How to get my £70 back?

December 15, 2008 6:45 AM

How can I go about disputing a Visa payment when it's more than 6 months since the payment was made (without my knowledge)?

This is in the UK. On my bank statement (Nationwide FlexAccount) from April I have a mysterious debit of about £70 which seems to come from a collections agency in Northamptonshire, UK (identifier is DIRECT LEGAL & C BRACKLEY). I can think of no reason why a collections agency would be coming after me. I found their website and called them and they say there's no record of my name in their database, under my current or previous addresses, and that I should contact Nationwide to dispute the payment.

I did nothing for several months because I had surgery and was recovering. I wrote to Nationwide's Visa Disputes Chargeback Team in August, explaining the situation, and a few weeks later got a letter back saying that I was too late to dispute this.

Any idea what I should do next? I would like my £70 back, or a satisfactory explanation as to why it was taken from me. Should I explain about my surgery and hope Nationwide are sympathetic? Or should I be going after the collections agency?

posted by altolinguistic to work & money (7 comments total)

The question here is, how much is your time worth. If my conversion is correct, that's about $45 or so.. If you put more than a couple of hours into trying to get this money back, you're losing in the long run..

I would write it off.
posted by HuronBob at 7:12 AM on December 15, 2008

More like $100.
posted by electroboy at 7:26 AM on December 15, 2008

Your conversion is wrong, HuronBob. It's more like $105.

Call your bank, explain the company had no record when you called, try to get a sympathetic ear. Sadly, I think it may be too late as well. I've been burned on similar things, it's just made me check all my statements incredibly well.
posted by piratebowling at 7:27 AM on December 15, 2008

And I meant bank and/or credit card company, sorry about that. I realized it's probably not a debit card.
posted by piratebowling at 7:28 AM on December 15, 2008

I don't have a credit card linked to that account, by the way.
posted by altolinguistic at 8:37 AM on December 15, 2008

I would escalate it with the bank, and explain that you were medically unable to get in touch with them in a timely manner. Be polite, but insistent.
posted by Dasein at 9:06 AM on December 15, 2008

If that doesn't work they might have a written complaints procedure you can use, and then you can escalate to the ombudsman as well. And you could also pursue the enterprise that charged you instead.
posted by grouse at 8:39 PM on December 15, 2008