greenpeace have just taken a grand out of my bank account

greenpeace are a bunch of ugly, silly fuckers anyhow, go and give it to a local.

I don't know whether you're over-reacting. Depends whether you think Friends of the Earth do the same good things for planet earth as Greenpeace do. Just cos they're shit and maths and apologies, does that cancel out all the good they do? And this is one big massive fuck-up, surely it will NEVER happen again.

BUT FUCKING HELL IF THIS HAD HAPPENED TO ME I WOULD BE SERIOUSLY FUCKED MONEY-WISE AND THIS MAD AND ANGRY AND WOULD PROBABLY ALSO BE IN THE MOOD TO CANCEL MY DONATION.

But on calm reflection would probably just continue to give them money.

x-post: you're probably right, anthony. it's one of those legacy donations ... i've had the direct debit set up for years, and haven't given it a second's thought in all that time.

and zoe, that's the point: i've no fucking idea what greenpeace are getting up to right now. to tell the truth, when i heard the report on the radio i had to think: "do i give them money or not?"

there's a resolution for 2006: sort out my direct debits and make sure i'm doing something useful, rather than bunging the odd tenner to arbitrary places.

Ah come on - mistakes happen all the time, I don't see why you should take it personally. Yeah it's a pretty big mistake, and and apology would be nice, but they've admitted liability and *will* repay all charges I'm sure.

there's a resolution for 2006: sort out my direct debits and make sure i'm doing something useful, rather than bunging the odd tenner to arbitrary places.

That's definitely a good idea. I couldn't even remember is I had any Greenpeace DDs or not...

Haha - ditto. I was paying £5 a month to protect a credit card I cut up and paid off three years ago.

I'm not a fan of Greenpeace and I'm not sure why, which is probably the same as giving them money and not being aware of it. Except I'm £10 a month better off for my ignorance.

They should be on the phone to you saying a big sorry, mind.

xpost

Greenpeace ADDED $1,000 to my account! I'm sending it to the Jolly Whalekillers Association of Japan.

I think you're overreacting a bit

if you hadn't said they could take any money from your account at all and they took £1000 -- I'd say you could react a little more than you have/are

it's genuinely not the money thing that's pissed me off - like i say, i had the cash, so it doesn't make any practical difference (as long as i get it back, and i can't see why i won't). what really annoyed me was the bloke on the radio, who had this incredibly weary tone of voice and didn't seem to understand why anyone might actually be a little upset.

i'm sure i am over-reacting, but hey: over-reacting is what i do best ;)

Yeah, but, like man, yeah, it's like, yeah, like the boho thing to like, yeah, sound blase, even if, like, you caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaere, man. I think this is my terrible G/peace prejudice coming through. I do apologise.

Make no mistake, someone will lose their jobs over this, providing that it wasn't a purely technical mistake of some kind.

However, I do think you'd be are over-reacting by cutting off Greenpeace because of it. They have (apparently) reacted pretty quickly to reverse things. What you need to cut off is giving Greenpeace, or anyone, the ability to direct debit your account. Sure it's convenient, but do you really want to give ANYONE the ability to regularly stick their hand in your wallet?

I'm not sure how things work in the UK, but here in the US most banks allow you to set up an automatic payment. The difference is that you authorize your bank to PUSH money out of your account regularly, rather than letting someone else PULL it away. A subtle difference, but I've found you have a bit more control. Mobile phone providers, gyms, etc. like you to set up automatic direct debits, but if you want to cancel, you'll often find that they won't let you do it immediately -- they'll almost always say it takes 30 days. Meaning that they'll take one more payment AFTER you've decided you don't want to give them anymore. Great scam.

They needed the money to finance this wedding. Everyone'll get a card, I suppose.

x-post: from what i understand, that's the difference between direct debit (pulled) and standing order (pushed). very few organisations these days ever mention the words "standing order" - probably because they like to have the flexibility to automatically alter payments (the gym being a case in point).

DDs are protected by all manner of guarantees etc, meaning that even if anyone does get slapped with automatic bank charges because of this, it'll all be refunded. however, it could also cause all manner of other problems. i pay my gas, electricity and phone charges by direct debit; by doing so, i qualify for all manner of discounts etc. if, however, i miss a payment, the small print tells me the discounts go right out of the window.

say this disappearing grand had wiped me out; taken me way into the red. the bank wouldn't honour the other direct debits. sure, it wouldn't have been my fault, but i'd still have to go pleading to everybody to whom i owed money, explaining the situation and hoping they'd understand.

like i keep saying: it's not about the money, or "o noes, greenpeace made a fuck-up". it's about their attitude, which seems to be nothing more than a vague shrug. so they've acted quickly to reverse things: i'd fucking hope so! i still don't have an apology, and i still think the guy on R4 this morning was a fucking wank. if/when i cancel the donation, i will make this clear to them.

no, attitude is important, you're right.

i don't think we (i) would get any discounts from direct debit. they just bombard you with the idea that you won't have to think about the payment. but if the charge is regular -eg i pay a
flat $40 for mobile service -- it's just as easily for me to set up an automatic payment (standing order) and not think about the payment either. but if i got a $5 monthly discount, i might think about it.

I think you're perfectly right to be pissed, but agree that you shouldn't cut them off because of it. I really would consider dropping the direct debit thing though. I mean even if it was an honest mistake, the fact that an honest mistake like that can happen at all makes me very nervous about the direct debit thing.

This has happened to me several times WRT automatic withdrawals - once it was with a credit card, once with the cable company, and once with a hospital bill. I ended up getting my money back only after some fight. Personally, I got the impression that some ne'er do well was helping himself or herself to a 'loan'. I do wonder about the security of such programs, but as I don't get half my mail, it's the only way I can make sure that bills get paid. In any case, I switched most of my accounts away from automatic withdrawals to a monthly electronic notice, so I can still pay electronically, it's just that I have to give the 'green light' before the money gets deducted.