Barclaycard....Advice needed

It's ridiculous for Barclaycard to say you need to speak to Mercers. You don't how Mercers any money. If Barclaycard won't explain what is owed then you have a good defence.

I don't think this life assurance is related to your Barclaycard account. It's just something that they got you to take out through knowing you had an account.

Surely you can stop paying a life insurance scheme at any time? You just won't get any benefits!

I can cancel the life insurance at anytime but apparently canceling the card doesnt cancel the life insurance payments that come off the card (a bit like cancelling a bank account and the bank still paying out on all your direct debits instead of stopping them). whats really getting to me is no one is able to provide me with the number to cancel this insurance and i just feel that im never going to get rid of this stupid card and now my credit rating is shot to pieces

The usual procedure is to notify Barclaycard that you dispute the payment(s) which obliges them to look into it. If they refuse to credit the payments to your account or to supply you with the payee's details in full, then tell them you wish to invoke their complaints procedure and that you intend to complain to the banking ombudsman (nb, the latter will not be willing to deal with your complaint until you have exhausted Barclaycard's own grievance procedure) and that ought to make them take you seriously.

I assume you signed a continuous authority to deduct these payments, and cancelling the card makes no difference, but you should have had a card statement, all the same, when the payment was taken. To stop the payment you must contact this Mercer firm, not the card company.

Tiddy Ogg.

I'm not an expert and I am only talking in practical terms, but -

If you stop paying then you are in effect cancelling the policy. You cancelled the card which was the method of payment. I'd check your credit record to see what it looks like and then ask Barclaycard to change it. Send a letter to the chairman at Barclays if you don't have any success. They won't want any bad publicity and they certainly seem to be behaving unreasonably.

Yes, that makes sense. They look like the insurance company. I was thinking that they were a debt collection firm!

So if littlemissnaughty27 hadn't paid for insurance what's the problem? She just hasn't been covered!

I don't think that is very naughty!

In message , Peter Saxton writes

1. Mercers are Barclaycard's Debt Collection company.
2. You should cancel the continuous authority with the insurance company. Barclaycard can give you details of who it is they are paying on a continuous authority
3. Make sure you copy your cancellation letter (and ensure it is a letter, sent recorded delivery and keep copies) to Barclaycard.
4. Add a notice of correction explaining the default to your credit files, if indeed they have defaulted the account. (Or if your a really lucky persuade Barclaycard to remove details of the default. They wont want to but I've managed it in the past)

I did enjoy the Python-esque occasion when I phoned up to cancel a life policy - paid by DD - that I no longer required:

Me: "I'd like to cancel my life policy." Them: "You have write to us to cancel it." Me: "Can't be ar5ed with that; how about if I just stop your direct debit?" Them: "You have write to us to cancel it, if you stop the direct debit then you will no longer be covered" Me: "I don't want to be covered, so I'll just stop the direct debit then, OK?" Them: "You have write to us to cancel it." Me: "No I don't - you've just told me cover will stop if I cancel the DD

- that's what I want" Them: "err, You have write to us...." Me: "Thanks, goodbye"

rgds, Alan

The insurance company *are* Barclaycard!

Read the OP, the insurance is "Barclaycard Life Plus".

In message , Alex Heney writes

I did read it. He has no information at the moment as to who he should write to. Barclaycard, the card issuers, could well be different from Barclaycard the insurers. If he rings Barclaycard, they can give him contact details for the insurers.

At 15:56:03 on 08/07/2006, Peter Saxton delighted uk.finance by announcing:

Not quite. Accounts are not closed immediately precisely because there may be outstanding CCAs which the card issuer is obliged to honour. It's the cardholder's responsibility to cancel any CCAs.

Which they have no obligation to do if it's correct.

If you use call centres you get monkeys!

I thought the insurance company and the card issuer were one and the same.

Thanks for stating the obvious. But what is wrong with asking them if it's unreasonable or unfair?

At 13:42:46 on 09/07/2006, Peter Saxton delighted uk.legal by announcing:

They may be part of the same group but they may well not be the same company and may not use the same systems or share every piece of information. Barclaycard Masterloan, for instance, is not administered by Barclaycard but by Barclays Direct Loans. Barclays Merchant Services (the acquiring arm) has nothing to do with Barclaycard (the issuing arm), etc. I would imagine that the insurance is handled by Barclays Insurance Services rather than Barclaycard itself.

That may well be true, but is that not an internal matter within Barclaycard and should not be of any concern to the customer? As they go out of their way to promote all of the products under the 'Barclaycard' name, is it not reasonable for the customer to consider and treat them as a single company and have the expectation that information provided via the published customer service mechanism will be promulgated 'internally' to all affected parts of the organisation?

At 14:28:41 on 09/07/2006, Graham Murray delighted uk.finance by announcing:

Not necessarily. It is the responsibility of the cardholder to cancel any CCAs. The question I would have is why can CCAs not be handled by Direct Debits?

What do you mean "handled by"? Do you mean why have CCA's rather than DD's?

At 18:25:12 on 09/07/2006, Peter Saxton delighted uk.legal by announcing:

I meant 'like' rather than 'by'.

I think there should not be such a thing as a CCA.