I have just alerted Barclays that their newest app update provides misinformation to customers and have asked them to get in touch with the people that can fix this.
You can now see recurring card payments within the app, Barclays says to cancel these you must get in touch with the retailer.
This is false, as asserted by the FoS and the FCA. Barclays in fact, are liable for any subsequent payments that are made after they have been instructed to cancel any payment authorisation.
I just want to keep people aware of their rights. Barclays and others should and definitely DO know better.
Edit: Barclays have replied to me saying they urge customers to contact retailers but are aware of the obligation they have to cancel them if a customer insists. I have told them that most consumers aren’t aware of their rights and, due to the wording, probably would end up leaving it sit there. As such I’ll be taking it down the complaints route. They are knowingly misleading customers.
Some additional info from the citizens advice website:
It says you can ask the card issuer to stop via phone, email or letter!
Stopping a card payment
The law says you can withdraw your consent and stop a future payment under a continuous payment authority at any time up to the end of business on the day before the payment is due.
To withdraw consent, simply tell whoever issued your card (the bank, building society or credit card company) that you don’t want the payment to be made. You can tell the card issuer by phone, email or letter.
Your card issuer has no right to insist that you ask the company taking the payment first. They have to stop the payments if you ask them to.
If you ask to stop a payment, the card issuer should investigate each case on its own merit. They should not apply a blanket policy of refusing to refund payments taken when the client gave their account number out.
I know when this function came up in launchpad they had different versions of how it might be implemented, including being able to cancel it.
All they really need todo is remove or change the wording - in MONZO for example there is nothing about how to cancel a continuous card payment - it just shows as a subscription.
E money but there’s a cancel future payments button on Revolut for any recurring card payments. You can mark them as recurring yourself once the first one goes out, you can also pay them from a pocket.
I’m not one to defend Barclays but I suspect the information is more to do with claiming any disputed funds back. The Visa rules instruct customers to contact the merchant first.
As for fraud, that’s obviously on the bank to sort.
Those two statements from Citizens Advice contradict each other. If the card issuer is obliged to stop the payments when asked, what is there for them to investigate?
If they are able to investigate your request, then they must be able to refuse it, otherwise there’s no point.
I’d hazard a guess that it’s in relation probably to stopping a payment (for lack of a better word) posthumously, like you realise today is a direct debit day and you don’t want to pay
They’d be able to investigate and refuse to do this, under the direct debit guarantee scheme.
However for future payments there is no room for the payment institution to negotiate, it’s a simple instruction.
Halifax does:
“You can now block or cancel subscriptions in the app, just search for “subscriptions” in the app to find out more.”
(taken from Android Play Store what’s new information)
I total get that in a straight forward situation. But thinking of the reasons why someone would want to use in the first place. Sometimes people agree to a CPA without knowing it. To cancel it and dispute funds back in one go it’s best to go to the retailer first.
These things are not easy to cancel either. Once the merchant changes their merchant ID it essentially circumstances the original stop. Porn/ cam sites are the worst offenders.
What exactly is the wording? Could this be partially to stop customers from cancelling payments with the bank thinking that’s all they needed to do and ending up with the service provider coming after them for missed payments?
Revolut’s disposable virtual card is perfect for merchants that aren’t trustworthy!
It’s a shame you need to go to those lengths to avoid the risk of being charged though; I would like a switch which could disable the setup of any CPAs on an account. I only really want to pay for those kinds of things on certain cards, and very rarely at that, so I don’t want all my accounts to have the ability for them to be set-up as it leaves me open to unscrupulous merchants.