I recently cancelled an insurance policy with hastings and was told over the phone that I was liable to pay a charge of £98. I did not have this at the time of the call so I asked them to cancel the policy and send a letter to confirm the charges (I didn't think my other half would believe me but kinds of hoped he'd be able to help). I was told I'd recieve an email which I had to reply to in order to cancel the policy and 7 days later if the payment hadn't been made a 3rd party would contact me to recover the exhaustionate cancellation fee. I agreed that was fine and thought it would at least give me the opportunity to budget for the payment or to arrange a payment plan (I have just left work to study as a Mature student at university). I replied to the email to cancel the policy (twice as it kept on coming) and waited for a letter to detail the charges and give me some payment options. yesterday I sent an email to my bank as there was a huge difference between my balance and available cash. Today I receive a letter from hastings where they had the ordasity to say 'thank you for getting in touch with us. we are pleased to confirm your credit/debit card payment of £129.09'... WHAT? 1. I did not 'get in touch' 2. I have not made any such card payment 3. Even if we get down to the T&Cs where Hastings will say that keeping my card details is all in the small print, who told me it was £129.09? Maybe they could have taken a couple of thousand? it's money I don't have and didn't agree to pay on that date using that payment method anyway? Did they just make it up and hope for the best? I have informed my bank that I did not authorise this charge and based on the method used to recover this money AND the fact that they took what may aswell be a made up charge from me without any hint of a notification I will be following their complaints procedure through to the financial ombudsman. on a side note my partner has just bought himself another car (he has a couple). despite hastings coming up on comparison websites he has now chosen to use a different company. sorry Hastings!