Regular Payments off a Credit Card Discussion

A question about : Regular Payments off a Credit Card Discussion

Please read our full Recurring Payments guide, updated more recently than this thread.

Did you know?

Authorising a regular payment off a credit card known as a ‘Continuous Payment Authority’ is much more dangerous a bank account ‘direct debit’. !The problem is you can’t cancel it, only the company its set up with can. !

The major, but not exclusive, culprit of such dodgy dealings are internet porn sites leaving people taking !‘embarassed’ monthly payments. !Always make sure any CPA is set up with a legit company, and try to use direct debts not credit cards. !I once reported on this for Moneybox, read a report based on that here

To discuss this click reply

Insert of clarification: !Thought i should say, a CPA (also called a recurring transaction) applies if you do it off a debit as well as credit card. !You need to do a Direct Debit off your bank account, not a regular debit off any plastic.

Best answers:

• Thanks for this alarming piece of news, Martin. Like any good moneysaver with a cashback credit card, I try to pay for everything on my credit card. This now includes CPAs for my internet service, mobile/landline services and magazine subscriptions. Getting people like Freeserve and OneTel has been hell in the past - I didn't realise how lucky I'd been to end up even.
  Is it possible for a CPA to be set up "by accident"? Does a retailer legally have to make it clear what you are signing up for, and how boldly? I am thinking of services akin to creditexpert.co.uk - we buy the service once, but then can't get in touch with them for weeks, while they merrily charge our credit cards.
• Had problems with two ISP's who had continuous authority ,phoned credit card company and told them I had lost my c.card.It works they are unable to take payment form your new card.Hope this helps.
• I used to have a mobile phone through a company called Genie and paid monthly on my credit card at the time. A year later when I found a better deal, it took me ages to cancel it because the card company couldn't cancel it and Genie were just, well stupid - they kept saying they would cancel it but the payments kept going out. Every month I had to phone and they had to manually pay it back. In the end, I got a very helpful person at the credit card company who advised me to "lose" my card so they could cancel it and issue a new one. They weren't supposed to do that (which is why I'm not saying who it was [think oval shaped food :-X]) but it solved the problem
• I have had this problem recently (last week) with freeserve (on another thread) https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi...num=1082180444
  they took money out of my bank account 2 years later!! without asking and without warning!! It was for Ј40.
  It gets worse cos the card they took it off was cancelled but the bank still authorised it!! The bank claimed that some companies work on the first 11 digits of your card not the last 4 but when you get a new card ot is only the last 4 that change!! when i argued that it means they could take money whenever they like the bank agreed!!
  I did kick off with freeserve and wrote to ofcom etc.... and got my money back (yipee!!)
  AS MARTIN SAYS BE WARNED!!
• aaarrrgggghh!! This is alarming news indeed because, like Arbit I have used my credit card for various money saving deals (NOT porno!).
  Thanks for the "lose it" tip. Hopefully this will work if things become difficult.
  Worrying tho isn't it? :-[
• Fortunatly I learned the hard way about CPA's at the cost of a fiver a month. Thankfully I managed to sort it out with help from my credit card company and the use of slightly abusive emails, but it took the company in question FOUR MONTHS to finally close said account. The company in question claimed to have closed the account in January, but were still taking money until last month.
  Anyone want to know who this internet based friendly company is? Email me and you shall know. :
• We had a dreadful experience with Virgin internet subscriptions about 8 years ago, we cancelled our subs but still were paying for it for about 18 months despite several letters etc - never again - direct debit for us! It was an expensive lesson to learn. EW
• Not Bt Openworld by any chance Mr B ? I am having great difficuly trying to cancel a CPA with them - being going on for months and months. They keep reassuring me that the payment is cancelled - then take the money - I call again a month or two later and all records are magically lost. This CPA was off a debit card - and I need each time to tell them its them not me that needs to cancel. Has got to the point where the bank are ready to set their fraud team on them.
  I can prove that I've not used their service - have used a different internet supplier.
• Sorry allthatmularky - are you sure you mean Debit Card, as this is effectively a Direct Debit surely, and you can cancel it yourself.
• So, in summary, if possible avoid using your credit card for CPAs, but never offer your debit card!
• I have been the victim of Continuous Payment Authrity. I set up an account for my daughter with AOL using my Debit card. Last November I called them up to cancel it. They assured me that no more payments would be taken off my card. However, I noticed that they were still taking money from me last month (March). I called them up to find out what was going on, and was told that they couldn't speak to me, it had to be my daughter (Bearing in mind they were taking money from me and not her).
  I told them that I called to cancel, and they asked me for the cancelation reference number, they don't offer this information to you, you have to ask them for it when you cancel.
  So, Please, if you are calling to cancel an AOL account make sure that you get the operatives name and a cancellation reference number and keep it in a safe place. At least then if they still take money from you, you will have this information to use.
• YOU CAN EASILY STOP THESE CONTINUOUS CREDIT CARD CHARGES
  All you do is call the CC company and tell them that you suspect someone has your CC number and may use it without your authorisation.
  They will block the card & number (in the same way as if it was lost or stolen).
  No further charges will be permitted on your account.
  Within a week or so, they'll send you a new card (with a new number)...
• not always that easy MMMMartin. If you read my above thread they still got the money from me even when i had changed my card!!
• These things definitely are a nightmare. I work in a bank and people come in with these all the time thinking they are direct debits when they're not. And we can't stop them. half the time it is so difficult to contact these companies - or they fob off customers telling them to go to their bank.
  I always tell my customers not to do it. But unless you have a bad experience, you don't realise what a nightmare CPAs are.
• I regularly request new Debit cards from my bank. I'm up to Issue 20 odd now, and I always make sure the old ones get swallowed up in the ATM.
  My cards usually get broken in my wallet, because of my huge bum sat on them all the time, and when I get a new one, I get a new issue number.
  Also, I had a do with Singlepoint a while back. They never took money under a CPA, but they could have done. When I signed up for my mobile deal with Phones4u a few years back, they assured me no credit check was needed. All I had to do was give them a Debit Card, they would 'half-take' a small payment. IE initiate the payment process then when its about to finalise, cancel it. This, he said, would prove my account was OK / usable.
  What I didnt realise, I later checked the contract and one of the clauses was, if my Direct Debit failed for any reason, I had given them authority to take payment from the above Debit / Credit card. Sneaky gits eh? I assume this was to protect them from me cancelling their Direct Debit (which I had cause to do one month later, coincidentally).
  I never give CPA to anyone if I can help it anyway, and the same goes for Direct Debits. I dont trust anyone with Direct Debits, not when they have quite a big window to take the payments, and can also take pretty much how much they want. The only DD's I have set up (apart from the ones I trust, like BT (phone)), are fixed amount and fixed date DD's, so I'm not left wondering where a bit of money has gone, because the DD is slightly higher this month.
  Regards
• I have just had a similar experience but slightly different. Last year I renewed my car insurance with a debit card over the phone. This year the company took the money for renewal without telling me, asking me or giving any notice. When I moaned and cancelled the policy they refunded the money , it has to be theft. But according to my bank, they have the right to do it. Debit card holders have no rights, this seems so wrong.
• If you ring up and request the card be blocked as "lost or stolen", THERE IS NO WAY ANYONE CAN EVERY CHARGE ANYTHING TO IT