Direct debit of £720 taken!

[Popandcrackle]

Hi all,

I was looking for some advice relating to direct debit guarantees. The background is we moved home in May 2017, in July we received a final energy bill from Extra energy for £700. We made a payment plan of £60 a month, all fine, all paid by my partners account every month. Was paid off in July 2018 and we checked in with them that it was all clear and they confirmed.

On 31st December Scottish power set up a direct debit of £700 and took it out of my partners account. We were baffled but upon research Extra energy have been liquidised and Scottish power have taken over as the supplier for those affected customers. We have never been with SP so this must relate to the EE debt which we have evidence of paying back. We've had issues getting hold of Scottish power and are currently waiting on a call back from them. We called the bank who said the direct debit was set up by SP which is why they allowed it to go through and we had to go through them to get it back. They should not have had the account details as the account should have been closed. I've done some research and it seems that as the direct debit guaranteed we could get it back from the bank ?

Any help would be great as it's very stressful dealing with SP!!

can’t help but I’ve really struggled with SP in the past. There’s a CEOs complaints team - if you google you’ll get the CEOs email address, it then gets passed to them. thats the only way I could get my issue resolved.

Is it worth looking into the GDPR side of it since they shouldn’t have kept your details?

We were thinking GDPR actually as the payments Stopped in July and we had confirmation our account was closed. Thank you! They are a nightmare, we’ve tried calling so many times and when they are busy they just cut you off 🙄

Your bank should be able to do the Direct Debit Indemnity straight away. Get back on the phone to them and tell them to recall it immediately OP.

Absolute tosh... under the fed guarantee you are entitled to a full refund from your bank. No notice was given, you did not approve the payment so the supplier is at fault but the DD scheme is set up to protect you from situations like this. Go back to the bank and demand a full and immediate refund under the DD guarantee! Don't let them fob you off x

You're bank have given you wrong info.
You are covered by the direct debit guarantee and if you have not authorised the dd to be set up or been advised they would be taking a payment you are entitled to a full and immediate refund by way of your bank doing a direct debit indemnity.
Call them back and insist they do this

That’s what my research has been suggesting. Nat West basically said “they set it up and we allowed it to through as the funds were there”. I’ve read banks don’t like to refund and you have to push them on it. I’ll get partner to ring them tomorrow morning and put up a fight!

Bank should refund immediately. There's a multitude of different mistakes going on here! You should have been given notice of the amount coming out, there's a GDPR failure regarding personal data (so you could contact the ICO if you wished) and the DD guarantee protects you. Get your money back. Good luck.

You do need to go back to the bank, pop it in writing that no notice was given of any DD and they need to put it back in your account and not let any other DD be taken next month.

By popping it in writing and hand delivering to branch there can’t be any quibbling from bank that you told them to recall or stop future DD

Natwest are pulling a fast one. I had to ring my bank (HSBC) and asked them to call a DD back. It was back in my account in 10 minutes.

And whether the funds were in your account or not, it’s unauthorised and they need to recall it. Don’t let them fob you off.

I absolutely would be reporting to ICO btw.

I believe you need to follow SP complaints procedure on GDPR

community.scottishpower.co.uk/t5/Complaints/Scottish-Power-complaints/ta-p/37

I wouldn’t bother telephoning - as it’ll just wind you up, email

Bloody hell OP not good from NatWest, I'd get tougher on them. Yes your protected under your DD guarantee. SSE took an unexpected £700 out just after Christmas and our bank (Lloyd's) but it straight back in the same day! You definitely need to speak to your bank and sort it out with SE at a later date.

Yes we will be reporting to ICO. Thanks everyone for the advice, I’ll report back tomorrow after calling Nat West.

Ive done a couple of indemnity claims through Nat West with no problems whatsoever. Money just went straight back in.

Scottish power are a nightmare - they keep upping my direct debit even though I am £1700 in credit. I spoke to them last month and they said they would reduce it - the lady even confirmed on the phone that it had gone through. This month, exactly the same direct debit taken.
I tried to phone them on Friday - 3 hours waiting time
Grrrrrrrt

Can you not just cancel the dd paddy? They’ll soon get in touch and if you’re in credit there shouldn’t be a problem.

Called NatWest this morning and after a bit of fobbing off they agreed that it came under the direct debit guarantee as we had no advanced warning. So the money was recredited and they gave £50 for giving out the wrong information/lying on our previous call. Now we have to raise the complaint with SP if we can ever get through to them. Thanks so much for all your help!

Well done!

Don’t phone SP, it won’t get to the right people. Email the CEO and it will go to the executive team complaints box.

Scottish power are the worst ☹️
We got an energy bill from them for a underpayment over 3 years for £8800!!
We made it clear that they must have taken down a digit wrong from the meter and it needed to be rectified. We couldn't possibly have used that much energy!

It took 18months to sort out....keep all paperwork!! Only communicate via email and contact the ombudsman ASAP.