Consumer Focus survey shows banks and building societies give wrong or no advice on cancelling recurring payments

Banks and building societies are giving consumers incorrect advice about how to cancel some recurring payments, which leads to cash disappearing from their accounts without their knowledge or consent, a consumer body has warned. Consumers paying for some goods and services give companies their credit or debit card details and sign up to a continuous payment authority (CPA), which authorises the company to take regular payments from the account. The payments can be cancelled through the card provider, but as Guardian Money revealed in February consumers are being given bad advice when they try to do so. An undercover shopping exercise by Consumer Focus has revealed just how poor some of the information being given is, with 44% of advisers surveyed giving the wrong answer or none at all when asked how to cancel a CPA. Consumer Focus contacted major banks and building societies' customer services advisers more than 300 times to test staff awareness of how consumers should go about cancelling a CPA. Customers should cancel the payments through their bank, while also advising the supplier or retailer that the CPA is being cancelled. But just 56% of staff gave the correct answer.....Read more here--: Consumers are getting 'bad advice' on continuous payments | Money | guardian.co.uk