Direct Debit Mandate Rules?

Hi,

I have a personal loan, which is repaid monthly by direct debit. The date of the direct debit collection coincides with my salary date, so as to avoid any problems. I got the loan at a good rate, and it’s well within my budget to pay it each month.

However, last month I didn’t notice until it was too late that the loan company failed to take the direct debit on the correct date, and it was late by nearly 2 weeks. By that time, I had assumed that all my regular bills for the month had been taken care of, and anything left in my account was surplus.

This late collection put me in the red, and I had to transfer funds from a savings account so I could lift cash before my next salary date.
Please don’t come to obvious conclusion that I’m a clot and should have noticed I had extra cash in my account, as I had monies coming in from a dental plan, so I thought I had a bit more to play with than I did.

Anyway, I guess the question is this…

Am I protected in any way under the rules of the direct debit mandate against this sort of thing, and is it worth my while complaining to the loan company? (sorry, that’s 2 questions)

I’ll no doubt get a service charge from my bank for being overdrawn for the one day I was in the red, but I think I should get the loan company to refund me the amount, as I feel that they put me in that situation by failing to collect on the correct date.

I guess I’m guilty of being overconfident in assuming that the loan company had taken their pound of flesh for the month, but I’m still a bit hacked-off about them not taking the direct debit when there was plenty of money in my account.

Any suggestions / advice?