The perils of DD

M

mabo

Club Member
Nov 13, 2011
4,290
3,934
south wales
No not Double Diamond.
Direct Debits and the like. Unless your exclusively cash we’ve probably all got them.

Over the years I’ve become increasingly thorough in checking statements both bank and credit cards.

This time yesterday whilst cruising through a particularly large credit card bill. Some Xmas stuff and car insurance. I spotted a payment to that popular car insurance provider. It would be unfair to name them but they do have seafaring related name, no not Captain Pugwash.

That ain’t right, I moved the car insurance, it was split across a couple of suppliers instead of a multi car. I know I had a letter saying contact us if you want to renew with us. I didn’t, so I didn’t.
But they’ve taken the blooming money anyway, 470 quid.
Last night the call centre was closed. I’ll call them in the morning.

This morning I found the letter I mentioned above. No, this letter is from LV, not then seafaring chaps.
That probably means they took this money last year too!
It was on a multicar ending late in 2019, for 2020 I moved to another multi car, and this year 2021 I split it up again.
The call centre answered fairly quickly, you want my policy number, I dont have one and that’s the problem.
I told my tale and was expecting a battle. No problem Sir, we’ll check the insurance data base and if the cars were insured with other companies we’ll refund the payment.
Check for the previous year too please, I moved the policy away from you late 2019.
10 minutes later I was told that the best part of £1000 would be credited back to my card. I was hoping to get one year back but two ! It was remarkably simple.

I should also note that I changed email address around the same time. I carefully told everyone about the email change but I didn’t bother with that insurance provider as I didn’t have a policy with them.
Or at least not that I knew of.
 
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I noticed a different payment a month or 2 ago. At the time I thought I knew what it was but was surprised it had been taken so early, it normally occurs closer to Xmas.
I was right it was taken closer to Xmas. So what was the one I spotted a month or so ago ?

Investigation pending.
 
On the surface of it, it might sound like like Admiral have violated the terms of the Direct Debit mandate. While your agreement with them means that they can continue to take payments, your insurance with them had stopped. So they're taking money for a service that they were no longer providing. That's a dick move by them.

There's problems here on both sides though.

1) You didn't explicitly end the contract, despite what their letter said. Nor did you confirm with your bank that the DD was no longer valid.

2) The DD mandate is not in any way related to any service that you are or are not receiving - it's simply a promise from your bank to honour any demand made by an authorised payee.

3) The service provider is forced by law to inform you every [payment period] that they are taking the money from the agreed account, and will do that either by email or physical mail. If you abandon your email account (or ignore your post) and that's their agreed communication channel with you, that's not on them.

Sounds like you got a great result - and I'm pleased for you - but it's really important that we all understand who is leeching our bank accounts and why.

For pity's sake, never believe that your suppliers nor lenders will be on the lookout for your well-being.
 
Mostly correct Mako.
This wasn’t a DD, yes the title does suggest it was so my error there.
It was taken from my credit card.
I’m very choosy about my bank account details, I put it on a card and have the added security and free credit for a month or so.

I’m very sure I told them I stopped the policy. They confirmed my last call to them was late 2019. I say that was me saying no thanks I’m off.

There are 2 scarey bits.
1, that I didn’t spot it last year.
2, how easily they refunded the payments, that suggests, to me at least, that they knew they were in the wrong.


The moral I’m preaching is keep an eye on who’s pilfering your pennies. Legally.
 
mabo said:
This wasn’t a DD, yes the title does suggest it was so my error there.
Click to expand...

Oh. My advice above was entirely based on DD laws. The DD regulations are entirely different from CC ones. With a credit card, your ability to draw back is completely different. I apologise if anyone has taken bad advice from me based on this assumption.


The moral I’m preaching is keep an eye on who’s pilfering your pennies. Legally.
Click to expand...

This is absolutely correct. Don't forget who is taking money from you and possibly affecting your credit score!
 
The annoying thing with Direct Debits, is that suppliers can charge an 'Admin Fee' if you cancel the DD in order to end the supply. It always used to be an 'insurance' to cancel the DD when telling someone you didn't want their products any more. However, if you do that and there is a final bill or settlement yet to be paid, they can get quite nasty.

Credit card companies, perhaps this relates more to Store Cards really, but they are credit cards too, have another trick. If you buy a single item or have few transactions, like a TV or washing machine and just transfer say £50 / month to pay it off, this can backfire. If you don't check your bills and have, even briefly for whatever reason, missed a payment, they apply an Admin Fee. This is done before they apply the payment to clearing your balance. So the payment may not cover the admin fee and the monthly payment. So you end up with a years worth fo admin fees and very little paid back !
 
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