Money taken out of my account without my consent

[Yalta]

2 weeks ago a relative was moving house and had hired a van for the 2 day house move. During the 2nd day she realised she wasn’t going to be able to do everything in time and to help her out I gave her my debit card to pay for the extra day of van hire.
She telephoned the company and used my card to make the payment.

Going to pay my credit card bill today and found all my money gone. The van hire company have charged me for what looks like a further 2 days of van hire.

Am I right in thinking that they must have held onto my debit card details without my consent. (My name was never on any paperwork regarding this van hire so I was never asked permission to keep my details on file)

Completely pissed off as this has taken me into an unauthorised over draft which knowing my bank it will still cost me a fine for going into overdraft whether the payment was something I authorised or not. Plus if I can’t get my bank to refund straight away I could end up with a non payment notice on my credit file for the payment I couldn’t make to my credit card. Am about to apply for a mortgage and have worked hard to maintain a completely spotless credit file.

Is this a breach of GDPR or is it fraud. I know for a fact that relative paid the first 2 days hire (otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to get the van) and I paid the 3rd day and the van was left to be picked up and the keys left in a safe place.

Friend moved out of the area so I know she didn’t go back to use the van for whatever reason.

@Yalta

I wonder if they have charged you for the 2 days that your relative had already paid.

Are the booking numbers the same ?

Did your relative tell them the vehicle was ready to be collected so the hire period was ended at the correct time or was it left for another two days and they have charged you in total for 5 days.

You need sight of the paperwork to see the start and end dates and if the booking references are the same.

Can you not ring them as most are open on a Saturday I would think.

Giving someone else your card is never a good idea.

I'm amazed that a van hire place is closed over the weekend! Surely that is when a lot of people realise that they need a van?

You are literally just surmising everything as you haven't even spoken to the van hire people? What's the point of that?

Your relative needs to contact the van hire company as they are the ones who had the contract with them. If they get no where you can then dispute the transaction most banks allow you to do this via their APP.

careful when you dispute as when the company provide evidence of the transaction it will show you have broken Ts and Cs and the bank could put this on your relative as you have given your details away.

I know this is a bit sad but I just googled opening hours of our van hire places in my town, every single one is open on a saturday morning until 12

I don't understand why you haven't called the van hire company to clarify what has actually happened, and what the additional charges are for. You haven't even established a starting point to this problem, because you haven't clarified what has actually happened with the only people that can provide the answer - the van company. Any speculation is pointless; you need to pick up the phone and call them.

I suspect you are reticent to do this because you know your friend might have had a bit more to do with the overspend than was agreed. But you can't blame the van company for that without phoning them and establishing the facts with them first.

Also, your bank won't take any action without you first trying to resolve things with the van company, especially as you willingly gave the card to your friend. This responsibility is on you.

Contact your bank and make a chargeback claim. You don't know what this payment is for and looks like an error on the company's part. The funds should be returned to you while they investigate. I think the giving of your card to your relative is a red herring here, because that was just for the earlier charge.

It's possible your relative has actually authorised this payment of course (when you have your details) so you also need to follow up with them and the van hire company asap.

Contact your bank.. state the facts:
I used my credit card over the phone to pay for a transaction 2 weeks ago. The company has put through an additional unapproved charge yesterday, please reverse this transaction.

Been in contact with my bank. Apparently the company has put it through as a recurring weekly transaction. They haven’t been able to get any money up until now (apparently they have tried 8 times to get it paid) as there wasn’t hundreds left in my account for long enough.
It was the fact they put it through just as I was paid my weekly wage from one company that meant there was money to almost cover it (throwing me into an overdraft for £8)

Really pissed off as this means I have to wait till Monday until there offices are open to try and get my money back

Theredfoxfliesatmidnight can’t call them as they are not open.

It is a small company who deliver the vehicles to your door. They don’t have a place to pick vehicles up from

Geez... good luck... has your bank been able to block any further charges and can they do an immediate charge back?

Can the bank put a stop to it as an unauthorised transaction? Like you said you agreed to pay for 1 day rental (which came out as expected) but holding onto it to use later isn't something you authorised and therefore the bank should stop and refund the payments? If then the company can prove the payments are legitimate the bank would then debit them again?

I had similar with a hotel as we had to give CC details in case of room charges but the cost of the stay was paid by voucher. About 6 months later the hotel emailed and said they couldn't find the evidence of the voucher for 1 of the nights stay (the vouchers were per night). I emailed back and confirmed we'd given them over and gave the reference number of the voucher we used. Didn't hear back to assumed all sorted and then they debited my card! I did go full on nuclear with the hotel (as this also put us in the financial shit) but the bank refunded as the hotel couldn't prove it was an authorised transaction.

My bank has cancelled any further payments from going out of my account Although if the company decide to charge me using another account then I will have to do it all over again.
I have been advised to keep and eye out for any suspicious transactions
If they won’t give me my money back then I will have to contact my bank to do it on my behalf

It isn't against GDPR but it is something you can dispute if it shouldn't have happened.
Steps you need to take-

Contact the relative and question them about this, ask them to be truthful because giving the wrong information can impact your chances of getting the money back.
Then contact the company and complain.
If you don't get anywhere with them, contact your bank and ask to raise a dispute.

Keep any evidence, emails, messages etc that you have as you may need to provide it to the bank.

What do you mean if the company decide to charge me using another account? Surely that only have details of that debit card.

Surely you can dispute the monies with the bank? Don't they reverse a transaction in that circumstance?

Apparently it isn’t unheard of companies using different accounts to request money
So their account number 1234567 has been blocked but they change the account and request the money from there other account 2345678