From: Mike Mann 
Newsgroups: uk.legal alt.internet.providers.uk uk.finance uk.net
Subject: Re: Extraordinary abuse by Tiscali.
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 19:40:31 +0000

On Wed, 25 Feb 2004 11:13:33 +0000, "John J. Burness"
 wrote:

>Taken from http://www.directdebit.co.uk/general_public/faqs.php:-
>Q	How do I set up a Direct Debit?
>
>A	You can either complete a Direct Debit Instruction, obtained
>	from the organisation you wish to pay, and return it to them or,
>	with some organisations, you can set up Direct Debits over the
>	telephone or via the Internet. The organisation will then
>	forward your instructions onto your bank authorising them to
>	make payments from your account to them.
>
>
>That clearly means that, REGARDLESS of whether it is a paper or a 
>Telephone order, the Organisation MUST forward "your instructions" to 
>the Bank!!

It does indeed mean that.  It doesn't, however, mean that the
instructions have to be accompanied by your signature.

>By definition, if any Organisation tries to supply information, to your 
>Bank, that purports to be "your instructions", when you have no 
>knowledge of it or you have NOT provided these instructions then that is 
>clearly Fraudulent &, hence, illegal.

No it's not (necessarily so).  What you describe may be the result of
a mistake and, if it were, it would not be illegal and no amount of
posturing will make it so.

I know this is widely cross-posted but one of the groups is uk.legal.
It's not uncommon there for someone to ask a legal question, be given
the correct answer and then try and argue that the law is what they
think it should be.  If you want to argue that the law should be
changed, that's fine, but there's no point in trying to argue in
uk.legal that something is illegal when it's not.

Mike.