Happened to a friend of mine with her Macfee renewal. She never got a straight answer from the Bank or MacFee.

It was not a DD.

Edited By HughE on 19/06/2019 22:50:56

It's a tricky one. What Apple and the Bank did could be seen as either an unwarranted intrusion or helpful. It's helpful to customers who lose a card linked to multiple online accounts who don't want to have to reauthorise each and every one of them when the replacement arrives. This is considerable hassle!

I guess the exchange of card details is all done automatically:

• Apple's computer requests payment from Robin's Bank quoting a cancelled card number
• Bank knows why Robin cancelled the old card and also that Apple are a trusted customer, not some bloke who found a lost card in the gutter. So Bank can safely tell Apple the new number.
• Apple update their records and get paid.

The booby trap is a customer can't assume that unwanted services will stop when he cancels a card or it expires. This sort of makes sense because only the card changed, not the customers account or his agreements to pay suppliers. Generally, services should be stopped by contacting the supplier, not by chopping off the money.

Still a shock when this sort of thing happens. As mentioned by Hugh another irritation is how difficult it can be to get answers from the institutions involved. The problem is most staff the public speak to don't know the detail; they might not even be employees – could be a call-centre. Long gone are the days when bank accounts were managed by local branches staffed by a well-trained team reporting to an experienced Bank Manager. My bank closed most local branches and what's left in the High Street is an empty shell.

Dave

Dave has it.

For all practical purposes changing debit card numbers for a bank account is the same as changing a firms phone number. Firm is still there, just have to let everyone who does business with them know the new number.

Your debit card number is, ignoring all the fancy computer and electronics side of things, just the "phone number" Apple (and everyone else) uses to call up your bank account and say "Gissa some money".

Clive

'Whoever it was could, and should, have informed the account holder before deucting money from the account.' Not sure that's the case in Robin's example. If anyone agrees to a repeat contract then he's already agreed to pay again on renewal. The status of the card used to set up the transaction doesn't alter the contract.

Bank cards expire for security reasons only. They are not the same as contracts, far from it.

What Apple did might save the customer considerable trouble. Consider this example. How happy would you be if cancelling a card lost on holiday caused your car-insurance to expire while you were away and you had a serious accident on the way home?

I do sympathise though. I like to think my money is secure and under my tight control! It's not fair that important details on this sort of thing are often hidden deep inside Terms and Conditions. Small print is a right pain to read at the best of times and some of it is dishonestly obscure. All too easy to sign-off on repeat payments, sharing of personal data, and reduced rights.

Truly we live in an imperfect world!

Dave

Never say never. I just used 5 rusty screws to fix a fence as the best match for the rusty nails already there..

pgk