Hi,

I tried to cancel a recurring payment with Santander yesterday. I was told it would take up to 24hours. I telephoned at 11.08am yesterday and at 3.42am this morning the payment left my account. I have telephoned santander and soke to 3 people, 2 of them managers who have refused to refund the payment. I have been told that i can't dispute this until after 1st September:?: I quoted .55 & .61 of Payment regulations 2009 only to be told that if that is the case then Santander is not in line with these regulations??? I have just had a quick google and found Santander are quoting you can not cancel a recurring payment?

USEFUL INFORMATION

 

 

Recurring Transactions

A recurring transaction is a regular payment (other than a direct debit or standing order) collected from your credit card account by a supplier of goods or services (such as a magazine subscription), in line with your instructions. Recurring transactions are not covered by the Direct Debit Guarantee. If you wish to cancel a recurring transaction that is paid with your Santander Cards Mastercard, you must do this directly with the supplier. We recommend you keep proof of cancellation. It may not be possible to cancel payments if you do not give enough notice of your decision to cancel.

 

Recurring transactions do not operate like a Direct Debit so Santander Cards are unable to cancel them or stop them being applied to your account.

I do not have enough posts to include the link

Report it to the fos, oft and fsa. They are breaking the law.

Report it to the fos, oft and fsa. They are breaking the law.

After exhausting Santanders complaints procedure of course!

The Payment Services Regulations 2009, regulation 55 (4) states:

“The payer may withdraw its consent to the execution of a series of payment transactions at any time with the effect that any future payment transactions are not regarded as authorised.”

This fsa guide has now been updated: http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pubs/consumer_info/know_your_rights_guide.pdf

Cancelling a regular

card payment:

 

When you give your credit or debit card

details to a company and authorise

them to take regular payments from

your account, such as for a gym

membership or magazine subscription,

it is known as a ‘recurring transaction’

or ‘continuous payment authority’.

These are often confused with direct

debits, but do not offer the same

guarantee if the amount or date of the

payment changes.

In most cases, regular payments can

be cancelled by telling the company

taking the payments. However, you

have the right to cancel them directly

with your bank or card issuer by telling

it that you have stopped permission for

the payments. Your bank or card issuer

must then stop them – it has no right to

insist that you agree this first with the

company taking the payments.

Be aware, though, that you will still be

responsible for paying any money that

you owe.

After exhausting Santanders complaints procedure of course!

They have a complaints procedure? It must be very overused

Hi, Thanks for the help

I am no further forward with Santander I have spent nearly 4hours on the phone in the last 2 days and tbh feel completely drained by the whole thing. I printed off the FSA leaflet "know your rights" and also the payment services regulations but the branch manager refused to even look at them, instead insisting they were following Santander policies and procedures.

I found Santanders policy on recurring card payments and also just noticed it has been quoted earlier on in the thread. This is what it says..

7.7.2 If you are stopping a recurring debit card transaction (that is,

a continuous payment transaction on your debit card initiated

by a payee and authorising us to make payments) you must

also tell the payee. You should provide us with a copy of any

notice of withdrawal of consent given to the payee. We will

stop the payment provided that we receive notice from you

no later than close of business on the working day prior to the

date the payment was due to be made

Therefore if a payment was asked for at 3.42am on the 29/8/12 then the working day prior to that would be 28/8/12. I asked for the payment to be stopped by by phone records during the call started at 10.18am. This means i should be entitled to a refund?? Is this how other people understand this? Please tell me if what i am saying is wrong as i would appreciate some advice

What really annoys me is the lack of knowledge all of Santanders staff have. I have dealt with such ignorant staff who have not even been willing to take into consideration what i have said. I have been passed round in a circle 3 times by so called managers who have insulted me at every point. Santander even denied me making the call on Tuesday morning, this was the fraud department who denied there was a phone record. I had to phone the department i spoke to just to get confirmation of the record. Some fraud team huh?

I am getting pretty desperate for this money back now and have had to cancel another payment due to it which will no doubt incur me charges. I have a meeting with the bank manager tomorrow at 12.30 but she has already said she can[t do anything for me. I only got the meeting time as sh wanted me out of the door because it was 5.10pm lol .

Santander are akin to certain American banks where they seem to think they are above UK law and are not bound by the terms of their FSA registration. I personally have had a run-in with them via the ICO and it cost them financially albeit not as much as it should have.

You must complain to the FSA for Santanders blatant disregard of the FSA itself.

You really must stay off the phone and get this on paper - you need proof that they have said they will not cancel.

Is that that statement in post 174 on their website ?

Thanks so much for the help Today i was given a refund along with £50 compensation for the 113 mins on the phone and over 2.5hours spent in a Santander branch.

Make sure you still issue a complaint so satandar amend their policies so it wont happen to others.

Excellent news. Yes, please send in a formal complaint.

I have had a recent run in with Santander in relation to my partners account

The letter below will indicate the ins and outsAfter receiving the below letter her account was quickly credited with 4 over £400.00 in charges and all amounts relating to relating to the continuous payment authority amounts removed from her account since April of this year.I have not posted the transcript of the conversation her if any on want sight of it leave a message.

She has not yet received a written explanation of the reason for the refund nor confirmation that issues regarding training of staff has been improved, when this is recived we will give further consideration to a formal complaint to the FSA.

The Manager

Santander

9 Nelson Street

Bradford

BD1 SAN&

Dear Sir/ Madam

In I believe March of this year to reduce charges been levied on my account I attended my local branch of Santander in ********* ******, and provided instructions for all direct debits and standing orders to be cancelled.

This instruction was carried out as requested, on checking the following months balance after paying for commitments manually I found I had once again exceeded my planned overdraft, again considering that this was not possible I attended the same branch and requested a reason for this.

After speaking to the teller I was advised that two payments had been taken from my account these relating to an American company and a UK based company I then asked for these payments to be cancelled, it was explained that these two payments were nether Standing Orders or Direct Debits and were very difficult to cancel, needless to say I again requested that these charges from my account should stop.I was then provided with the following advice from the teller, “the only way to ensure that charges like these stop would be to report your card lost stolen or damaged they will then not be able to take any payment from them”.

I considered this advice coming directly from Santandare, and reported my card lost at the branch, the teller accepting this report despite taking details from my card to access my account moments earlier.After a short time I received my new debit card and pin number, considering that both payments would now stop.I have not monitored my bank account as closely as normal for the past couple of months, considering that no payments that are made direct by me should leave my account.

After receiving a resent statement, I became aware that a payment of £14.99 was still been removed from my account despite incurring fees amounting to over £55.00Today I contacted Santander by telephone and inquired as to why this charge was still been removed from my account.

At this time I was told by your staff that this payment was made under a continuous payment authority I then asked why this could not be cancelled and in a nut shell was told that this was not possible, the only way to cancel this would be for me to contact the merchant associated with the payment, I was then asked if I had contacted **** **** to which my response was by e mail.

The remainder of the conversation with your employee stating that the advise I had been given by the branch was incorrect and only the merchant could cancel this agreement.

I am able to provide a recording off the conversation that took place together with a typed transcript of the conversation together with the time and date if you are in any doubt as to the content of the conversation that took place. This should not be required as you should have your own recording of the conversation that took place as you state that conversations are recorded for clarity and training purpose.

After been provided with details of the type of paymentI summarise the following;A continuous payment authority is an agreement you make with a retailer, lender or other firm providing you with a service a merchant in your jargon).

You give the merchant permission to take money from a credit card or a debit card. Even though the debit card money comes out of your current account it is NOT a direct debit – it is a continuous payment authority.

The agreement can be made over the phone and it allows the merchant to take money in the future off your card.

You normally have no control over the amount that is taken or when – it can be any amount at any time. Prior to 2009 it has been very difficult to stop these types of payment, only when the merchant stopped taking them. Prior to 2009 If you went to your bank or card company it would say that it could do nothing and advise you to contact the merchant to stop the payment.

If the merchant refused the bank or card provider would continue to allow the merchant to take your money.I should not need to point out to you, on 1 November 2009 when a new law came into force.

It is in the Payment Services Regulations 2009. It makes it clear that your bank or card provider has to stop the payments if you ask it to do so even if the merchant refuses to cancel it or even if you have not told the merchant to stop taking payments.You will also be aware If the bank or card provider does not obey your instructions then it has to refund any subsequent payment it allows to be taken from your account.

And if a subsequent payment causes you to incur any fees – such as an overdraft charge or a late payment fee – or to lose any interest, then those losses have to be refunded too.I therefore consider that in line with the above statement I attended a branch of Santand are on a date in April and requested that all continuous payment authority’s relating to *** *** no longer be paid, this instruction not been obeyed.

Furthermore after today’s telephone conversation it is perfectly clear that this information is not available to your employees and as a result in April 2012 and again today, you had a duty to treat me fairly and provide me information which was clear, fair and not misleading.When I asked for a payment to be cancel. You failed to explain my rights correctly thus preventing me from taking the correct action at the right time.In view of this matter I consider;I gave you a clear instruction to cancel all payments to **** ***** in April 2012.

At this time misleading information was provided this same misleading information provided August 2012, this resulting in further payment been made to **** **** against my wishes.I draw your attention to your statement Transmission, 28 April 2012 12.00-12.30 BBC RADIO 4 SANTANDER STATEMENT: “We are aware that there have been instances when Customers have contacted us to request a cancellation of a continuous payment authority on their account and they’ve been asked to contact the company they are paying”.

“As a result, staff across the business have received guidance about Financial Services Authority regulations pertaining to continuous payment authoritie”.I therefore consider that I am in titled to a full refund of all payments made to **** **** since April 2012.In addition to these payments I am entitled to any charges added to my account relating to these payments.

In addition to this I CONSIDER THIS LETTER to provide further confirmation of April’s request that no further payments be made to **** **** from my account.I would further recommend that all customer facing staff be brought up to date with current legislation regarding payments of this type, enabling them to provide correct information to your customers.

I look forward to confirmation of the credit of my account with the payments detailed above. Yours Sincerely

Could you please use the edit pen at the foot of your post and set paragraphs please.