From: Ronald Raygun 
Subject: Re: isp bills by debit card.
Newsgroups: uk.finance
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 15:46:48 GMT

markp wrote:

> Just for your information, I have just contacted my credit card company
> (NatWest MasterCard) and asked them exactly what happens during a
> continuous authority dispute. The answer is that there is a mark on the
> account when you make the compaint, but payment requests *continue to be
> honoured* until the dispute is settled by their dispute process. If the
> payments were indeed in error then the interest and payments are
> re-imbursed accordingly from the marked date.
> 
> If you want to confirm this, phone 01702 354040, thats the NatWest
> MasterCard helpline.

I wouldn't expect it to be any different.  What you're saying appears
to say that they have no mechanism for rejecting invalid payment requests
at all, instead only for correcting them after the fact, and that CCA
payment requests are likely always to be processed the same as one-off
requests, i.e. in Style A and not B.

That being the case, the onus is always on the card company, jointly
with the retailer, to prove that authority was in fact in force,
before they are entitled to require the customer to settle the
disputed part of any CC bill.

Evidence of an authority having been in place previously is not
enough to prove that it has not subsequently been withdrawn, and
a customer's mere statement that it as been withdrawn *must* be
enough to determine the outcome of the card company's internal
investigation, provided the statement is accompanied by evidence
that the retailer was duly informed of withdrawal of authority.

In any case, the outcome of any card company's internal procedure
is not binding, and there is always recourse to the courts.