My Evil Undead Credit Card

http://uncrunched.com/2012/08/26/my-undead-credit-card/

by ryangilbert • 14 years ago

181 129 14 years ago

jrockway7• 14 years ago

Doesn't everyone know this? You can't enter into a contract with someone and then just pull the payment instrument out from under them. Even if they stopped charging your credit card, they could still sue you for the amount you owe them.

You have to cancel your gym membership if you don't want it anymore. Send them a registered letter and CC the state's Attorney General office if they won't cancel the account for you.

Edit: Wow, I just realized this is Arrington's blog. Isn't he a lawyer? How can he not know this stuff?

dangrossman3• 14 years ago

"Sending a registered letter" sounds like a "getting ready to sue" legal last resort. You don't have to do things like that to cancel subscriptions with most any other business.

Unfortunately that's actually the only way to cancel membership in writing at most major gym chains in the US. They all outsource membership billing to the same company, ABC Financial. ABC has their customers (the gyms) require member cancellations be sent by certified mail. Any cancellation request by phone or mail that isn't sent certified is simply thrown out. If you cancel your credit card, they'll just send you immediately to their collections agency.

This is how they guarantee "more revenue from more members than with anyone else". It's such a scummy business.

http://www.abcfinancial.com/

A Google search for "ABC Financial scam" (in quotes, exact phrase) has over 13,000 results.

cstejerean• 14 years ago

I've yet to see a gym actually go to collecrions. They'll send angry letters threatening things for a few months, and then give up. Don't ask how I know this :)

ghshephard5• 14 years ago

I've had five gym memberships in my life. Every one of them allowed me to cancel the membership by coming into the gym and canceling it. In every case, that method, "Come into the gym and cancel" was written write on the contract.

If you are willing to negotiate with the owner/manager, they might even allow you to pay the full year up front - because that's basically the same thing (this was my argument) as signing up for a 1 year membership, and then canceling it the very same day - you are still responsible for the full 12 months, but it would end after one year because you had "cancelled" it.

Can you name a gym that won't let you cancel your membership by coming into the gym and doing so?

jrockway7• 14 years ago

Yes, this is shady. That's why you involve the Attorney General.

rdl5• 14 years ago

For gyms, you can go to Costco and buy a 2-year 24 Hour Fitness all-Sports club membership for $320, prepaid, too.

mootothemax• 14 years ago

You can't enter into a contract with someone and then just pull the payment instrument out from under them.

Isn't that a different argument though? I had my wallet stolen at the end of February and would be outraged if charges from any of those cards suddenly went through my bank account.

I agree that one shouldn't just walk away from one's commitments, but isn't that what the small claims courts are, in theory at least, meant to enforce?

thaumaturgy2• 14 years ago

I disagree strongly with this. Merchants can (and often do) change the terms of monthly payments, ignore legitimate requests for account cancellations, or even incur monthly charges for things that the cardholder was led to believe was a one-time charge.

Cancelling the card has been the cardholder's tactical weapon against that nonsense. It's still a hassle for the cardholder, so I'm left wondering how much of an actual problem it is that people are canceling entire credit card accounts just to wiggle out of a contract.

And, in the case that people do that, the merchants have recourse through either collections or court. If enough such charges go to collections, the cardholder loses the ability to open new accounts.

If people are no longer able to cancel their credit cards as an item of last resort, then the merchants are left with all the leverage. Arrington's natural response to that -- as I suspect will be most other peoples' -- will be to stop using their credit card.

I don't think we want that to happen.

jrockway7• 14 years ago

Merchants can (and often do) change the terms of monthly payments, ignore legitimate requests for account cancellations, or even incur monthly charges for things that the cardholder was led to believe was a one-time charge.

That's what the dispute process is for. Sign an affidavit saying the merchant violated their contract with you, and the charge goes away.

eli6• 14 years ago

I think you misunderstood him. It's just as likely that the gym is trying to screw the customer by ignoring a valid request to cancel (even one sent via certified mail) than a customer trying to welch on a contract.

jrockway7• 14 years ago

I'm sure the gym is trying to screw him. They make money when you don't show up, not when you do. That's why you read the contract before signing it, and negotiate it to something less shady. Or take your business elsewhere.

Like I said in another reply, you mail the Attorney General's office so that if there's a pattern of screwing customers, the state can take appropriate action.

bandushrew2• 14 years ago

I absolutely should be able to deny them access to my credit card, unless the courts specify otherwise.

WTH is the bank doiing, enforcing the terms of a contract I have with a third party? since when is that the job of the bank?

Yes, the third party can sue me. Thats fine, but I must be able to maintain control over my own bank account.

learc834• 14 years ago

I'm willing to be that somewhere in your cardholder agreement you give the bank the right to pay recurring charges on your behalf--as if you gave them the ability to act as your agent. An ability that apparently according to recent legislation you can't rescind merely by cancelling your card.

ams61104• 14 years ago

To play devil's advocate, you should not be able to just close your credit card account and be able to walk away from a contractual recurring payment agreement into which you entered.

jrockway7• 14 years ago

Indeed. Though I'm sure the gym's merchant account requires them to stop charging a particular credit card if you ask them. You can then switch to paying by cash, stop paying, default on the account, and then go through the whole collections thing.

The OP did learn a valuable lesson, though: don't enter into a contract you don't agree to, expecting to have someone else get you out of it.

gmrple• 14 years ago

But is it the bank's responsibility to enforce the contract?

I would rather have a civil court be the recourse for a broken contract than for a third non-governmental party to handle it.

I suppose if it was written into the contract that the bank would perform this role prior to the card being obtained and this being made abundantly clear to both sides things would be a little different. Still, ideally I would have the bank as the holder and mover of funds at the will of the cardholder, not someone outside of the contract between the bank and cardholder.

euroclydon• 14 years ago

Oops, meant to upvote you. I agree. I guess when you agree to use credit cards you're not just using a payment instrument the bank has made for your convenience, but choosing to use a system which the banks find lucrative and the merchant exert a good deal of control over. Consumers are not as politically proactive as merchants so we can't be surprised to find the laws favor the merchants.

[edit] Someone upstream mentioned authorizations. I'd like to know more about how authorizations work with subscriptions. Do they keep a rolling six month queue of auths or is there a seperate and unique structure for recurring payments?

ghshephard5• 14 years ago

I don't think that's devil's advocate - I think that's just common sense. People might start to think twice before ever giving their credit card to a business then.

nnnnnnnn• 14 years ago

" you should not be able to just close your credit card account and be able to walk away from a contractual recurring payment agreement into which you entered."

Of course you should. What if the other party fails to uphold their side of the contract, rendering it invalid? You are suggesting that the cardholder must pay regardless of the contract terms. In reality, either party may violate the terms of their contract in incalculable ways. Singling out consumer payments is extremely myopic.

I understand you're playing devil's advocate here, but this position is extremely flawed.

zampano• 14 years ago

Why not just call the gym in question? I've had numerous accounts with recurring charges, but I've never dealt with them by changing account or card numbers.

redslazer• 14 years ago

Have you ever attempted to cancel a Gym membership? It is near impossible.

adient2• 14 years ago

Why? I've had to switch between a few different gym companies over the years and never had any trouble.

ben1040• 14 years ago

Back in 2000 my wallet, including my Visa check card and other credit cards, was stolen in Paris. I called the bank right away, got cards canceled, had new ones ordered and all that.

I get my checking account statement and see several charges that the thief made before I was able to get the card canceled. My bank cheerfully reversed those and I thought nothing of it.

Four months later, I see a charge on my statement from one of the same merchants as before. I called my bank, and they said that the merchant had authorized my card, but did not proceed to capture the payment until then. I asked why this happened on a canceled card, and was told the authorization happened before the card was reported stolen so they had to honor it. They told me the merchant had six months to capture the payment, and it basically was as if I had written them a check and they sat on it for months.

Clearly the thief had some buddy with a merchant account, and they were trying to see if they could sneak a charge in later without me noticing it.

I asked my bank if there was a way for them to see if there were more of these charges in the pipeline, because I had written some checks and it would be highly inconvenient to me if they bounced. They said they had no way of knowing. The only way to stop these from going through was to close the checking account, which would also mean the checks I've written were going to bounce anyway. So I just had to wait out two more months and hope nothing more happened.

Luckily, that was the only instance.

encoderer3• 14 years ago

One of the several reasons Debit cards are much worse and anti-consumer than Credit cards.

People think that because it has a Visa logo and their bank has a limited fraud liability policy that they're safe. That their debit cards have the same consumer protections as credit cards. That's just not the case.

Moreover, if you swipe-and-sign for anything you should be getting rewards or cash-back. Very few debit cards offer rewards, and the ones that do are often less lucrative than those offered on credit cards.

soult• 14 years ago

I don't know how debit cards work in the US, but I need a PIN to use my debit card, so short of being forced to withdraw money at gunpoint, you won't get any access to my bank account.

ams61104• 14 years ago

Depends on the issuing bank. My credit union offers the same fraud liability protection on their debit cards as credit cards. That said, with debit cards your money is (temporarily) gone until you notice and complain. Depending on the amount, this could cause problems with your balance.

kitsune_• 14 years ago

In Switzerland, almost everybody uses debit cards, and you can't use debit cards (Maestro) online. You use credit cards for online payments, but that's about it.

With debit cards, you have to enter a 6-number pin to withdraw cash or pay with them.

I have a hard time seeing how debit cards are worse than credit cards.

There is skimming, but banks reverse fraudulent withdrawals. The protection is the same as with credit cards.

There is an upper monthly limit on your payments / withdrawals with debit cards. You can even lower that limit if you want to.

You can overdraw your account within a certain boundary and with this your debit card is also a poor man's credit card.

WimLeers2• 14 years ago

The things you say only apply to the U.S.; in most of Europe, debit cards are significantly more secure. And since debit cards are the most common payment method, the sort of crazy behavior that was described in the linked article is actually pretty much non-existent.

phn• 14 years ago

I don't know where this is from. But in Portugal, I really feel blessed by the MBNet service that exists here. Basically you tie it to any card (credit/debit) and generate temporary credit card numbers with a hard value limit defined at the time of creation. Want to buy a 10$ game, generate a card with a slightly larger value and pay with it. If the merchant tries to take more, it is denied and the card automatically cancelled.

I am amazed this doesn't exist elsewhere (if it does I have never heard of it). Even banks themselves could provide something like this.

EDIT: I don't know how it actually works if you want to pay by credit. I generally generate cards with values that my bank account can cover.

vasco• 14 years ago

Just to add something regarding MBNet, it is also now possible to create a virtual credit card for multiple transactions, I believe up to a year. But it will never go over whatever limit you set at the beginning. It's a great payment method indeed.

X-Istence2• 14 years ago

Bank of America, my credit card provider provides the same sort of service. They call it ShopSafe. You generate a temporary credit card number with a certain limit and you can set when it expires.

It is fantastic for purchasing goods from web sites that may not secure their card data completely, or if you are worried about fraud on the internet. I've also in the past generated the numbers for when I need to pay over the phone and don't want to hand out my credit card number!

Extremely handy, unfortunately it seems that not enough people make use of it, to the point that BoA employees in the fraud department are at times not even aware that the feature exists...

chimeracoder7• 14 years ago

Are there fees attached to this?

I'd be interested in using this, but I get so frustrated with Bank of America's fees. They want to charge $10/month just for using OFX to access your own financial transactions!

Given the level of security that most banks implement, this is completely indefensible in my books (given that the same information is available through the shoddy web interface).

scarmig• 14 years ago

Whoah, this sounds spectacular. Is it available in the States, besides BoA?

alirov• 14 years ago

I've used the same feature through Citi credit cards although it's fairly well hidden on their site if I remember correctly. I've never found this feature with my American Express or Chase accounts.

bencoder• 14 years ago

Had a friend who cancelled an old mobile phone contract. He kept the old phone and sim in a drawer somewhere.

House got broken into and the old phone was stolen but my friend didn't notice the missing phone since it wasn't used anymore. Thief managed to call up the phone company and get the contract re-instated. Friend received bills for thousands.

Cut up your old sim cards.

ericb• 14 years ago

I closed an account, and moved. Had this happen, go to collections, damage my credit, and had no idea.

efa• 14 years ago

I noticed this a few months back. I had cancelled an Amex card and get a new one (brand new number). My old one was saved in my Amazon profile. I charged to that old account a couple times before I realized that that was the card I cancelled. But it worked fine. To this day I can still pick that card when checking out of Amazon with no issue.

ghshephard5• 14 years ago

This makes sense somewhat - if you could get out of a contract with a merchant, simply by canceling your credit card, then why bother to uphold your obligations (multiple payments, length of relationship) etc... Just get whatever benefits you want, then cancel the card and wave goodbye to the merchant. That would be _particularly_ problematic on a multiple-payment scenario.

The net-net is _never_ give your credit card to anyone who suggests they will charge you, unless you have full control over that relationship.

It's the key reason why I subscribe to all my magazines and newspapers (key exception being the WSJ) through iTunes - single place to control subscriptions - with the added bonus that I get reminded every month that there will be a renewal coming up.

I also negotiated with my Gym to allow me to pay the full year up front + initiation fee to avoid having to give them my credit card - It was amazing how difficult it was for me to convince them to allow me to give them $410 up front for a $30/month gym membership. They really make a lot of money off of people who don't want to come into the gym and cancel, or forget to do so on their "Annual" anniversary when they get signed up for another year.

Most of us are in our early 20s when we discover the downsides of recurring credit card charges - I'm surprised that someone as savvy as Arrington is discovering that he can't just cancel his account to end those recurring charges - I thought it was something that students usually do and discover doesn't work. I certainly did when I was a student.

dclowd9901• 14 years ago

No, if you have purchases on your agreement prior to cancellation, it's obvious that you are beholden to these purchases. These are within contractual guidelines and sensible.

If a merchant tries to charge my card, and finds that they cannot, they can end their relationship with me, and if, for some reason, cannot reconcile outstanding costs through traditional means, can utilize collections agencies or any other means they wish to obtain their due.

This is not only nonsensical, but legally questionable at best, and I'm very surprised this is the first I've seen anyone bring a point against it.

ghshephard5• 14 years ago

My gym offers a membership - $30/month with credit card and a one year term, no initiation fee, or $50/month, $75 initiation fee on a month-by-month basis. When I sign up for the one year membership, I put my signature on a contract, indicating that I will oblige by all the conditions.

Should I be allowed to sign up for the one year term, and then cancel my credit card after a couple months?

Whenever you enter a contract, there are conditions that must be fulfilled to cancel that contract. Simply saying "I didn't read those conditions" or "I don't want the product anymore" is not a sufficient condition to terminate the contract. And thinking that you can get out of it by "canceling the credit card" is naive in my opinion.

eli6• 14 years ago

That doesn't "get you out" of the contract any more than paying with a bad check would. You still owe them what you owe them, regardless of how current your credit card details are.

AJ007• 14 years ago

If a recurring charge comes with a contractual obligation, then it should be up to the merchant to collect when billing information ceases to be valid.

lsc2• 14 years ago

>The net-net is _never_ give your credit card to anyone who suggests they will charge you, unless you have full control over that relationship.

huh. most people don't feel this way. I have setup my company to require action from the customer if they want to pay me; all the feedback I've gotten from this has been negative. People care more about the convenience of recurring payments than they care about security.

I use paypal, which doesn't really support pull billing; I send the customer a bill, and they pay it or they don't. Upon request, I setup paypal recurring payments, which seems to be fairly popular.

I do this in part 'cause I feel that pull billing (e.g. "charge 'em and hope they forgot to cancel") is a little scummy, but mostly because my billing system is a mess, and this way, the worst thing that could happen is that I end up asking people for more money than I should; no money is automatically moved, protecting me from that particular embarrassment.

jrockway7• 14 years ago

Paypal recurring payments are much easier to cancel than credit card recurring payments.

ars• 14 years ago

That's why I use a one time use credit card number with these things. If I want to stop the charges I just click "close number" and they are blocked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Payment_Number

aneth42• 14 years ago

Is anyone surprised that Michael Arrington has soured relations with a vendor enough that they'd refuse to talk to him? Not I.

The dispute resolution process deals with these sorts of things and punishes merchants who repeatedly violate rules. Strategy number one is to not be a dick. People respond better that way and you won't end up in the situations Michael Arrington always seems to end up in.

I probably deal with as many merchants and as much travel as him and have always resolved such issues amicably.

rdl5• 14 years ago

My solution to this is to use an American Express card. Every single time I've had a problem, domestic or international, they've been on my side, and disputes are easy to handle. (the correct Amex cards to have are Starwood Preferred Guest for USA use and Platinum for international or status (lounge access, etc.) use.)

learc834• 14 years ago

Interestingly the one time I had a chargeback dispute with an Amex customer--even though I won the dispute (I had clear evidence--video, signatures etc...)--Amex still credited both my account and the customer's for the full amount.

rdl5• 14 years ago

Amex is the Apple of the payment world -- they control and brand the whole thing end to end, and own the high end, charging a slight premium for some things when the market will bear it (and were both far larger premiums and lower volumes in the past).

With Visa/MC, it's a card association (until recently, a non-profit), and an issuing bank. The issuing bank may have a bunch of banking relationships with you (so you're unlikely to walk over a credit card), or only a credit card (so you're not that valuable to them anyway), and doesn't have as much incentive to protect the card association brand. End user consumers almost never contact the card association itself.

khyryk3• 14 years ago

What do you mean by "the correct Amex cards to have"?

rdl5• 14 years ago

Maximum value of rewards points and other benefits vs. annual fees.

Centurion (Black) is pretty much the same as Platinum, with a 6x higher fee. It used to be a lot cheaper than it is now AND have more benefits, but it's been substantially devalued. Platinum does provide a lot of perks just for having one (lounge access, etc.) worth about $500+/yr, as long as you travel. It also has no international fee.

SPG gives effectively 5% return if you use it aggressively. The problem is a high international fee.

chimeracoder7• 14 years ago

Yes, but you'll end up shafting merchants - c.f. my comment here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4440507

Note that in this case, the credit card company punished a merchant who wasn't even connected to the fraudulent transaction.

The rule of thumb is that the more lenient the company is for the customer, the more harsh they are on merchants, the higher their fees for merchants, the more reluctant merchants are to accept them, and the harder it is to find a merchant who will accept the card.

(Note how many businesses accept Mastercard and Visa but not AmEx).

charlieok2• 14 years ago

The basic affordances underlying credit cards are backward: “Here's my wallet -- go ahead and take what you think you need.”

Carrying a computer (i.e. phone) running a user agent can vastly improve the interaction. Something like:

1. Transmit an identifier from user agent to merchant via radio, barcode, or some other method.

2. Merchant's system asks user agent (either directly or through a service such as the user's bank) for a dollar amount.

3. User agent asks the user: "do you accept this charge? yes/no"

At no point is the merchant given a piece of information that allows them to charge whatever amount they want. The transaction isn't complete before the user approves the amount on their own device.

It's kind of amazing we haven't switched to something along these lines already.

Evbn• 14 years ago

Every month, your card company sends you a list of charges. If any of them are illegitimate, you tell the company, and don't pay, and they investigate. That's basically the same as your proposal. Your credit card number is like a public key, if you will. Checks are worse. They pay out immediately without asking for approval.

charlieok2• 14 years ago

No, it isn't the same. I don't want to wait until the end of the month. The information about this transaction is freshest in my mind at the exact hour and minute I enter into it.

I want a notification on my phone immediately:

"(Merchant X) requests a payment of ($Y). Do you accept this charge? ( ) yes ( ) no [ ] Auto-apply this answer to future requests from this merchant"

The notion that I shoudn't, by default, have a role in approving each and every transaction before it goes through is a holdover from the days when I didn't have an always-connected computer in my pocket.

If I never approve it in the first place, there's no wrong that needs to be righted, no fraud that needs to be investigated. I just got some spam asking for money. I marked it as spam to keep from being flooded in the future by the same spammer, and that's it.

olefoo• 14 years ago

I can already hear someone asking "Is it PCI Compliant?".

Unfortunately payment technology, and monetary exchange in general is so valuable that frozen accidents stay because implementing something better would be detrimental to an incumbent's revenue stream.

Bitcoin :P

cletus• 14 years ago

It is interesting that charges can be put through after a card is cancelled. I, for one, did not know that.

I've cancelled cards previously because merchants were unreasonable or unresponsive. Gyms are one of the worst for this. Cancelling a gym membership is an exercise in torture.

Anecdote: I was in an Equinox gym a couple of months ago, thinking about joining. I saw a "representative" who was happy to give a tour through the gym and explain the costs and benefits. For these sorts of things however I give a fake phone number because I loathe the follow-up calls from such places.

Anyway, at one point while standing around reception where there were 5 or so such representatives standing around the receptionist answered the phone. Someone was inquiring about closing their account. She said they had to speak to a specialist and none were available. What the...? No one else seemed to be with a customer. It just struck me as another tactic to make it more difficult to cancel.

Now for me this would be relatively easy. My company has a corporate membership so it can be deducted directly from payroll and when I say for it to stop, it stops. But honestly I can't condone these hard sell tactics by giving such companies my money.

Cancelling a gym membership should be as simple as a 2 minute phone call or (better yet) clicking a button on a Website (Equinox has a Website where you can reserve exercise bikes no less).

My only experience with dispute resolution was reasonably painful although not as bad as it could be. I ordered something online and the merchant called me to say that price was only when I bought it as part of a package. I said I didn't want it. He said fine. A week later it turned up anyway. I had the charge reversed. They applied it again. I had it reversed (again). I had to send the item back by registered post.

I think the lesson to take from gym memberships and similar fixed-fee for shared usage pricing models is that they create the wrong incentives. Gyms really want customers who pay every month but never come in so they can oversell their capacity. If gyms were pay-for-use you simply wouldn't have this problem. Likewise you could discount memberships for people who come in at non-peak times, etc.

Some point out the "you signed a contract" argument and agreed to those terms. To this I response: people have an innate sense of fairness. People will (rightly IMHO) reject unreasonable terms. If I don't pay my gym membership, I can no longer go to the gym. This isn't like failing to make a car payment.

Unfortunately consumers seem to like monthly fees so you kind of get what you ask for.

egypturnash• 14 years ago

I suspect the economics of gyms might be such that if it was pay-per-use they'd either have to charge insane rates or go under. It's not so much that consumers like monthly fees as that the gyms like them because they're easy to forget about.

ams61104• 14 years ago

Most gyms charge attractively low fees because they are typically a year or more contract, with an auto-renew clause, and they know that the vast majority of the members will use the gym a few times and then stop coming. If all their members used the gym regularly, they'd be packed to overflowing.

There are gyms that charge per use, the fees may appear higher but if your dedication to exercise doesn't turn out the way you planned you will be money ahead.

For the best chance at getting a payment plan that doesn't count on you having low motivation to exercise, look for locally-owned independent gyms, avoid the Bally's and other franchise/chain operations.

fusiongyro2• 14 years ago

Consumers aren't paying to use the equipment. They're paying for the sensation that they care about their bodies and for the peace of mind of knowing that if they had time or motivation they could go work out. Interest in something = spending money on it (at least here in America).

dustingetz• 14 years ago

its a market. all the gyms in the market use slimey tactics. you can start your own gym if you like. good luck competing though. TLDR: don't ever start a business that competes on price.

callmeed• 14 years ago

I've never met a gym that allowed cancellations over the phone. It always requires a signature in person (fax at best) in my experience.

Bill_Dimm• 14 years ago

The pay-per-use gym is an interesting idea, but compared to the fixed-fee gym it creates a bit of a disincentive to get in shape. If going to the gym more often means that you'll have to pay more, you'll probably go less often.

nucleardog• 14 years ago

I can't speak to every gym, but having done some IT contracting for a few I can speak to the ones around here.

Check your agreement. Around here if you call they'll give you the runaround, but every single one accepts a cancellation through signed, registered letter giving 30 days notice. A few of them won't even accept it through any other means (even if you drop off a signed letter, etc).

awfabian2• 14 years ago

Just never give authorization for recurring billing. I use my credit card for one-time payments for monthly services all of the time, and I never authorize recurring billing. When you do that, you establish an on-going relationship with the merchant that isn't so easy to cancel. But you can cancel their authorization to do recurring billing in writing, and then any charge made on that ground should be refunded to you as a simple matter of course.

It generally works out pretty well if you just never authorize automatic recurring billing.

adient2• 14 years ago

I'm not sure why the author is so afraid of the chargeback process. If you request a merchant to stop charging you and they refuse or don't acknowledge you, your credit card company will contact the merchant on your behalf to cancel the relationship or block future transactions. It only takes a few minutes to submit the request.

pappabetalar• 14 years ago

Hmm I have a Visa connected directly to my bank account, (debit?) So far so good, but i also have an app on my phone (Android) from my bank (Handelsbanken) that lets me check/transfer money from my accounts. But i can also LOCK my Visa from being used outside of Sweden and on the internet. So every time i want to buy something on the internet or going to another country i open the app open my card for internet/international use and tada.

This service is free and i can Unlock/lock my card as much as i want too.

mmcnickle• 14 years ago

Thankfully in the UK, Direct Debits[1] are used for most recurring payments and have a lot of protections in place, namely:

1. The payer has the right to cancel the direct debit at any time.

2. The payee cannot alter the date or the amount of the payment without prior notification/authorisation.

3. The bank has no ability to alter the payment instruction after it has been authorised.

4. There is a guarantee in place to return funds in case of a dispute. The bank will process an immediate refund, and it is up to the payee to chase payment. The banks play no part in the dispute resolution process.

My Evil Undead Credit Card

Related Stories