Barclaycard....Advice needed

That's not my understanding. AIUI it *allows* them to cancel (or rather it allows them to weasel out of paying up in the event of a claim when premium payments are not up to date).

Typically they would not exercise this option straight away, in case the non-payment is due to some technical glitch of which the insured was unaware.

Well, everything is arguable. But arguing about facts is not generally particularly fruitful.

If he stops payment, this does not send an unambiguous signal to the insurer, who sill not know whether the stoppage was accidental or deliberate. That why it's expected, in the latter case, that the intention be communicated explicitly. And of course it ought to be in writing, to forestall the "cancellation" being initiated by some prankster.

Well, that depends on what you mean by cancellation. The insurer will withdraw cover by making a note that in the event of a future claim, this is to be dishonoured. But really there is an *agreement* or contract. *The contract* can be cancelled by the insured only by giving explicit notice, not implicitly.

That's because he's obviously a bounder and a cad who isn't bothered by the nicety, or rather lack thereof, of dishonouring an agreement.

I thought we *were* talking about a CCA. Re-read the original post. It was about cancelling a *card* account. You don't get DDs on one of those.

But it shouldn't be.

In message , Ronald Raygun writes

you may have been, but A Frame & I werent.

Suggest you re-read the post to which I was replying. we *were* talking about DDs.

In message , Alex Heney writes

But it is. Sorry.

Ronald Raygun wrote: []

That's why I phoned them.

True, but I did give 'em the policy number, and they said they were recording the call...

OI! Do you think InsCos care about niceties and never dishonour agreements? :-/

Anyway, it was curtesey call to 'em as I was moving to a CAM (& checking c/a DDs) and didn't need the 6-quid a month term cover any more.

Maybe I should have written to them to give them 30 days notice of a change in *my* T&Cs that allow me to cancel by phone, and let *them* end the contract by failing to agree to my changes....

It's almost as amusing as vehicle InsCos that have *no* grace period, and fail to come up with a competative renewal - I had one call-centre droid claim that it would be illegal of me to fail to send back their /unsolicited/ cover note if I didn't renew with them.

rgds, Alan

I now it *is*.

I am saying the system needs changing.

There should not be *any* repeat transaction that is not cancelable by telling your bank/card provider.

It would be impractical, because the repeat system is just tagged on to the normal one-off system. Fundamentally there is no list of approved payees associated with every card account, as is the case with DD. It's arguable whether it's feasible to implement the facility for repeat transactions. In fact, there isn't even (is there?) any way of telling whether any particular incoming charge request is one-off or repeat.

At best, I think, one could implement a blacklist system, whereby specific retailers are barred from charging an account, but that is not without its problems either, quite apart from it needing to be implemented on an international scale.

There isn't. All transactions are cancellable after the fact. Just dispute them and then it's up to the retailer to prove they had the authority to make the charge; this is exactly the same as with one-off transactions.

At best? How about closing the account as in the case of the OP. Seems simple to me. The whole exercise appears to be designed to trick people into continuing with an agreement when they do not wish to. There was no need for credit to be extended and no reason for the OP to be in debt.

Just what is your problem with writing? It's cheaper than phoning, but I'll concede, if you're into that sort of thing, less entertaining than speaking to a call centre.

And my hypothetical prankster could have easily discovered the policy number.

InsCos always act in utmost good faith. :-)

what, like in front of the Queen?

He may well turn out to have been right, and it probably says in the T&Cs that they will send you this, in which case you couldn't really it was unsolicited.

Oh yes, I agree, if you atually close a card account down, this should automatically "blacklist everyone", i.e. implicitly withdraw authority for further payments originated from that date on.

I was thinking about the normal where you wanted to keep the card but just to get rid of one awkward merchant.

In that case, why can a one-off (cardholder not present) transaction be declined if the expiry date is wrong, the wrong security code is quoted etc, yet a CCA is always paid regardless?

Because presumably the expiry date was correct when the initial transaction was charged, and likewise the security code, if used.

In other words, what matters is that the card was valid at the time authority was first given, and the details would then be kept on file to be used for repeat transactions.

"Ronald Raygun" wrote

When the retailer provides those same details to the card co *after* the expiry date (so they are now invalid), then how does the card co know to honour the transaction?

You've suggested that they don't know whether it is a CCA or a "one-off", yet a CCA will be honoured but a "one-off" will be declined; how do they know whether to honour or decline, given the same (now invalid) details?

I don't know. It could be that your assumption "so they are now invalid" is false, i.e. that the mere fact that the expiry date has passed is insufficient to render a transaction invalid, provided the authorisation by the customer was given before that date (and presumably that date accompanies the request for funds).

See above. "Now invalid" might be false. Consider also the case of pre-authorised one-offs. Suppose you hire a car. You may be asked to authorise a non-specific payment to cover a damage deposit, which won't actually get charged until and unless you return the car full of dents and scratches. Suppose further that the hire period begins during the last validity month of the card, but ends during the first or even second months thereafter. Technically, a payment request for the deposit might be declined on the basis that it's a month or two too late.

I'm just speculating. I don't really know how they do it or whether they distinguish. One possibility is that there is a two stage process. First you obtain authorisation from the card company (on line or by phone) and are given an authorisation reference number. This number may or may not then be used to request a payment. In the case of normal one-off shopping transactions the payment *might* be requested at the same time as the authorisation, or the payment requests may be deferred, e.g. by being accumulated into weekly or monthly batches, or they may be deferred pending some conditional event (such as a call being made against a deposit). Or it might never be used (if the deposit is not required).

I imagine that provided the card was in date at the time the authorisation reference was obtained, this authorisation code remains valid forever, and can be re-used. OK, in that case, if the card company keeps track of whether it's been used before, then it would, as a side-effect of this, know that it was a CCA transaction.

There are two options which the acquiring bank (card issuer) can specify. One is "accept prevalid if authorised" and "accept expired if authorised". These particularly apply to CATs (continuous authority transactions). In these cases the transaction will be referred.

The authorisation code is not "carried over". It's either provided automatically by the "terminal" or - if authorisation is required - by the authorisation centre.

At 12:03:32 on 12/07/2006, Tim delighted uk.finance by announcing:

There's a CCA flag, certainly with UK transactions.

This system has apparently recently changed. Retailers now submit a file of all their CCAs which are sent to the respective issuers. The issuers respond to either confirm or correct the card details.

Wow! Does that mean card companies now have lists of active CCAs, and that customers can ask for specific ones to be deleted?

At 13:34:06 on 12/07/2006, Ronald Raygun delighted uk.legal by announcing:

No. It means that retailers always have the correct card details so there's none of this trying to cancel the card or report it lost/stolen to try to get out of a CCA.