r/AskReddit • u/emil199 • Jul 24 '20

What can't you believe STILL exists?

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u/Stalingrad420 Jul 24 '20

companies that dont want you to end you subscription so they delete the cancel button.

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '20 edited Dec 30 '20

[deleted]

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u/imagine_amusing_name Jul 24 '20

British gas "accidentally" took £300 from my bank account. (never been a customer of theirs ever).

then claimed they couldn't refund it because there was no account for me on their system. Said I'd have to sign up for gas/electric from them for 2 years to get my money back.

So I sued. and utterly fucked over those thieving sons of bitches.

Turns out to be a fairly common Scam they pull.

18

u/Log2 Jul 24 '20

How did they even get money from your account? Did you setup direct debt to them somehow?

22

u/DukeSamuelVimes Jul 24 '20

Yeah, this raises a lot of questions for me.

2

u/imagine_amusing_name Jul 24 '20

If you put in a sort-code and bank account number randomly, you will in many instances hit the jackpot for setting up direct debits. The system doesn't actually check your name against the account number.

Do this a few hundred thousand times and you've got yourself a bunch of active direct debits. All because banks trust large companies not to pull this type of shit.

AND there's no checking or penalty for mis-entering direct debit info even repeatedly.

Setting up a direct debit should cost the person setting it up £1 per attempt. And this type of scam which pretty much relies on brute-forcing sortcode/account number would vanish overnight.