insurance company charging my friends credit card

[birde78]

hi there all

i wonder if somebody could give me some advice regarding insurance company insure your motor.

i took out a policy in November 2007 and they wanted a deposit of 45.00 which my friend agreed to pay on her debit card and i payed her with cash.
after my friend had paid the deposit the insurance company wanted direct debit details so that they could take the monthly installments.
so i gave them my direct debit details.
a couple of months in to the policy i had a disagreement with the insurance company as they wanted to charge me more.
in the end they canceled the policy and i went to another insurer with no problems.
until i receive a phone call from my friend saying that insure your motor had taken two installments from her credit card even though we made it very clear that my friend was only paying the deposit thats why they wanted direct debit details.
i rang insure your motor where i spoke to the most arrogant person you could ever speak to
he told me that they were allowed to take money from my friends card as we agreed to it in writing.
i do remember them sending a form regarding my previous insurers and about no claims bonus but the guy says that i agreed to give them authorization to take money from my friends credit card and that because i did that iam the one who will get into trouble and really tried to palm the problem off on me in an attempt to think i will be done by the police.
i then asked him to send me a copy of this agreement and he said he would and i will receive it within 7days.
after going through all my paper work i find the credit agreement both copys which i had not signed and sent back and also a direct debit mandate which i forgot to send back.
i would really apreciate if somebody could advise me if the insuarance company are in the right and can by law take money from somebody elses credit card without the card holders prior permission surely i couldn't give the insurance company authorization to take money from somebody else's card but the insure company are saying that i did give them permission if thats the case then why did they take my direct debit details for the monthly installments.
i made it very clear to them that my friends credit card was for deposit only
thats why i set up the direct debit with them at the same time my friend also made it clear to them as well when she gave her card details to them .
it was the insurance company's idea for me to get a friend to pay the deposit because i couldn't at the time because i didn't have a credit card they kept ringing me for days on end regarding the deposit so i finally gave up and asked my friend to pay the deposit.
iam at my wits ends with it all and getting nowhere with insure your motor
iam sorry for the length of my post and would appreciate some advice on this matter.
kind regards
annmarie

[shywazz]

As a short term solution get your friend to contact her bank, and request that further payments to the company be declined, at the same time get him/her to claim the funds taken from the account back from the bank, under the direct debit refund policy/terms....
From that it is up to yourself and the insurance company to commuicate about what is owed and what isn't...But funds being taken from your friends account needs to be stopped, and contacting the bank will secure that this happens befor any more funds are taken... someone with insurance knowledge will be along to assit you with that shortly, but the bank should be the main thing to deal with 1st......

[shywazz]

Hello Rooster-uk thax for the editing messages you sent me, however its the OP that started the thread not myself........when title editing is done its the OP that needs informing not people that respond as there can-not change the title ....hence have no say upon the matter....getting such messages only fills my in box..... cheers..... Maybe this could be looked into and the editing message just sent to the OP ? just a thought

[Darkangelsdelite]

Hi birde78,

I can see how this must be frustrating for you, especially as the insurers don't seem to want to help you.

Just to clarify before we go into this, what sort of card was it that your friend used? on the first line you say:

"which my friend agreed to pay on her debit card"

but the next part you say:

"had taken two instalments from her credit card "

Credit cards and debit cards are 2 separate things so we need to be clear what we are looking at before we go any further into this.

If it was a credit card, then she needs to contact her card issuer and not the bank as the process for charge backs is slightly different to those under the direct debit guarantee.

In essence though it would appear that the insurer has made a cock up and are trying to pass the blame to you. This should be quite straight forward to sort out so before your friend contacts her bank/card issuer simply call your insurer and make a formal complaint, request for the sales call to be listened to. This will establish what was agreed as far as payments are concerned. If they find that they only had permission to take the deposit from the TP card and then the instalments should have come from your account, they will have no choice but to refund your friends card. Obviously this will leave a debt on the account which you will still be liable for, but at least you'll know where you stand and can make arrangements to pay it off.

If you need any more help, let us know.


DA