john banks

I am having my fair share of consumer problems of late

5 months after cancelling they are still trying to bill me for ongoing usage despite them confirming cancellation. They are even trying to bill a second time for an overcharge which I paid and was then partially refunded! They say on the phone they can't stop it happening. I have fought them by email, phone, post. Their billing is full of errors, and I only just received a refund from the last overpayment. Tiscali will not remove my credit card details from their computer.

I cancelled the credit card, but they say that they will still have to pay up if Tiscali ask for money! I have cancelled the direct debit to the credit card company and will just have to dispute any transactions that go through - EVEN THOUGH I HAVE CANCELLED IT. They could not tell me what would have happened if my card had been stolen!

ChrisB

Cancel the credit card as well?

dnb

I've lost count of the problems that my parents in law have had with Tiscali.

Sorry to hear about your problems with them - good luck. They just don't listen....

Paulo P

iTrader: (42)

I had problems with tiscali over the weekend because scoobynet can't send emails to tiscali addresses for some reason Luckily Simon (webmaster) managed to convert my sisters login back to my email address. Did this happen to you as well? I don't actually know much about them and what they do, what are they trying to charge you for?

john banks

The amazing thing is I HAVE cancelled the credit card, but they say that Tiscali can still take money!

I cancelled Tiscali 5 months ago and they confirmed this. I changed to Pipex ADSL which is on another planet for quality and customer service.

ChrisB

John. Thats ridiculous.

[Edited by ChrisB - 8/19/2002 4:26:02 PM]

carl

It may be ridiculous, but it's why I won't set up direct debits on credit cards/debit cards (rather than by using the bank account no./sort code method). The former cannot be cancelled by the cardholder, whereas the latter can.

ChrisB

If it's on a Credit Card, then surely it's not a DD, just a re-occuring charge?

Pavlo

John,

First of all, you need to write to Tiscalli and revoke their authority to charge to your CC.

This at least puts you in the (legal) position of being 100% wrongly charged if they do take money. You can at least show that you've not agreed to pay, they don't need you to pay, and that you're getting ripped off.

Similar thing happened to me with AOL, one time I needed net access to sign up to a proper ISP, so I logged on with of the 100s of discs loafing about. Big mistake, I conveniently cancelled not only my credit card, but the entire CC account, and didn't go back.

Anyway, once you have written (or faxed I think) to tell them you don't want the service, haven't done for ages, don't want to pay, "I don't give you permission to rip me off blah blah blah", I'm pretty sure they are in trouble if they do charge.

Like i said, i dumped the CC altogther, as i had another, and perhaps this may give you some leverage with the CC company.

Paul

NENO

Don't know what your moaning about they are a great company

I signed up with a company some years ago for cheap international phone calls. The deal was they took £25 as call credit when this ran out they automatically billed my credit card for another £25. Simple enough. They were then bought out by Tiscali. At around the same time my Credit Card expired. Now Tiscali renew my caller credit without debiting the card - ace.

You'd think they would be on top of problems like these, especially as mine cost them money.
Good luck getting it sorted John.

Reffro

Try threatening them with going on Watchdog. Say Watchdog have contacted you about doing a piece for TV.....

carl

That's what I meant. You've given them authority to regularly debit your card, and although you can contact them to revoke that authority there's nothing you can do at the card/bank end to stop the payments

john banks

What puzzles me is that I have cancelled the Egg credit card and they still say it may be debited. I will write as you guys say and copy it to Egg.

Pavlo

John,

It's a worthwhile step, if nothing else it will give you a good legal postion when you take your monthl trip to court to sue suppliers!

You should have no problem in getting your money back from the CC company should payments be made, so a good idea to copy egg on it.

How did the breakers/turbo story end btw?

Paul

john banks

I got the money back - just paid cheque in hopefully won't be bouncy. I had actually filled out the Small Claims Summons. I gather the company had some financial problems, but keeping my money for 6 weeks was unacceptable.

Katana

john, its time for you to turn into a Dr Hanibal Lector..

sebastian

I' ve had similar problems with the fact you cannot stop regular debits even if you cancel the card. Total nightmare.

People need to be much more aware of this nasty trap.

All in all, cancelling credit cards and washing your hands of them is not an easy thing to do, they deliberately make it difficult in my experience.

worley

You might want to try this...

Change the charge to another credit card (as Tiscali wouldn't want to miss out on recieving guaranteed income). Then with the more sympathetic credit card company ditch Tiscali.

MattN

surely the ammounts come under disputed claims?

I.e. you have not purchased said goods (or service) thus you don't have to pay for it. Outstanding transactions will be frozen and won't accure interest. Also the CC company can withold payment for disputed ammounts, at the end of the day it is their money which is being spent, if you've had confirmation of cancellation it is a billing error and not not your your concern, it's the concern of the CC.

ProperCharlie

I had a similar problem with an internet company. I phoned up Barclaycard customer services and requested that they stopped paying these people - they gave me all the usual BS about how i'd have to sort it out with the charging company. i went into a branch of Barclays and saw a personal banker about a few things, and then said i had a problem with my Barclaycard. At first she tried to fob me off with 'ring BC customer services'. i told her that i was sick of ringing every **** on the planet including some internet company in the US that were completely uncontactable. She then phoned BC herself and the whole thing was sorted out there and then. The company in question refunded me everything they'd ever charged me and as i'd still lost money due to a change in £/$ exchange rates, BC refunded me the rest. If it wasn't for this i'd have probably switched to a cheaper credit card some time ago.

Charlie.

camk

you cannot avoid the charge by cancelling the card, the CC company will not allow it. You need to go through the disputed charge process every month till it gets sorted. Had the same crap with some internet scam from US, took 6 months to fix but costs you nothing as amount is held outside your account till its sorted.

Regards
Cammy

john banks

Egg are sending dispute forms after I copied the letter to them to Tiscali in which I said they were fraudulent ba**ards basically (politely )

Luke

Sorry....... But if you let them fool around with your money John you must be mad!! Put it writing again to them. They have no right to continue paying. I dont care what they say.... They are taking the urine.