Continuous payment authority...claiming refunds

[annalou24]

Hi all,

Wondering if anyone can help.

 

I had approx £500.00 of CPA's go out of my account during 2009-2011. None of these payments were ever authorised by me, my ex partner used my debit card to sign up to 2 dating sites and they kept taking a weekly or monthly fee out of my account despite me trying to cancel with my bank and with the compaies concerned.

 

I didn't know anything about the payments until money started disappearing from my account and bank charges for returned direct debits started happening - due to not having funds available as they had been taken by these CPA's!

 

I managed to get one comany to cancel after serveral weeks payments (£6.99 per week!), but the monthly one (started off as £22.80 as month, ended up as £44.00 a month!) went on for over a year with me asking Barclays to cancel, them saying its either cancelled or could I sign a letter and send it back, advising its a fraudulent transaction and they'd investigate or them telling me they couldn't help and it was up me to cancel with the company...bearing in mind, I never set up the dating account in the first place, so I had no details to go to the company with to cancel it.

 

Sometimes the payments stopped for a month or so but then would start again and also the subsription fee went up a few times. I asked Barclays on numerous occasions to stop these transactions and eventually, in early 2011 they finally stopped.

 

What I want to know is, can I claim this money back, considering the FSA rules around CPA's and the banks getting it wrong? If so, could anyone help me with wording a letter and what info would I need to provide to Barclays?

 

Has anyone on here tried to claim back unauthorised CPA payments? Any info would be much appreciated.

[slick132]

Hi Annalou and welcome to CAG

 

Did you ever write to Barclays about this or was it all done by phone.

 

You are obviously already aware of the FSA guidance which now makes it clear that a bank MUST accept your instruction to cancel a CPA.

 

Previously, banks would tell customers they cannot stop such payments and that you have to get the payee to stop collecting them. This was wrong !

 

I'd write to the bank and insist that they now refund any CPA payments which they made from your a/c after you told them to cancel the CPA or stop paying the recipient.

 

I don't think you should use the approach of them being fraudulent transactions. You should ask for the refund on the basis that you instructed the bank to stop such payments to X or Y.

 

If you wrote to the bank about this matter, or have a note of phone calls made to the bank telling them to stop making the CPA payments, that would be the date from which you should seek refunds of all subsequent payments.

 

Use this spreadsheet to list the CPA pay'ts - http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/Spreadsheets/England/Simple-charges-calc.xls It will calculate 8% simple interest on the charges as well and you should claim this although the bank may refuse to pay as you can normally only seek this interest once you file a court claim.

 

On the spready, you can also include any bank default charges that were made to your a/c as a direct result of CPA payments being made after you tried to cancel them.

 

A letter for this should be sent to Barclays HQ by Recorded Delivery :-

 

Barclays Bank plc

Head Office Customer Relations

1 Churchill Place

London

E14 5HP

 

Dear sir or madam,

 

Formal Complaint

Account No: xxxx xxxx

 

I write to complain about payments made from my account under Continuous Payment Authorities. The payees were xxxxxxx and yyyyyyyy and I contacted Barclays [by phone/in writing] on xxdate instructing that I no longer wanted such payments to be made.

 

I was given conflicting advice about how I should stop the CPA's but was told, on occasions that I would have to contact the payee as Barclays could not stop the payments. I now understand, from FSA guidance about CPA's, that Barclays should have accepted my instructions to stop payments immediately.

 

Accordingly, I enclose a Schedule of Charges listing all CPA payments made from xx date which is when Barclays should have stopped paying them.

 

I require that you refund the total payments shown on my Schedule of Charges. This includes some default charges added to my account relating to the CPA's or caused by lack of funds after CPA's were paid. The schedule also includes interest at 8% which I think would be reasonable as compensation, given the stress and trouble the bank's misleading attitude and advice has caused me.

 

If you fail to refund as requested within 14 days, I will have to pursue the matter via court using the BCOB Regulations. If court action is required, I will then seek restitutionary compound interest at a nominal rate of 24.9%.

 

I trust you will take my complaint seriously and act swiftly to refund, thereby avoiding the costs associated with court proceedings.

 

Yours faithfully,