Thread: HIPS Company Using Debit Card

My mother has recently received her bank statement from Natwest and discovered that a payment of roughly £490 pounds has been made to the company responsible for carrying out the HIPS investigation our old house. Now my mother spoke to both the company and the bank and it was agreed that the fee would be paid when the house sold, therefore the direct debit that had been set up to pay the company was cancelled. However the money has been taken from her account anyway.

She spoke to the bank about 15 minutes ago and they told her that the direct debit was indeed cancelled and that the payment had been made using her bank card. But she insists that she did not make the payment, didn't give her card to anyone else to make the payment and did not give any card information to the HIPS company.

So what I'm wondering is this, is it possible that this company has obtained her details through some other, presumably less than legal, means? Has anyone heard of this happening before? What can we do to get to the bottom of this?

Sorry if this isn't the right part of the forum for this, I didn't really know where else to put it.