AXIS telecom

[kgrant]

Has anyone here had dealings with them? About a year ago i got a phone call from axis saying my phone bill was in the region of £1200 i nearly died it turned out that my youngest son had been playing with the sky remote and connecting to the games and other stuff he didn't know what he was doing and neither did i, the thing that annoyed me most was the fact they waited till my bill got to that amount to notify me my normal monthly bills were usually around £35 .So you would have thought that when it startd to go into the £100's they would have realised something was unusual, anyway i told her i didn't have that sort of money and my phone was put on incoming calls then eventually cut off , i made a couple of payments then it was passed to a debt collector who i arranged to pay Xamount each month, which i didn't end up doing as i couldn't afford the amount they were offering to accept anyway i had the odd letter from axis saying i owed £12 something but the larger amount was passed on to this debt collector. the contract was a 12 month contract that ended in july last year , i used to pay my bills by debit card and if i was a bit late they used to take the payment from my card without me knowing. then in august last year the day we were going on holiday i checked my account to find there was £1200 missing i rang the bank to see where this money had gone and it turned out axis had taken it with no warning or letter at this point i had not heard anything from them for 3 months.They said they were well within there rights to take the money from my card and that by using my card to pay for earlier bills was giving them permission to use my card for any future bills .At the time they took the money i was no longer a customer and also they had passed the debt on to someone else should they have been able to take it and should i have done something about it?

[buzby]

Absolute nonsense! This is theft, pure and simple. You gave no permission for this money to be taken, and they misused your data to take the payment. (However be sure you never signed a mandate giving a continuous debit permission) Go to your bank branch and demand the money is returned immediately - there is no 'guarantee' provided, however you need to provide informed consent and been given notice of the payment being taken, so in the absence of this, they have to reverse the debit (especially as it was a Cardholder Not Present transaction).

[kgrant]

Originally Posted by buzby

Absolute nonsense! This is theft, pure and simple. You gave no permission for this money to be taken, and they misused your data to take the payment. (However be sure you never signed a mandate giving a continuous debit permission) Go to your bank branch and demand the money is returned immediately - there is no 'guarantee' provided, however you need to provide informed consent and been given notice of the payment being taken, so in the absence of this, they have to reverse the debit (especially as it was a Cardholder Not Present transaction).

i never signed anything to allow them to continue using my card , it did mention something on the contract about using debit cards but i was no longer under contract by the time they took the money.I was gobsmacked because i had no warning i spoke to the company a couple of times they were very rude and said they were well within their rights to take what was owing to them. the thing is this was last august would it still be worth trying to persue it, i dont know of any other company that does this i pay a lot of my bills with my debit card but non of them take payment without my permission

[buzby]

You don;t have to sign anything, but they can take a verbel authority for a continuous mandate, but they take a risk if it is challenged. Thje fact it happend last year may be an issue as 45 days has been quoted to be before as being a reasonable time period to discover and pursue return. You could always say you hadn't noticed it though.

The way other firms work with debit cards may not be as cavalier as the one you are complaining about, but as you;ve discovered, giving your card details does mean you remain at tisk until the expiry date is reached or you get issued with a replacement. I won't give out card details over the phone for this reason. These days this is making it harder and harder to buy things, but I least I don't have to stand over my bank statements with a shotgun!