Payments taken without consent

[Anonymous User]

Not sure how this works so I need help please.

I originally signed up for a free month back in March and once it was up, I cancelled it. Without realising it, since July, 3 payments have come out of my account without my consent, what can I do about it?

thanks

[RoyB]

@Anonymous User 

Based on your description, you need to find out who is using your account, and how, and stop them.

If you had failed to Cancel properly, there would be more like six payments taken; so it looks like somebody, possibly even you, started watching NowTV again about three months ago, on your account.

Who would have details of this? Who has access to your NowTV devices? Family? Even a small child can restart a subscription just by watching something, and saying Yes to restart the Passes.

Friends? Housemates? Have you given away a live NowTV device with your account still on it?

Go to My Account/Bills & payments for the exact timings of these payments.

Go to My Account/Passes & vouchers to see what subscription(s) is/are running.

Go to My Account/Devices to see what has been used, and when, to watch at your expense.

Most importantly, go to My Account/Settings & PINs and set a Payment PIN, so no-one can buy another Pass on your account without knowing this.

Then Cancel any running Pass(es).

How much further you may have to go depends on whether it looks like your account details are compromised or not, so work through the above, let us know what you find, and we can give further advice if it looks like your account details are known to someone who shouldn’t have them.

[Anonymous User]

Hi Royb
Thanks for the advice!

I’ve had a look at what you suggested and have added the PIN but looking at the rest of it, it wasn’t anyone, me included!

I don’t understand how it was dormant for a few months and then suddenly restarted again! I’ve checked the date on my works calendar as it was reactivated on 22nd July at 8.15am and I was at work by then!

What do I do now?

Thanks

[RoyB]

@Anonymous User 

OK, if it wasn’t you, you need to know who else it could have been.

As above, check My Account/Devices to see if the device or devices used on that date or since are all ones you recognise or not.

That should tell you if the reactivation was internal or external.

If internal, on a device you recognise, e.g. a TV at home, via an App on it, or a Stick or Box plugged into it - partner? child? housemate?

The Payment PIN you have set will prevent a recurrence.

But if it is, or you suspect it is, external, delete the offending device, and change your NowTV password right now. 

But even this won’t stop an external person carrying on with existing passes as long as they stay logged in, so then immediately force a log out on all devices, as here

This should stop them coming back, and secure your account once more.

You may have been defrauded of three month’s Passes, if it was external, but I doubt even Inaction Fraud would do anything about that for you; try to figure out how the breach occurred and how you can stop that happening in future, and chalk it up to experience 😥

[Anonymous User]

I have just had this exact thing, today on my account I had both a movies free trial and a week of sky sports. I was downstairs in front of the TV and the laptop was turned off (only other device with access) so there is no way somebody physically bought it.

[Anonymous User]

I've just had the same problem today I've been signed up for 2 free trials without my consent and my movies pass was cancelled a couple of weeks ago but that's not the end of it I had already cancelled this pass in March and then if by magic it had uncancelled itself and charged me 11.99 at the end of April.

[RoyB]

@Anonymous User @Anonymous User 

Work though my reply above, 01/10/2019 to @Anonymous User , first lockIng things down as I describe there, and then doing a little forensic analysis on the activity on your account, as I also describe there.

And in case there may be a duplicate account involved, read the NowTV Help on Unexpected Charges, and how to resolve where these might be from, and/or apply for a refund.

[ukbobboy]

@RoyB  @Anonymous User @destm @FLAT5B 

Hi Roy

Just want to mention one thing, all these guys that have suddenly found themselves paying for a monthly subscription they know nothing about could be victims of Now TV's helping hand (sarcastically said).

You know, as well as I do, that Now TV will help  restart customers' dormant accounts just in case those poor unfortunates have forgotten how to. Doesn't matter that you are not or don't want to watch anything, all that really matters is that you have a live Now TV account and well resourced  bank account.

In fact, and when you think about it, they're doing you a favour by taking your money.  After all, you'll only go and spend it somewhere else anyway.

If any of you guys break that little code, don't get mad I'm only kidding.

UK Bob

PS. It's hot, gonna get another cold beer and put on some music.

[RoyB]

@ukbobboy 

While NowTV will Indeed occasionally give dormant customers a month’s pass for free, to nudge them into perhaps resubscribing, this does not continue beyond that month, and certainly does not resurrect a paid subscription, even if you take advantage of the free pass.

If it did, that would be theft, pure and simple, and so a completely indefensible practice.

Even the free pass can be an issue, since its unwished for presence can prevent the customer from taking advantage of any special offers that are occurring at the time. When Live Chat was available, this was only a small problem, as they could super-cancel the free pass so it stopped immediately; but even this was an annoyance to the customer.

Now there is no Live Chat for the duration, this is a bigger issue, albeit one that NowTV are aware of. And some of us would like to see such passes, if they are to be made available at all, requiring active customer consent before they take effect. But still not restarting a month-to-month subscription; something we know NowTV is capable of arranging, as this is how the short-duration Sports passes work.

[Simon-J]

Hi @ukbobboy 

We occasionally offer free Passes to our valued customers for a number of reasons. If a Pass is pre-loaded by us, auto renew is switched off so that a customer doesn’t get charged after the offer expires.

Please see this article which outlines other possible reasons for why an account might be being charged.

Thanks

Simon

[Anonymous User]

Can you do something about us not being able to update our payment details??

For an organisation this large to have such a crappy web interface is wrong. Can’t we get it sorted??

[RoyB]

@Anonymous User 

What is it that you can’t do, exactly?

I have just accessed the relevant screen two different ways, and it seems to be entirely available to me. (Although I didn’t actually try to change anything, having nothing to change).

[Anonymous User]

Everytime I go to update payment card details it takes me to sign up with now tv and logs me out of my account.

I paid last month through the automated telephone thing so thought it would’ve saved my card details from that but had an E-mail saying I’m behind. Not sure what to do now other than phone back. Bit of a ball ache when I’m walking an hour back from work and cannot sort.

[RoyB]

@Anonymous User 

What is it that you can’t do, exactly?

I have just accessed the relevant screen two different ways, and it seems to be entirely available to me. (Although I didn’t actually try to change anything, having nothing to change).

[Anonymous User]

This is insane. The same is happening to me, The last time I used NOW TV was March/April 2019 to watch GOT. And then Ive just seen that my "Free Trial" Was activated in March 2021!

2 years after!

If its to incentivise dormant customers, I agree, Its technically fraud and stealing without consent!

I went to chat and the customer service boy on the other line said its not his fault i didnt contact them first in the first place when this happened so he can't give me the full refund!

This is ridiculous. Any help here in getting this money back?

[gavs82008]

@Anonymous User 

Best to send an email to customer support. Address in the below picture. 

 

[RoyB]

@Anonymous User 

While agreeing with @gavs82008 that contacting Customer Services is your best option, here are a few nuggets of background:-

Now do not start Free Trials that turn into paid subscriptions. That would indeed be theft.

They do (or used to, at least) offer Free subscriptions that do not turn into paid ones. (Though these are/were problematic as they can prevent said customers taking up Now special offers, so they may not do it any more).

If Now offered you a Free Trial, they must have sent you an email, otherwise you wouldn’t even know about it. Do you have, or recall getting, such an email?

Having a Now account without a Payment Pin is not a good idea, especially if you share the account at all. It means anyone with access to the account can take such a Free Trial, and stiff you with the ongoing charges.

Access to your account can be leaked by giving someone access to your TV with an open Now account on it, or using your Account on someone else’s TV and not logging out when you have finished, or scrapping a Now device without first resetting it to clear your account details.

In all of these cases, having a Payment Pin set will prevent anyone else from starting new passes.

You can see if your security has been breached in this way by looking in your Account at the Devices page, and seeing  if there are any devices you don’t recognise, or time stamps that don’t represent your own usage on devices you do recognise.

And in your case, this would be any time stamp at all since April 2019.

The above are the sorts of things that Customer Service will no doubt ask you about.

[Anonymous User]

Hi @RoyB 

Nowtv DO give you free trials that turn into paid subscriptions that is exactly the problem that led me to start this thread

Kind regards

Daniel

[RoyB]

Hi @Anonymous User 

You didn’t start this thread, @Anonymous User did.

You posted in it, saying you had been given two free passes. These are not in dispute, but you did not say that this made charging recommence for you.

You will have seen the Community Manager, @Simon_J, posting above to state categorically that Now do not have any policy of doing this.

I am not saying that mistakes cannot happen, but in the case of one of these, Now would be able to see that they had offered a free pass and payment had restarted without customer action, during the duration of that free pass, and should make a refund immediately.

As we have seen, Now know almost from minute to minute when watching is taking place on your account, and on what device(s); and so in the case of unexpected charges, it should be possible to know what passes were restarted when, and on what devices. And you can ask them for that information.

They don’t, though, know if it was actually you; but they do know it was on a device on which your account password had been input at some stage.

And it’s easy to get wrong; we gave a smart TV we no longer used to our son, and he innocently bought a series from Amazon Video on it, and it came off my credit card because I had not thought to log out of everything on the TV before passing it on. So it was quite fortunate that we had kept it in the family….

Finally, my understanding is that once you have used a pass on a Now account, you aren’t entitled to a further free trial on that type of pass. So the only way there can be another one is that Now gave it to you; any third party with access to your account could only ever take a free trial of a pass you hadn’t ever used.