Continuous payment authorities
Do you deal with consumer complaints about continuous payments authorities (CPAs) also known as recurring payments?
This page will give you an overview of the complaints we can help with and how we approach them.
On this page
Do you have a CPA complaint?
See our guidance for consumers on continuous payment authorities (CPA).
Complaints we deal with
People come to us when they're unhappy because:
- they’ve struggled to get their card provider to cancel a CPA
- the card provider didn’t cancel a CPA in time to stop a payment
- they didn’t authorise a CPA on their account
- they didn’t know they were entering into a CPA, often through a 'free trial' offer
- they didn’t agree to the amounts or frequency of the payments
- they didn’t agree to renew the agreement after a fixed term.
Rules on continuous payment authorities
When we look at complaints about CPAs, we use the regulatory and legal standards that applied at the time of the event that the consumer is complaining about. These include:
- Payment Services Regulations
- The Consumer Credit Act if the payment is from a credit facility.
How we resolve complaints about a CPA
We only look at complaints you've had an opportunity to look into first. If the consumer is unhappy with your decision, or you don't respond to them within the time limits, they can come to us.
Each case is different, so what we require will vary. But we’ll look at the facts and evidence from both you and your customer. We’ll usually consider:
- relevant laws and regulations
- regulators’ rules in place when the event happened, including the Consumer Duty
- guidance, standards, code of practice in place at the time of the event
- how the CPA was set up
- any discussions you had with your customer about the CPA
- the card’s terms and conditions
- the underlying agreement between the customer and merchant to consider the wider circumstances
- what you’ve already done to put things right.
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If a customer asked you to cancel their CPA, we’d expect to see that you:
- did so without unnecessary delay
- refunded any unauthorised payments.
We’ll consider:
- how long it took you to cancel the CPA
- whether the customer gave you enough time to cancel the CPA
- whether your failure to cancel a CPA in time had an impact on the customer.
We recognise that it can be difficult to stop a CPA, but you shouldn’t hold the customer liable because of this.
We recommend that you find a solution that won’t disadvantage them. For example, you could monitor their account and refund any further payments from a cancelled CPA. You can then recover the money from the merchant in your own time.
In every case, we’ll think about whether you treated your customer fairly. This will include looking at:
- what you knew or ought to have known about their situation
- the reasons for any advice you gave, or decision you made, and whether that was fair.
If we think you acted fairly, we’ll tell your customer why.
If we don’t think you acted fairly and we uphold the complaint, we'll tell you what you need to do to put things right. This could be by:
- paying compensation to your customer for any distress or inconvenience they’ve experienced
- compensating the consumer for any direct unauthorised payments, unless the merchant has already refunded these
- refunding any unauthorised payments, charges or interest you’ve applied to the customer’s account.
Case studies
Bank cancels debit card leaving Jade struggling to pay her rent
Banking Continuous Payment Authorities
A continuous payment authority surprises Scott
Banking Continuous Payment Authorities
Business Support Hub
Businesses and consumer advisers can contact our Business Support Hub on 020 7964 1400 for information on how we might look at a particular complaint, or for guidance on our rules and how we work.
We also work with businesses and other organisations to help prevent complaints.
