1+1 taking money from account without permission

[Vin22]

Hi,

 

First of all, sorry if this is the wrong place for this topic, but it seemed right to me.

 

Some time ago, I was planning to set up a website and I paid a company to register a domain name.

 

I paid for nothing else, and did not sign up for anything else.

 

About a month later, I got a new job and so gave up on the website.

The domain name was paid for with a single fee for a year, and I paid that and didn't see anything for 2 months.

I had set up a dedicated email address to handle everything related to the website,

and after about 2 months of being inactive I stopped checking it.

 

As it turns out, about 2 months after I paid that initial fee,

the company had set up a direct debit (over paypal, using the details I had given before to pay for the domain name)

to pay for some extra monthly service, without me ever giving my permission.

 

At first I assumed it was just a mistake and that (with some hassle), I should be able to get my money back, or at least cancelling further payments.

 

Looking through my emails and the tales of others, it looks like I might have trouble.

 

In one email I received it says that the contract lasts for 1 year (what "contract" this is I am unsure of)

and I have read of similar experiences, with threats to reduce peoples' credit ratings and so on if they do not continue payment for the full year.

 

They have not replied to my email yet, and I am not hopeful that it will be productive anyway.

 

If I pay this fee monthly for a whole year, it will total more than 20 times what I originally actually consented to paying.

 

Furthermore, what is to stop them simply tying me in for another year once this year is up?

 

Surely none of this is legal, and I am wondering if anybody has suggestions about what I can do about it,

as they are clearly experienced in screwing over their customers and getting away with it.

 

Their only defence as far as I can see is that they sent me an email (hidden well within a tidal wave of spam from the same company)

saying that I could cancel this extra service within 30 days, but after that I would be tied in for a year.

 

Obviously, I missed this email because I stopped checking the account after a few months of not getting any emails other than spam.

 

Do they have any ground to stand on legally?

 

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Edited January 24, 2014 by Vin22

[citizenB]

I wouldnt have thought they could have set up a Direct Debit without your permission ? You might want to have a read of the attached link.

 

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/27/27-directdebit-guarantee.htm

 

You are protected by the guarantee and should be able to cancel this with your bank - if there was anything untoward in the setting up of it, then your BANK should be refunding you and then reclaiming any monies paid incorrectly from the company.

[renegadeimp]

Which company is it?

[silverfox1961]

Hi

I would also raise a dispute with Paypal. To set up a DD, they need to inform you when the first payment will be taken and the same date ongoing.

 

Have you fully read the terms and conditions when you bought the domain name?

[Vin22]

Thanks for the quick responses.

 

The problem is, it was quite a long time ago and so I don't fully remember everything that I did in detail. What I do remember is that I only paid for a domain name and nothing more (with 1&1, by the way), and it was quite clear to me that that was all I was paying for.

 

I paid with paypal for the domain name initially, around £8, to which I consented. About 2 months after that, they apparently started charging £18 per month until now. They did give me a warning that they would do it, but as I explained I had not checked that email in a long time and it was hidden away amongst dozens of spam emails, and not clearly labelled at all. In the one or two times I had checked the email account in the last 3 months or so, that is the only excuse I can use for not noticing. The amount of money was not large enough for me to notice from my bank statements, either.

 

Clearly, some of the blame here lies with me because I should have noticed much sooner. But if I want to buy something in a shop, I need a PIN number every time. If I want to buy something online, I need to put in my password every time. With this, even though they did technically give me notice, I did not give any passwords or any PIN numbers or anything - they just went ahead and started charging for a service I never asked for based on details I had given them before for a legitimate payment.

 

I will see if I can find their terms and conditions to see if anything about this is hidden in there, but if it is then it is still very fishy, since it was quite clear to me at the time of paying that I was only paying for the domain name, and nowhere explicitly did I consent to anything else. Even if it is in the terms and conditions somewhere, would I be liable to pay for things defined in a terms and conditions statement when I have worked very hard NOT to pay for anything else when navigating through all of their options? I distinctly remember being offered a lot more than I wanted, and unticking every box apart from the "domain name" one. When I was charged, I was only charged for the domain name. The next month, I was not charged for anything. The month after, I got an email saying "congratulations" that this extra service had been set up on my behalf, and that I would be able to cancel within 30 days but after that I am tied in for a year, and the month after money started going out of my account.

 

Obviously I should have noticed this much longer ago, and it's a lesson to be learned. But if this is legal, it is extremely shady and underhanded, and I find it hard to believe that I am bound by law to pay this for a year when I gave no conscious consent, even if it is entirely my fault. Nevertheless, I have a feeling that might be what they will propose when they eventually get back to me...

[Vin22]

I had a look at the terms and conditions, and there are only two services they offer which are the same price that I am paying (which is much higher than the majority of their services, mysteriously). Besides being completely unspecific about what is actually being sold (it is just labelled as a "plus" package), I can only assume it is for hosting or something like that. Nowhere in the T&C can I find anything about being obliged to pay for these with a domain name or anything like that, and obviously I didn't accidentally pay for it with the domain name because they would have presumably started charging right away. Instead, I was only told that I had been upgraded about 2 months later and subsequently charged every month after that.

 

The only thing I can think of is that in addition to lots of email spam, I also got lots of calls from them to my mobile. As I remember I either did not answer or answered only to tell them to go away, but now I am paranoid that I must have accidentally said "yes" to something. But again, even if I did, no PIN number, no password, no security codes etc. They could have been ringing anyone. And again, surely they can't tie me in for a year based on that.

 

So, should my plan of action be to contact paypal, my bank, both? If they refuse to refund me or even cancel whatever they've subscribed me to, should I cancel the payments anyway? From what I've read online, they have made some people's lives difficult in similar circumstances.

 

Thanks again for all the help.

[citizenB]

You could I suppose send a Subject Access Request and ask for transcripts/recordings of the calls made in order to establish what you did sign up to ? There is a draft letter in the CAG library - highlighted in Green - top left of the screen. You will need to send £10.00 (statutory fee) and they have 40 calendar days to provide you with the information.

 

Meanwhile you need to contact both PayPal and your Bank - you personally did not instigate that Direct Debit and you want the money refunded under the DD guarantee.

[Vin22]

Hi everyone,

 

Once again, thanks for the replies.

 

I got a reply from the billing service, and they said that I can cancel the subscription, but I have to pay next month's fee since it was already renewed yesterday for the next month. They also cited a sales call (from around the time I got that "upgrade" email) where apparently I agreed to a free trial.

 

As I said, I received many sales calls and plenty of spam, and I did eventually answer some of the calls to try to get them to stop calling. At no point did I ever agree to buy anything. I vaguely remember a call where a woman told me that 1&1 offered additional services besides domain names, and I responded that I would think about it and get back to them if I changed my mind (as an attempt to try to get them to stop ringing me 24/7).

 

Interestingly, I need to give my account number and password in order to cancel the service. Notice that I never needed any such credentials in order to sign up for the service, apparently, just an over enthusiastic sales person. So in theory, they could have actually rang anybody and signed me up for anything they wanted. Surely this in itself is shady? That I barely needed to answer the phone in order to get signed up for all manner of things?

 

So, all in all, the responsibility is on me, for not noticing their email and for not realising that I had been sold a service that I had no awareness that I was being sold.

 

So my question to the forum at this point really is this: even if they insist that I said "yes" to having some service, can they really start taking my money straight from my account with just that? Don't they have to know and verify that it's me they are talking to? And that I fully understand what I am being offered? And even if they can dispute whether or not I actually consented, can I still claim back under the DD guarantee? Of course, their argument is that they checked that I wanted it every month in the form of a invoice (nestled away within about a dozen other spam emails, with all emails with the more or less the same subject line).

 

After all, they cannot prove that it was actually me who consented (and as far as I am concerned, I didn't), and if they look at the domain name that I registered they can see that I have never touched the site since I registered it. Clearly, I never wanted additional services.

 

It was mentioned in the reply that "we apologise that there has been a misunderstanding". Mysteriously, this misunderstanding has resulted in me being down a lot of money, and 1&1 being up by relatively little. It seems like such a small deal for them to refund it, and it would mean that I would have only nice things to say about them. It's a shame really.

 

Anyway, sorry for all of the long, ranty posts, I'll try to keep them shorter now. Thanks for any more comments.

[steampowered]

To me, the question of whether you are liable to pay this seems quite simple. Its just a matter of whether you agreed to sign up for the service for a year or not.

 

It sounds like you have already checked the T&Cs. It also sounds like they are relying on a phone call rather than on the T&Cs.

 

If this is the case, then I think you should tell them that you do not recall agreeing to the service and ask for evidence of your agreement. This should be either a set of T&Cs you agreed to or a recording/transcript of the sales call.

 

If they cannot produce evidence that you agreed to the service then you write a 'letter before action' threatening to take them to county court, and if that doesn't get you anywhere then you take them to court. If they are making threats about your credit record etc. I would be tempted to take them to court first and continue payment in the meantime rather than simply cancelling the DD ... that way there can be no doubt that any negative entry on your credit record is unlawful.

[Vin22]

Thanks for the response, that sounds like a good course of action. Just to further clarify, they have not said that I have to continue paying for a year. It was implied in the first email I got that this would be the case, and I had read other peoples' stories where this was the case, but they have said for me that I have to pay the next instalment (since it was renewed yesterday) but that I can cancel other than that. Mind you, some people have recanted stories where they have cancelled and continued to be charged nonetheless, but I'm sure if that happened they wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

 

Anyway, thanks again.

[renegadeimp]

Ignore 1+1. They are exactly like streamline.

 

Cancel the account, and ignore any spurious demands for money unless you actually owe it. They will pass it to a DCA who send 3-4 letters, then crawl back under the rock they came from.