Go Cardless Facility

[Dudley]

Does anyone know about the App "Go Cardless"? I notice I am paying £8 per month. I don't remember registering with them (probably a one-off query) and I wonder what I am getting for the money? I am not in business just a private individual.

[gingejbee]

Are you actually using the service to collect payments from anyone?

[ubasses]

It is a service that collects direct debits on a company's behalf.

[emeritus]

Go cardless seem to collect direct debits on behalf of businesses. Do you have an £8.00 direct debit with anyone ?

[Buenchico]

Go Cardless is a way of allowing businesses to accept direct debit payments without having to meet banking requirements for taking such payments from customers' accounts directly. (i.e. Go Cardless has convinced the banks that it's a reputable company. It them acts as a broker so that other firms, who might not be as able to meet stringent banking requirements, can accept direct debit payments through them in return for a fee).

If you're seeing 'Go Cardless Ltd' on your bank statements it doesn't mean that you're paying anything to that company itself; it simply shows that another firm is using Go Cardless to collect direct debit payments for them.

So you need to ask yourself whether you've actually signed up to anything which costs £8 per month. If you can work out what it is, and you're happy to continue with the arrangement, then there's obviously no problem. Otherwise you need to use the Direct Debit Guarantee to get your money back:
https://www.directdebit.co.uk/DirectDebitExplained/pages/directdebitguarantee.aspx
(See the links down the left about 'Cancelling payments' and 'Incorrect payments').

You can find out where your money is ultimately going to from here:
https://gocardless.com/payment-lookup/

[Dudley]

Hi Guys, thank you for responding. It's a false alarm thankfully. I didn't realise that the payment was on behalf of our window cleaner and not a subscription for the Go Cardless company. Sincere apologies.

[Dudley]

P.S. I've been away from The AnswerBank for several years and just rejoined and I'm glad to see that Buenchico is still around. You were always a very good source of knowledge always giving useful advice. Many thanks.

[Buenchico]

Thanks, Dudley.

At least we've hopefully helped to make it a bit clearer about what's happening with your payments. (For every £8 you pay the window cleaner gets £7.80, with Go Cardless retaining 20p as their fee for handling the transaction)