Gah. So frustrated. Merchant keeps taking a regular payment from me and Monzo won't stop it

When I was in the USA, I subscribed to slingtv… Great. However, now I’m back in the UK, Monzo won’t stop the payments to sling and sling customer services isn’t accessible from the UK. Their email is an auto responder with “please go to our website”. The phone line is useless as well. And the website is just “sling isn’t available in the UK”. This is costing me £25 a month. Can I close and re-open my monzo account ? Will this resolve it?

Why won’t Monzo stop it?

Dirty and quick solution is order a replacement card. Better solution is to use a VPN to make it appear like you are in the USA, login to the site and cancel it.

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You agreed to the payment schedules, it’s not Monzo’s responsibility to stop them taking the money, and even if they did, the company can still come after you for the money.

Try a VPN as above.

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Whatever you do, don’t just cancel the payment because you run the risk of ruining your credit rating.

I also agree with the suggestions above. Call them or use a VPN, the latter being the quickest and easiest.

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How would it affect credit rating at all? Subscription services don’t show up.

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They could in theory start recovery proceedings for the money in the long term.

Cancelling a regular payment doesn’t necessarily stop the money being owed. That’s the devil about this particular form of recurring payment.

I’ve never seen any recovery shown on a credit report with the exception of anything that originally would have shown on the credit report in the first place.

Be good to know of examples, I’m surprised of that.

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maybe it’s things like County Court Judgments? tbh I’ve no experience in this area so this could be way off.

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Just to check terminology, what are you expecting Monzo to do in this case?

Refuse the payments? Block them like they can do gambling payments?

I’m not suggesting they aren’t debts legally, but their recovery wouldn’t show on your credit report.

Do you pay by card? In which case, replacing it would probably solve the issue.

If you need to cancel via the website, you could see if you could find a free US VPN, and use that to log in and cancel.

I must admit, it all sounds a bit kafkaesque and I’d be miffed if it were me. I’d hope that Monzo would be more help than saying that there was nothing they could do, though. What did they say?

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That’s why I hate continuous authorities… no control, you can’t revoke them if the company plays hardball. If only everyone took direct debit.

(Yes moneysavingexpert says that banks must honour the request to stop, but I’ve yet to come across a bank that will… including, it seems, monzo).

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The problem is, there really is little Monzo can do. Stopping the payment doesn’t necessarily stop the contract. People can and will complain if their bank stops a CPA and the merchant then pursues them for the debt. Or if the CPA gets reinstated by the merchant and the money taken anyway.

It puts any bank in between a rock and a hard place.

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Why don’t you use a VPN (use a free or trial one) and login to the website you want just like in the USA? :man_shrugging:

Agreed, but the starting point has to be consent for money to come out of your account. So there, in my view, must be a way to cancel continuous payment authorities.

In this example, that would surely mean that Sling TV would then get in touch with the account holder to have a reasonable conversation before starting any legal action. I think that’s all that is really wanted here?

What we need to avoid is the scenario where any company can continue to take money at any time, come what may.

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Technically the company can get a debt agency for you if you stopped without telling them or following the terms on the contract as you agreed to pay them

But they’d need to demonstrate reasonable effort to request payment of monies owed. Given the OP can’t even speak with them, then they’d fail that very basic test.

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Regardless of our views on whether the poster should or should not continue to pay, Monzo should absolutely stop any payments like this going out of an account when requested to by the customer. That’s just what they should be doing.

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Why should they?

Should they stop Amazon charging me for Prime? Or Apple for Music? Or Netflix?

“I’ve “tried” to cancel it, now I want you to stop them charging me while I still receive the service.”

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