Swalec

[loulou30]

Help please.
My sister pays for her electricity £10 weekly in the post office with a swipe card. Christmas time last year her bill came in and she paid what was owing over the phone with her debit card. She has just gone through her bank statements today and swalec have used her card details and debited £103.25 on 26th april without her authorisation.

What can i do about this? My sister is disabled and has partial hearing so i would need to do the phoning/letter writing.

Who would i contact? Would this actually be classed as fraud?

Any help would be appreciated.
Claire x

[veilside01702]

Contact her bank and tell them what happened.....
Explain that she authorised the first payment, but SWALEC took the second amount without her permission and had No authorisation to do so...
Call SWALEC and ask them who authorised the payment and how and when this was done...
Speak to someone senior, accept nobody lower than head of customer service department...
If you get no help....write to them informing them that the money was taken without any authorisation and you have reported them to her bank for obtaining money by deception...
I think that would be what they did...
Might be worth chatting to nattie about this....
Russ

[strangewayofsavin]

I agree with Russ, its illegal to debit money from your card without your authorisation, debit cards are supossed to for single transactions, I would also consider reporting it to the police if you get no joy from Swalec.

[cinders]

Help please.
My sister pays for her electricity £10 weekly in the post office with a swipe card. Christmas time last year her bill came in and she paid what was owing over the phone with her debit card. She has just gone through her bank statements today and swalec have used her card details and debited £103.25 on 26th april without her authorisation.

What can i do about this? My sister is disabled and has partial hearing so i would need to do the phoning/letter writing.

Who would i contact? Would this actually be classed as fraud?

Any help would be appreciated.
Claire x

Ok we need to back up a little here. Firstly, SWALEC shouldnt have a record of your sisters card details on file. You need to ring them as veil rightly said and ask who authorised this transaction. You can also go to the bank and ask for this to be refunded to your account as you didnt give permission for this money to be taken, the bank will then do an indemnity claim against the supplier.
There is no point in going to the police to report this as obtaining money by deception, its a really pointless exercise. You will be able to get the money back so the police will take very little interest. The other thing is that you cannot ring a company and demand to speak with the head of the department, well you can, but it wont get you anywhere. Companies as large as utiltie suppliers have what are called escalation processes so you need to adhere to these if you are to get anywhere.

To summarise:

Ring swalec, tell them it wasnt an authorised transaction and you want the money back. if they refuse, ask for a manager and follow their escalation process, also inform them that you are asking the bank for a refund as the money was taken without permission.

Let me know how you get on though loulou30 please.


Thanks

[loulou30]

Firstly thanks to all who advised.
I had already contacted the bank and they have recalled the payment and refunded £90 bank charges, then i contacted swalec and told them the reason for it and they said they will look into it as they have nothing to say my sister had contacted them around the time the payment was taken anyway. She received a revised bill from them yesterday and she is £90 in credit. Im going to contact the complaints dept tomorrow for an explanation. The bank have put my sister in contact with their fraud protection services.
Thanks
claire