Credit Card Glitch

[Bushmiller]

Now this is probably not going to your first guess on a credit card bitch.

I received a statement recently on a credit card for a programmed payment, which was a subscription. That was OK. I want the subscription. The problem or rather the concern was that I didn't have the credit card.

I had cancelled this card back in May and received a confirmation from the bank that the card was cancelled. The payment occured late in July and SHMBO paid it as soon as she saw it arrive and then queried with me what had happened.

It was a scheduled payment that I had forgotten about as it is a yearly subscription. When I queried the process with the bank explaining that I would have expected the payment to be "bounced," they said that was OK and that they couldn't prevent payment.

I needed to pay the bill so for me there was no problem on that score, but it seemed odd that the payment could be honoured. I was particularly concerned that it had re-activated the credit card. Apparantly none of that has happened.

What would others on the forum have expected?

Regards
Paul

[bsrlee]

First, advise the biller that you have changed credit cards & tell them how you want to pay in future. That should stop the annual charge to the card number.

I have heard of similar problems (usually on 'Shame, shame' TV shows) with banks & recurring payments by credit cards, even if the charges are seemingly fraudulent. Serveral dodgy overseas operators will continue to charge CC's continually once they have a number and the banks will continue to accept those charges, even when both the biller and the bank have been advised to cease processing, the card has been 'cancelled' and even when the victim has closed all their accounts with the bank.

The bank's usual response is to tell the victim to just go to the dud biller & ask for a refund, knowing full well that no one is going to fly to Siberia, Nigeria or some other hole to track down a criminal on their own.

In Australia Dodo was notorious for this sort of thing, continuing to charge monthly fees for services after they had been cancelled. At least here the victims could eventually get their money back, but Dodo had of course been able to use the money in the mean time & the vicitim was out of pocket for any interest & bank fees.

A complaint to the 'Banking Ombudsman' may also be something to do - if he gets enough complaints about this sort of thing, maybe he will stir the pollies into action to legislate against this.

[tea lady]

I had the kind of opposite thing happen where I forgot to change a card number when I lost a card and got a new one. Biller charged me lots of money for bouncing the charge.

Your experience does seem strange. Cos I thought cancelling a card meant it protected you from fraudulent charges of it had been stolen.

[rrich]

I had a cell phone company put their monthly bill on my Master Card. All is well and no complaints. Nasty letter arrives from the bank saying that they are going to decline any more charges from the cell phone company.

After about an hour on the telephone I find out that the cell phone company has been using the wrong expiration date of the credit card when they submit the monthly charge.

The bank is extremely concerned and irritated. The cell phone company has been doing this for over two years.

Sadly as a former employee of another division of the cell phone company, I can say that I'm not surprised.

[rotten_66]

I cancelled a card about 3 months ago as the new one came with the "touch, you don't have to swipe'" facility which I didn't want, and got a statement where I was in credit by about $6.00, I asked for my money back or to to be credited to my bank account.

"No, sorry as is less than $10 we can't do that."
"Why not?? If I owed you $6.00 you'd be chasing me for it"
"Costs more than $10 to do it."

Finally got it donated to the Starlight Foundation, which I am regretting as obviously the bank passed on all my details as a final screw you. Now I am getting phone calls, and emails thanking me for the support, and can we please have some more!!!!!

What a load of carp!!

[dabbler]

I once had an incident where automatic toll payments continued to be made against an old credit card account but were automatically transferred to a new credit card account. They never appeared as transfers on my statements so I never realised there was a looming issue. Same bank, different card type, different card account. In fact they continued well after the card expiry date of the older card/account and only stopped when NAB was approached by eToll to confirm my card details. I only found out when I ask eToll was my balance was always displaying as zero at toll gates.

Initially it started with my error as I forgot to tell eToll my new card details. Automatic tolling was new in Qld at the time and eToll took a pretty loose and easy approach to credit card laws. At no time did eToll ask me to update or confirm my details once they knew there was an issue and NAB never documented or advised me of the semi-regular transfers from account to account. Different story nowadays with eToll (or whatever the new name is), they seem to be constantly asking for updated personal info.

It was an easy fix, all the charges were legimate and the event never cost me any extra. But a NAB officer told me at the time that credit card accounts were never actually cancelled or closed, just dormant and flagged "no card issued" or similar. When NAB jacked up card fees a few years ago, I surrendered my cards and was told the same thing, to paraphrase .... "we don't close accounts just let them go dormant". Given that attitude with my personal credit, I say thank god for our credit card protection laws.