Here's a laugh, Swinton and their heavy-handed approach

[bigyeti]

I cancelled my car insurance on 23rd August as I'd scrapped my car. They said 'fine, we'll sort that for you."

I then cancelled my direct debit. They sent me a confirmation letter, dated 23rd Aug, saying that my new payment plan will be £12.86 per month starting on 1 Oct. What on earth for???

 

I then get another letter dated 2nd Sept stating:

"We have not received all of the necessary direct debit payments. You are therefore in breach of your credit agreement. Our bank has notified us that the payment due on the 1st Sept of £12.93 has not been made".

 

This is followed the serving of a default notice for 16th Sept. and another fee of £12

 

Apart from telling me that the the direct debit will be changed starting 1st Oct, there has been no warnings at all, and there certainly was no mention of a payment due on the 1st Sept. The last payment I made was 1st August which would've covered me for the whole of August. In fact, they should owe me for the 8 days I had already paid for when I was no longer covered.

[bigyeti]

I should also add that in effect, they are trying to serve a DN on a payment that they had not requested.

[unclebulgaria67]

You would only have to continue paying the monthly payments, if you had made a claim on the policy or they were allowing relevant cancellation charges to be paid monthly. These days when you cancel a policy mid-term, you have pay short-term rates and a cancellation charge. They should have told you about this and have provided you with details in writing.

 

You need to make a complaint in writing using the Swinton complaints process. These are the details.

 

Please contact our Customer Assistance Team:

• In writing to Swinton, Swinton House, 6 Great Marlborough Street, Manchester M1 5SW.
  
• By telephone - call 0845 168 3676 or fax 0161 236 7102.
  

 

Don't be surprised if it takes some time to resolve. Swinton are not really known for customer service.

[bigyeti]

I've written this to send to the local branch:

 

--

I cancelled my motor insurance policy with you on 23rd August 2010. Two days later I received a letter stating that my new Direct Debit payments due from 1st October 2010 were to be £12.86. You also state that "Any payments due before this date will still be collected as previously advised". I'm not entirely sure what these payments are for and furthermore, have not been advised of any payments

 

Today, I received a letter from you dated 2 September 2010 stating that the payment due on 1st September was not paid and that you will be serving a default notice on 16th September. In your letter of 23rd August you state: "Any payments due before this date will still be collected as previously advised." In effect you are intending to serve a default notice on a payment I have not been requested to pay nor have I been 'previously advised'. If this is the case, and it does appear to be, then you are strongly advised to rescind this default notice.

--

[unclebulgaria67]

Waste of time dealing with your local branch. They won't deal with it and they might not even pass it on. They are there to sell Insurance, not for customer service.

 

Send any complaint to their Head Office complaints team.

[teamsquirrel]

Funnily enough, I'm in the exact same boat but for £6.21. I received my default notice today. I cancelled after 3 weeks because they failed to put my details on the motor inurance database causing me to stopped by the police three times - unacceptable in my view. I also cancelled my credit agreememt within the timelimit on a letter they sent to me (5 days) so I don't even think I was a signatory to a credit agreement.

 

In any case, will be calling them on Monday!

[bigyeti]

I just received a letter saying that if I do not resolve my defaulted payment of £114.95 (not sure where this new figure has come from), they will charge it to my debit card. Now, I gave them my card details in May for the deposit and this is the card they threaten to charge to.

I intend to write to them and revoke the permission to use those card details further though I suspect they will anyway.

 

If they do charge to the card without my express permission, does this constitute a criminal act, and if so which law does it cover? I think it is either the Theft Act of 1968 or the Fraud Act of 2006.

 

Any ideas?

[unclebulgaria67]

If you took away the authority, it would actually be theft, but I doubt the Police would want to get involved.

 

Suggest that you phone their Customer Assistance team mentioned in my earlier post.

[sillygirl1]

Write to your bank explaining that your contract with them has finished and they are not allowed to take any payments from XXX date. Include the evidence you finsihed the contract with them.

 

When they try and fail (or it happens) you can then hammer both Swinton and the bank.

[bigyeti]

They replied, sending a document headed

"Credit agreement regulated by the consumer credit act 1974' and thus containing all the T&Cs including the payments etc. There isn't even a place to sign, let alone a signature. They have still gone ahead and charged my card regardless which then leaves my account overdrawn by a couple of quid. On top of this, I still have a couple of direct debits to be paid this month which may or may not bounce because of this, which A&L will charge me £25 for the privilege.

 

Now to write back to Swinton demanding they reimburse me plus any consequent charges incurred.

[unclebulgaria67]

Now to write back to Swinton demanding they reimburse me plus any consequent charges incurred.

 

If I were you, I would get Trading Standards involved or the FOS or both.

 

If you give Trading Standards and the FOS a call, they might be willing to intervene on your behalf and get it sorted quickly. Some people think the FOS will only get involved after 8 weeks of complaining to an organisation. These days they actually often like to stop a a complaint to them being generated, by intervening at an earlier stage.

 

What Swintons have done is bordering on the illegal.

 

Contact TS via Consumer Direct. http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/

 

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/contact/index.html

[bigyeti]

THanks for your quick reply.

 

Looking through the terms that they sent it does say

 

"Where we hold your debit card details you irrevocably authorise us to charge to such card any sum due etc etc"

 

Is this not against my statutory rights? Althought I was insured for a couple of months, the credit agreement was not signed but it still does contain my name, adress and monthly payments so was it enforceable?

[unclebulgaria67]

Yes I believe to contain terms to say, the payment authority is irrevocable is not compliant with either 'unfair contract term' rules or the FSA's rules.

 

Suggest that you check with Trading Standards and the FOS. If you phone them, they should be able to find out for you and if not correct, assist with this.

[bigyeti]

I phoned FOS, and the ball is now rolling. I'll give TS a bell after lunch too.

 

Cheers

[bigyeti]

I called my bank also, and they said they can put me through to the fraud department, but I said I'll find out what Swinton are playing at first. If it turns out that Swinton have tried to get away with charging me something I don't owe, then fraud is what I shall throw at them.

[bigyeti]

As they charged me regardless, and that the agreement they sent was not signed, I'm going to send them this.

****

I received your letter this morning containing a 'credit agreement'. This is not the document I requested. The document that you are obliged to send me is a true copy of the executed agreement that contained all of the prescribed terms, all other required terms and statutory notices and was signed by both your company and myself as defined in section 61(1) of CCA 1974 and subsequent Statutory Instruments. Nor does it contain a total sum to be paid by the debtor as defined in S77(1)(a) of CCA 1974. You have failed to comply with my request, and as such the account entered default on 19th September. Section 77(4) of CCA 1974 now applies yet you have breached this by charging £114.95 to my debit card.

 

This is a formal demand for the refund of that amount. I will give you 14 days to reply accepting, unconditionally, my request in principle and letting me know a date, given a reasonable time period, by which I will receive payment.

 

If you do not respond, or you do not respond positively, within this time period, I shall send you a letter before action, giving you a further 14 days in which to reflect. I believe that these targets are more than sufficient for a large company such as yours with dedicated staff and departments.

 

After that, there will be no further communication from me and I shall issue a claim at the expiry of the second deadline.

****

[unclebulgaria67]

Most companies don't issue the credit agreements for you to sign and send back. They are sent you for you to sign, if you want to be bound by the CCA. If you never signed the form, you are not bound by the CCA and therefore, it is simply a case of the normal policy t&c's applying i.e normal contractural terms.

 

Personally, I would write to them to advise them that you have been in contact with your bank and have been advised that the payment could be considered fraudulent. This is because the right to collect the money was withdrawn by you, so no authority was held by Swintons to collect the money. If they do not refund the money within the next 7 days, you will have no alternative, but to report this fraudulent behaviour more formally and may also take legal action through the courts to recover the money.

 

I have been led to believe by people that work for Swintons, that the payment collection process was outsourced and that they are having loads of problems.

Edited September 27, 2010 by unclebulgaria67

[bigyeti]

Section 7 of the regulations say that I give them irrevocable permission to charge my card.

[unclebulgaria67]

So are you saying that once you agree to pay by debit/credit card, if the agreement allows for continuous payment, that under section 7, you cannot cancel a payment, even before it is processed.

 

Were you aware that you could not stop any future payment, at the time you arranged payment ? I think they should have told you this at the time.

 

I do not like contiuous payment authorities and if this is what you are saying, this just confirms, why I would not make regular payments by debit/credit card. If you had gone for direct debit, you could have cancelled the authority at the bank.

[bigyeti]

No, I paid the deposit on my debit card, and then pay 10 monthly installments. I cancelled the direct debit so they just charged my card for the balance they claim I still owed. An arbitrary figure as well I might add.

[MARTIN3030]

I had fun and games with Swinton myself,but did end up getting a refund of charges back.

Their complaints procedure is pretty enduring and goes through different levels.

I told them I was taking it up with the FOS-and they settled.

Before taking it up with TS you will need a good papertrail-and they will want to see that Swinton have failed to resolve.

 

Heres my story

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?188013-Swinton-Insurance-Result&highlight=martin3030+swinton+insurance

[unclebulgaria67]

This does not sound right at all. I thought is was only dodgy companies abroad that did this. The ones that sell miracle tea that helps you loose weight.

 

You only gave permission for the debit card to be used for the deposit, so there was no continuous payment authority provided for this card.

 

They CANNOT debit your account using the card, for the payments that would have been covered by the Direct Debit payments.

 

Have you spoken to Consumer Direct about this, explaining what Swinton have done. I would be very surprised (shocked even) if they said this was acceptable. They should get Trading Standards involved.

[bigyeti]

They're hiding behind the "you give us irrecovable permission to debit your card for any outstanding money owed."

 

As I said, I paid the deposit on my card and then set up a direct debit to pay the rest. When I cancelled my insurance, I also cancelled my direct debit. They then wrote back saying I owe the frankly arbitrary sum of £115 and that they were going to charge it to my card in 7 days. I wrote back saying don't bother, and they did anyway.

 

Hence why I'm going to chase them for it back with a quite alarming number of arguments in my favour.

[bigyeti]

After sending a variation on the Preliminary Request, they refunded me the fee. However, I'm still £25 out of pocket because it caused a direct debit to bounce. So just penned another letter to post tomorrow.

[MARTIN3030]

ok thanks for update.