The AA withdrew £72.00 from my bank account today without my knowledge or permission

[Paulus]

I had to play the disability card, as they say, even though I do have such problems. Like I said, the receiver of my call was a nice chap, but even so I did say I have sight problems, when he asked if I hadn't seen their email. I think if I'd just said I hadn't seen it, it might've been a different outcome.

Have you been onto the AA to make sure the membership has been cancelled, or you could face the same problem next year.

 

[HLaB]

Glad you got us sorted. Such practice is highly immoral and I’m surprised it is even legal!

A lot of insurance companies do it too, I suppose at least you aren't left without cover if you forget :-/

 

[Psamathe]

E-mails are an unreliable communication service, particularly from volume senders. eg One mailshot service mails are completely discarded to sll Apple e-mail (iCloud, custom/personal domains hosted on iCloud, etc.), not sent to SPAM , not put in a deleted/bin mailbox, not returned to sender, just discarded every time.

Some people justifiably get irritated by company mailshots they never subscribed to so report the SPAM (even just moving it to Junk mailbox) and providers learn and enough people will create a higher probability of mail not getting through.

AA practice would seem to me a form of SCAM and I'd be reporting it to the banks.They have no authority to take the money. Most of these payments are setup ss auto-renewing or not auto-renewing so no ambiguity about not being covered.

 

[Psamathe]

A lot of insurance companies do it too, I suppose at least you aren't left without cover if you forget :-/

The two insurance companies I deal with (car and house) you setup and cancel auto-renew as your choice. I frequently switch it on and off. If I'm going to be away at renewal time then I'll switch on auto-renew yhen switch off when I return home.

 

[Regular.Cyclist]

A lot of insurance companies do it too, I suppose at least you aren't left without cover if you forget :-/

If accy’s case though he states that his membership was dormant for a few years before the AA acted to restart it without explicit consent.

 

[Alex321]

A lot of insurance companies do it too, I suppose at least you aren't left without cover if you forget :-/

Not quite.

What a lot of insurance (and other companies) do is to have a direct debit, and they automatically renew using it. And you usually have an option when you take it out to opt out of auto renewal.

That isn't the same as restarting lapsed membership, which is what the AA have done here. And doing so as a result of no reply to an email is highly immoral in my view. There could be any number of reasons why an email was missed

 

[Ming the Merciless]

But did they send you your free pen?

 

[HLaB]

If accy’s case though he states that his membership was dormant for a few years before the AA acted to restart it without explicit consent.

That definitely doesn't sound legit 😮

 

[HLaB]

Not quite.

What a lot of insurance (and other companies) do is to have a direct debit, and they automatically renew using it. And you usually have an option when you take it out to opt out of auto renewal.

That isn't the same as restarting lapsed membership, which is what the AA have done here. And doing so as a result of no reply to an email is highly immoral in my view. There could be any number of reasons why an email was missed

Yeah, restarting a lapsed membership sounds well dodgy. I suppose there is a chance it never lapsed and they did the same last year without Accy noticing :-/

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

Going back over a decade now, I used an online holiday insurance and I somehow missed repeat annual payments coming out until days after the third renewal, when we hadn't been abroad since the year I took out the original. Wasn't happy, got a refund for the third renewal!

 

[Accy cyclist]

If accy’s case though he states that his membership was dormant for a few years before the AA acted to restart it without explicit consent.

Yes, that's what happened. Two weeks ago I got a Lloyds Bank mini statement out of the ATM outside my branch, then saw the AA had taken £72.00 out, without my knowledge or consent! I got it back the other day, by the way, noticing so on another mini statement I got out the same ATM today.
To be honest, I'd forgotten about it, so if they hadn't put the money back into my account I might not have noticed.🫥

 

[Accy cyclist]

Yeah, restarting a lapsed membership sounds well dodgy. I suppose there is a chance it never lapsed and they did the same last year without Accy noticing :-/

I don't think they did, but now you mention it, they could have done.🤔 Mind you, I do think I'd have noticed £72 going out, but if someone was to take fivers and tenners out, I probably wouldn't notice it, as I go shopping in Tesco nearly every day, usually spending just over or under a tenner, so if someone took a tenner or a fiver out without my authority, I'd probably think it was a Tesco debit.🙄