Go Fund Me...

by daveystoat Wed Sep 27, 2023 9:56 am

Hello All

Firstly, I need to say that this post is not endorsed by the site, but is posted with the permission of the site owner and admins, for which I and my friend are very grateful.

I am posting this on behalf of a good friend who is in a bit of a bind. His bank have refused to refund nearly £20,000 in Direct Debits which they legally should have. He will not go to the Financial Ombudsman as a) they cannot be considered unbiased (because they are funded by the banks), and b) past experiences with them have not been good.

He wants to put a money claim in against his bank. He has taken legal advice and been told his case is very strong. The problem he has, is to put in the money claim it wil cost nearly £1000 (5% of the total claim amount), which he doesn't have.

So, he has launched a crowdfunder - link here https://gofund.me/bb7e4b17 - to raise at least some of what he needs to put the claim in.

If anyone on here is able to chip in anything at all, it really would be a big help to him and very much appreciated. Thank you in advance.

by flyingfish Mon Oct 02, 2023 7:17 am

What were the DD payments for, and why is he claiming them back? By no means all disputes are covered by the DD guarantee.

by daveystoat Mon Oct 02, 2023 8:58 am

What they were for is irrelevant, they are being claimed back because they were paid in error (no obligation to pay). All Direct Debits are covered by the Direct Debit Guarantee, see the first sentence of the second paragraph here:

https://www.directdebit.co.uk/direct-debit-explained/direct-debit-guarantee/

by flyingfish Mon Oct 02, 2023 3:12 pm

Unfortunately there was a fad for invoking the guarantee and reclaiming valid DD payments, which is plain fraud. An unfortunate side effect is that all claims including perfectly valid ones are coming under closer scrutiny.

Nowadays you are less likely to get a claw back just by telling the bank it was an error, they will probably want to know exactly what the error was, and that it was an error in the payment process itself.

As your link says "It cannot be used to address contractual disputes between you and the billing organisation", whereas a few years ago you would have been able to use it in that way.

I hope your friend succeeds but the cynic in me suspects we won't get to hear if he doesn't.

by daveystoat Mon Oct 02, 2023 3:16 pm

It is a legitimate claim, if there was never any obligation to pay, it's covered by the DD Guarantee. There is evidence that the bank in question have paid exactly the same claim made for exactly the same reason, which sets a legal precedent.

by flyingfish Thu Oct 12, 2023 9:17 am

To be honest i am not surprised the bank has not accepted the claim.

You are asking them to believe that either you set up a Direct Debit for a company you do not need to pay, or that one was fraudulently set up without your consent. And in either case you let them take £20,000 before you noticed. Was advance notice given for the payment(s) giving value and date? (If its a regular fixed amount they dont need to give notice for each instalment, although some do.)

If you were charged £20,000 incorrectly, why not raise your claim against the supplier?

A DD clawback is not free money, the bank gets it back from the supplier, who will then come after you. During the first fad of clawbacks there were people crowing about clawing back for example HP payments, then screaming when their cards as repossessed.

by daveystoat Thu Oct 12, 2023 12:04 pm

The point is, it's a legitimate claim because there was never any lawful obligation to pay, which my friend found out after many years. The bank in question have outright lied and attempted to gaslight in this case. The same bank have also paid out exactly the same claim for exactly the same reason for other people, over a an even longer time span. This sets a legal precedent. My friend has taken legal advice and been advised his case is very strong.

by flyingfish Thu Oct 19, 2023 8:51 pm

daveystoat wrote:The point is, it's a legitimate claim because there was never any lawful obligation to pay, which my friend found out after many years.

What was it, a decade or so of Council Tax, or mortgage payments, or gas and electricity? You willingly set up the DD mandate and allowed the payments to be taken until you saw some conspiracy theory on Youtube saying you shouldn't have to pay. That is not grounds for a DD clawback as the payments were taken with your agreement. Your dispute is with the supplier that you willingly paid for all those years, and I would say that dispute is virtually certain to fail. Not with the bank that correctly followed your instructions in making those payments. The very fact that you refuse to give any facts about the payments, and in what way they were in error, pretty much confirms its not a valid claim.

Did you set up the DD mandate?
Did the supplier notify the amounts to be taken?
Did the payments go out on the dates notified, and did they match the amount notified?

Those are the points to be considered when a bank looks at a DD claim

by daveystoat Thu Oct 19, 2023 9:23 pm

1. It's not me
2. You assume far too much, and are getting it wrong
3. To repeat, proper legal advice has been taken by the person concerned, and they have been advised their case is very strong.

Now, I don't wish to be rude, but unless you have something constructive to say, please refrain from further comments. Thanks

by mitch Fri Oct 20, 2023 1:18 pm

Seems to me that flying fish's presence on the forum directly contradicts the central ethos of the site which is all bankster, council and DCA alleged debt is fraud. Does FF believe that banks, councils and DCAs do not operate fraudulently and against the interests of ordinary people?

by daveystoat Fri Dec 15, 2023 4:23 pm

All I can say is that his comments are less than helpful, mainly because they are wrong

by **Lopsum** Fri Dec 15, 2023 9:33 pm

flyingfish hasnt broken any rules as far as i know and we dont ban people for their opinions . He offers help in his own way. They have been rather presumptuous and rude in this instance which is noted !

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