms.

1) "I" told you to "close" the account on <insert date here>
2) Any dealings with "you" terminated on this date
3) Get to fucking fuck.
4) This letter costs £14.
5) Reading this letter will cost "you" £2 per month, even if "you" decide to cancel.

I assumed the card expired and Plissken got sent a new one, with a new expiry date. Different number card, same account.

Almost. The card was cancelled by HSBC about 18 months ago, as "a security measure". A replacement was issued with a different number.

This happened to me. I took out a trial subscription to Which on a temporary card - Cahoot let you have a number for a transaction, giving it a month's validity and a maximum value so even if someone gets the number they can't use it. Because it was a repeating transaction, however, they keep taking the money.

I say "keep" because it's not that much, I keep thinking I'll use it one day and cancelling involves a telephone call and making a telephone call almost always takes me months. Try not to get robbed in front of me, I suggest.

A bit annoying but in this case it seems fair enough - I did enter into a contract I guess, just tried to set it up in such a way that I didn't have to cancel it.

Include the letters "FSA" and the words "Treating Customers Fairly".

They'll shit bricks; I promise you this.

Which would at least be the same account, which does slightly complicate things.

They don't have the account number, they have a card number. A card the likes of QVC couldn't use to take a final instalment payment from.

Glad to see I'm not the only one this happens to. Never managed three though, that's impressive

Ah, but Egg are a bunch of cunts as well. Took me weeks to get through to someone to pay off my egg card - they deliberately make it as obtuse as possible to do anything other than pay the minimum every month.

There's a "One off payment" button on their website, that I've been using for months. It's on the left.

*nods*

Oh agreed but if it's legal to do this and HSBC authorised it knowing the accounts you have a battle.

Whereas if you have no card with HSBC anymore and the fools authorised it and billed you, it would be very funny.



Go to website.

Click "One off payment"

Make one off payment.

Took me about 2 seconds.

I never use cards' own websites for paying bills, I just push the money from my bank's internet banking.

Direct Debit, baby.

Nah - then you've given them the permission to take money. I ain't having that.

You'd think right.

Consumer protection on Direct Debits is very strong. Once you cancel them off your end, they can't take any more money. If stuff goes wrong, you get you cash back inside 48 hours, guaranteed.

Within 48 hours of agreement being reached that they took the amount erroneously - not within 48 hours of the money being taken.

True, true. That can often require a phone call channeling Comical Gnomes.

It can, and in my case has, require an 'investigation' taking four months.

Wow. Cunts.

In a vaguely related note, Dr Gaywood, my gf picked up a months worth of doggy medicine on the Wednesday before he died and we didn't use any of it, so a good £70 worth. The gf rang to see if they'd refund us for the unused medicine and the receptionist immediately said no. The gf told her that was ridiculous so the stupid hagface said she'd ask the vet and ring us back.

3 hours later, and bored of waiting for the call, we went into the vets directly. The receptionist tells us she'd asked the vet and he's said no (YET OBVIOUSLY DIDNT RING US TO SAY), we couldn't have a refund but we could give them the medication for free. gf was still upset to the point of tears so I raged at hagface telling her that was ridiculous, so she offered to have us wait to speak to the vet himself.

Cue 30 minutes of us waiting with my face becoming ever more dark. After about 40 minutes of waiting the hagface said to us 'Do you feel like you want to keep waiting, or...?'

'We most definitely want to wait, thank you'.

Eventually the fucking vet turns up at which point my face is contorted in barely contained rage. Luckily for him he agrees to refund us, but they can't do it by the machine because 'they're not supposed to and don't know how', so we'd have to wait for a cheque.

At that point everyone stopped speaking, so I just kept looking at the vet, waiting for him to say more, specifically when we'd receive said cheque. After lots of hateful glaring we're assured the cheque will arrive by Wednesday and leave. Long story short, the gf received the cheque yesterday long with a 'sorry for your loss' card which she threw in the bin.

Seriously, had it been the vetinary surgery we normally went to there'd have been no problem at all, and we wouldn't have had to battle for a bit of compassion, the fucking money-grabbing cunts.

Wow again. Cunts.

As I've said before, my vets couldn't have been any better about it. I almost literally ran out of the back door of our vets in tears after we had Crispin put down; they didn't invoice me for that for months and months afterwards, and even then it had an apologetic "have you forgotten to pay" type letter.

My gf was upset for a number of reasons. Very regretfully, I wasn't there when they put the little chap to sleep, but afterwards the vet kept the gf waiting, with my poor 'asleep' doggy on the table while he turned away and tapped out a bit of paperwork on the computer. How fucking insensitive can you get?

Added to that she had to pay promptly. 'Cash or Card?' the vet actually fucking asked, at 3.30am. When my gf explained that no, she didn't have cash (because who wouldn't quickly nip to the cash machine for £140 in the middle of the night anticapting having to pur your dog down?'), he said 'That's ok then, I can't handle cash'.

The surgery is really quite lucky they're not on fire right now.

Before I derail this thread entirely with my ranting, I'd just like to share this pic, which makes me laugh every time.



Look, no murderous rage on my face or anything.

Yeah I was wondering that... course it's a shitty vet anyway.

Sure, but not for refusing to take medicine back. If you 'normal' vet does do this, it makes them the bad ones.

Yes. I was thinking this actually, but didn't want to distract from the ranting. The way CG's (much) better half was treated at 3:30am was crappy.

Is that how Madonna pays for hers?

84%

Doesn't that have a £500 limit on it? This was some time ago, but I remember it being a pain in the arse to the point where I transfered the balance to another card and paid it off that instead.

No, though if your bank are annoying, they might block the payment until you call to confirm it.