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Revoking ACH authorization is an effective tactic. The CFPB dictates that if you give 3 days notice, companies are obligated to honor this. If they charge you a
by Danjoe4 4y ago
Revoking ACH authorization is an effective tactic. The CFPB dictates that if you give 3 days notice, companies are obligated to honor this. If they charge you afterwards, your bank will be more than happy to reverse the charge. To be clear, this doesn't void the contract you have with them, you're simply revoking their privilege to charge your payment method. If they want your money they'd have to take you to small claims. Here is a sample email which I've used many times to great effect:
May this email serve as your notice to revoke the ACH/Bank Access/Debit Card authorizations of both the below primary bank account and debit card, from [company] effective today, [date]
[Bank Name]
Checking Account x**
Savings Account x**
and
Debit Card x**
Additionally, I am revoking withdrawal authorizations from any other accounts associated with my personal information, listed below
name:
DOB:
phone #:
email:
I am also revoking your further access to my banking accounts and have already removed your authorization with the Bank directly.
THIS REVOCATION APPLIES FOR THE NEXT PAYMENT DUE DATE AND ALL FUTURE DUE DATES.
Kindly, I ask that your response to this email shall be confirmation of receipt and you agree it is at least 3 business days prior to any scheduled repayments or membership fee deduction.
Note that in accordance with 12 CFR Part 1005.10(c) (Regulation E) you MUST HALT PAYMENT.
FAIL TO COMPLY and I will submit a report to the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. Additionally, you will be responsible for any fees, including overdraft fees, incurred as a result of your failure to halt payment
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- preommr 4y agoAnd people actually reply to that? What do you do if they tell you no one got this email?
- pc86 4y agoYou mean what do you do if someone knowingly lies in order to continue fraudulently charging you for something? Sounds like a crime to me. But more realistically, at that point you've already filed a claim with the CFPB so who cares what they say? It will get settled one way or the other.
- billpg 4y agoWe live in a world of spam filters. Email is not a reliable delivery system. "I didn't see it" is always plausible when dealing with emails.
- tadfisher 4y agoUnfortunately, "ACH authorization" is a collective delusion, as there is no technical mechanism in the protocol to prevent ACH pulls. Better to use something like a Privacy card in the first place so you can revoke it on your own terms.
- tyingq 4y ago>there is no technical mechanism in the protocol to prevent ACH pull Nothing in the protocol, but many individual banks have their own in-house ways of failing the pull.
- yuliyp 4y agoIt's not a delusion. From a legal perspective, the bank treats actions which are authorized by you and actions which are not differently. If you enter into an agreement that says you're authorizing entity X to charge you based on a contract and they charge you, the bank is likely to side with them, and tell you to go sue them if you want your money bank. If the bank knows that you did not authorize the ACH transfer, they're supposed to reverse the transaction.
- benced 4y agoBits have color, no matter what us software engineers think: https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Akronymus 4y agoAm I missing some context here? This seems to not be related to the grandparent comment at all, to me.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- KennyBlanken 4y ago> If they want your money they'd have to take you to small claims. No, they'll just send it to collections, and now your credit is dinged for seven years because unless they violated their contract with you, you're still liable for the charges.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agoIve never heard of gyms doing that. Is it real? They are not a lender and are not lending money to you, so I don’t see how they can affect your credit report. There’s no credit involved. Anyone actually have a credit report with an unpaid gym membership in the report?
- TylerE 4y agoThere is credit involved, because the contracts are worded such that's, say, a 12 month contract paid in monthly installments. The credit is the outstanding balance vs. if you had paid for the full year in cash up front. Your credit report is answering one question: How good are you about paying for things you've agreed to pay for.
- bluGill 4y agoSeems unlikely - collections only want to work with bills large enough that their odds of payment make it worth talking to you. Collectors never gives full price, they pay the person you owe some smaller amount, and when you pay they collect the difference. There are levels of collections though the first is for things where they expect you will pay, you just need a payment plan (some medical labs don't do billing in house, they always sell it to collections), so collections will buy the bill for the pull price minus $50 (or some minimal amount in that range): since most people are going to pay collections just needs to setup the details for which $50 is a fair price. At the other end there are bills that they know you are not going to pay, collections will buy the a multi-thousand dollar bill for $1, and see if they can get any form of payment at all out of you. Anyway, the bottom line is for a gym you are never going to owe enough that it is worthwhile for collections to touch it.
- 4y ago
- nijave 4y agoSome companies report this type of thing to consumer trust worthiness services (similar to credit bureaus). Other companies use these services to gage customer risk before initiating new service so you can effectively get yourself blacklisted. Not saying this answer isn't the way to do it, but it's not without additional collateral damage in some cases. Even if it doesn't impact other companies, the company in question may refuse to do business with you in the future (which may or may not be of concern).
- camhart 4y agoIf you're dealing with a (normally small) company that generally takes care of their customers, an email like this as a conversation starter is just going to make the customer support reps lives miserable and make them not want to lift a finger for you. Save this for the companies that really deserve it.
- junon 4y agoFeelings do not trump laws. If those reps are miserable working at a company knowingly employing deceptive or predatory tactics, they should find employment elsewhere.
- camhart 4y agoI literally said save it for the companies that deserve it... Did you fail to read my entire comment? A decent person cares about being decent towards other human beings.
- nkrisc 4y agoThis isn't about service reps, it's about you. Sometimes you have to look out for yourself. This is hardly being abusive to service reps so they can suck it up and deal with it.
- camhart 4y agoYou should care about how you treat others. When a simple "hey, can you help me cancel my subscription?" would suffice, there's no reason to make threats and go to the extreme.
- FireBeyond 4y ago> To be clear, this doesn't void the contract you have with them, you're simply revoking their privilege to charge your payment method. It's gotten better, but on more than one occasion I've had to argue with my bank to honor my request to block the charges. I've had tellers say "Well, if you have a subscription with them, this needs to be allowed". No. As you say - my bank's obligation is to honor my account wishes, not be an arbiter of my agreements with third parties.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- whythre 4y agoThat is fucking bizarre that bank personnel would even try to argue with you. Why would a bank want their customers to be ripped off by shitty subscriptions?
- gigatexal 4y agoThis would be a super duper feature add to a company or service that learns all your subscriptions and helps you cancel them.
- jrib 4y ago> and have already removed your authorization with the Bank directly Can you expand on what you mean by this? My banks don't offer me some way to revoke authorization from the bank's website. Does this mean calling customer service and giving them a business name to disallow future ach debits from?