Automatic Credit Card Payments

[shadrack]

Being full timers we have regular payments automatically paid for on our VISA card. One was an annual renewal of our Norton Antivirus program. It was scheduled to renew this month. BUT, since we purchased a new computer with a different security program we sent a letter to Norton to not autopay the premium. Also, VISA had given us new cards with new account numbers so we didn't think Norton could charge our new cards. But they can and did. It seems that some companies are able to force payments onto new credit card accounts from the old closed out credit card accounts, whether you like it or not. About three phone calls got it squared away, but it's scary what these companies can do. And you CANNOT tell VISA or Mastercard to not pay an automatic payment. And unless you request and can prove you asked the auto payment be cancelled, by the company collecting the payment, you are liable. So, everyone should be aware of what is going on. Be alert.

[Midniteoyl]

Dump Norton.. there are several free solutions.

[FDchief]

Symantec, Norton's parent company is very hard to get good customer satisfaction from. My only contact with a live person was after many attempts, finally got one in Mumbai! And, could not help me.

Like the other poster said, dump Norton. Go to Avast, way better, and free

[RickO]

Thanks for sharing. That is really scarry.

rick


PS: my one time using Semantic customer support chat line was actually pretty positive.

[okie-dokie]

My son is a computer engineer and works for EXPERIAN one of the 3 credit reporting companys in the USA. We have used KASPERSKY for several years and love it. The program cost a little more, but worth it. Call the bank the card is on and threaten to contact the FTC if the charges are not reversed or taken care of.

[gripper]

If my credit card company refused to cooperate with my wishes, I'd "DUMP" the credit card co.

[Brigadoon]

This is one reason I do not use a credit cards for automatic payments. I use on-line banking so that I decide who gets paid and when.

[swamphog]

I'm sorry to hear this as I was thinking about doing the same thing as you did, guess I will try the on line banking, although not happy about that either.

[sandersmr]

If you go online to the Norton site and cancel the autopayment, it works a lot better than a letter because you turn off the switch by canceling online.

[denochs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brigadoon This is one reason I do not use a credit cards for automatic payments. I use on-line banking so that I decide who gets paid and when.

In addition to using on-line banking, you can set up automatic payments the same as with a credit card. The good thing about on-line banking is you can update it or cancel it in real time. No delays.

Credit card companies are just loan sharks in disguise.

Dave

[shadrack]

We don't use Symantec anymore. And we pay off the credit card every month. It's most convenient for us to have automatic payments made for the Verizon, DirecTV, Escapee yearly dues, Good Sam dues, and the like instead of waiting and possibly being late because of the lag time in having mail forwarded. And we always pay the card off with online banking. My point was that these places can force thru a charge onto a new credit card number from the old expired card. I spoke with both VISA and U S Bank people and they stated they could do nothing to halt this practice. Take it for what it'd worth.

[RickO]

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadrack My point was that these places can force thru a charge onto a new credit card number from the old expired card. I spoke with both VISA and U S Bank people and they stated they could do nothing to halt this practice. Take it for what it'd worth.

And a good point it was. Hopefully it's eye opening for a lot of us. I use my credit card for nearly everything and have all repeating bills automatically paid by the CC and then my credit union automatically pays my CC bill each month. This allows me to track nearly all expense via Quicken very easily and we've just built checking the charges against our CC into our regular Quicken updates.

It is a little shocking that a company can force through a charge on an account which was never authorized to pay it but I think I would just submit a fraud claim with my CC company... something I've had to do a few times in the past... and they reverse the charges and place the burden of proof on the vendor who charged the card.

Rick

[patty98311]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brigadoon This is one reason I do not use a credit cards for automatic payments. I use on-line banking so that I decide who gets paid and when.

Ditto

[paz]

That's the reason we don't like to set up automatic payments from either the credit card or our checking account. It's too hard to stop them.

We have numerous companies and entities set up as payees from our checking account, but the bank does not release payment until we review the bill (received online) and say "OK." For monthly payments, we use our email to send ourselves a reminder just in case the bill doesn't come through. We've had online bill notifications get stuck in our spam folder.