Best way to stop certain payments coming from your account?

Bleating Lamb

Hi all,

Firstly would like to apologise for the long post:)

Like a lot of people with children with a games console (X-Box here) my kids have a monthly subscription of around 12 euro for a 'Gamepass' for the games on it. I set this up initially for them on the understanding that it may not be continued each month if they were spending too much time on it etc.... or that they would not use my card to purchase other add-ons on the X-Box for games like FIFA .

All was going fine until around 3 months ago when one of the kids changed the password to access the account with the 'Gamespass' on it.....and they genuinely cannot remember the new password:(

So now we are paying 12 euro a month on a 'Gamespass' that can't be accessed....and can't seem to get into 'delete' this account iykwim........so we set up a new account using the same debit card.

I also have a few monthly subscriptions/payments coming out of this debit card for newspapers etc that are over 30 euro a month and they all add up so would like to cancel them.....for whatever reason they are not listed as Direct Debits on my internet banking so I can't cancel them easily.

I went into my local AIB Branch last week on other business and mentioned to a member of staff in passing that I had these monthly subscriptions that I would like to discontinue but couldn't see a way of doing it on internet banking.

The staff member said to me that things like that had happened to them before and all they did was report their card as missing/lost which meant that the final 4 numbers would be changed on the newly issued replacement card.

I thought this seemed like a circuitous way of cancelling a card to avoid these repeat charges but didn't remark on that during our conversation.

So just wondering is reporting a card as lost like that the best way to stop payments like that coming out of your account if they don't seem to be down as 'direct debits'?

Or would 'losing' a card like this.....leading to a reissued replacement card for your use, cause trouble for important monthly payments to leave your account like Mortgage and VHI payments?

Thanks for anyone's thoughts on the above questions.

B.L.

Dymo

Your Gamepass account is on your Microsoft account, just login there and cancel it. If you don't remember the password you can reset it.

Have you tried contacting the companies directly and asking them to cancel?

28064212

"Losing" your card is no guarantee of anything. Depending on how the payment is set up (on the company's side), it can be automatically applied to the new card - the payment is linked to the account, not the card. You'd have to completely shut down the credit card account and start a new one.

What you have here is a "Continuous Payment Authority". They're convenient, but have significantly less protection than a direct debit. Your bank should be able to stop them, but getting the right form filled out with all the right information and submitted to the correct place is probably going to be an absolute pain in the proverbial (and TBH, I wouldn't believe anything a front-of-house bank staff member says that isn't precisely within their position's remit, they're often woefully mis-informed).

By far the most likely approach to achieve success is by resolving this with the companies. All major companies have ways of recovering access to accounts, and if they don't, they have customer service departments that can assist with cancellations. You should remember that you entered into a contract where you agreed to continue paying - cancelling the payment method doesn't end that contract. The companies will be legally entitled to come after you for missed payments. You need to engage with the companies to end the contract

Jim2007

You have entered into legally binding agreements with all these companies and the only way to ensure that these charges stop is to going and follow the instructions for cancelling your subscriptions. Personally I never uses a credit card for a subscription, I always use PayPal as it is easy to cancel.

Cancelling you card may work but it is not guaranteed because cancelling a card is not the same as closing an account and charges may still come through. Furthermore if it happens a few times it is possible the bank decides not to provide you with a card going forward.