Your bank can stop a subscription payment without the company's permission
The most useful consumer right almost nobody knows about, and what to say when a bank tells you otherwise.
Head of Consumer Guidance
Most card subscriptions run on a continuous payment authority. It is not a direct debit and does not carry the Direct Debit Guarantee, which is why so many people believe the only way to stop one is through the company taking the money.
It is not. You can tell your bank to stop it, and the bank must comply.
The rule
Under the banking conduct rules, a customer can withdraw consent for a continuous payment authority by notifying their payment service provider. Once you have, the bank must not execute further payments, and it cannot insist you contact the merchant first.
If it takes payments after you told it to stop, those payments are the bank's liability and are recoverable from the bank rather than the merchant.
What banks say, and what to say back
"You need to contact the merchant to cancel."
Reply: "I am withdrawing my consent to this continuous payment authority. Please cancel it and confirm in writing. If you decline, please treat this as a formal complaint and issue a final response."
"We can only block it, not cancel it."
A block that lets payments through is not compliance. Ask for written confirmation of exactly what has been done, and diarise the next payment date.
"You are still contractually bound to pay."
That may be true, and it is a separate question. Stopping the payment method is not the same as ending the contract, but it stops the loss growing while you deal with the contract.
Do both
Tell the bank and tell the company, in writing, keeping copies. The bank instruction stops the money. The company notice deals with the contract. Doing only one leaves a loose end.
Getting past "we never received your cancellation"
In-app cancellations frequently produce no confirmation, which leaves you with nothing when the company denies it.
Two things help. Screenshot every step at the time, including the confirmation screen. And. the one people never think of. your bank's records can prove your cancellation timeline. If you ever rang to ask about the payments, that call is logged, and a subject access request will produce the note.
We have recovered years of payments on exactly that basis: not the customer's evidence, but the bank's own record of a call it had mishandled.
Reclaiming what has already gone
- Payments after you told the bank to stop. claim from the bank. Strong position.
- Payments after you cancelled with the company. chargeback against the merchant.
- Payments from a trial that was not clearly disclosed. arguable further back, on the basis that required pre-contract information was not given.
Worth doing this afternoon
Open your banking app and look at the last three months of card payments. Not direct debits. card payments, which sit in a different list and are easier to overlook.
Most people find at least one thing they had forgotten. At $10 a month, three years of not noticing is $360.
Topics
Ben Whitfield
Head of Consumer Guidance
Ben writes the guides and templates that let people run their own claims without paying us anything. He is aware of the tension in that and considers it the point.
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