Charged £12 for missing a Direct Debit on a cancelled card

MarkyMarkD

It says clearly in MBNA's terms and conditions that a DD payment will be collected for the amount printed on your statement, irrespective of any payments made in the interim.

I don't quite understand the chronology. How exactly did you pay the balance due, and had this money credited your MBNA account by the time you "phoned to cancel"?

Cancelling a credit card is a pretty meaningless exercise. There's no point doing so until you've had a final, nil balance, statement. Similar, cancelling DDs is pointless until you've had a final, nil balance, statement.

If you have a card account with the same DD policy as MBNA (i.e. most credit card operators) and you want to clear the balance, you should pay the balance due LESS the DD amount. Then the DD will clear the balance to nil, and the account will be able to be closed.

MBNA certainly won't perceive they've done anything wrong. Being uppity as others have suggested will get you nowhere; phoning and admitting contributory negligence (even though you don't think you did anything wrong) will almost definitely get you the £12 back unless you've asked for refunds previously.

hostman

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

To the number I gave you earlier?...because I don't think they work outside 'normal' office hours (if you did ring that number today, maybe it transferred to a normal CSA?).Don't give up. Many other people have been in your situation and had the £12 refunded.

Please post the outcome tomorrow.

No, general customer service. I tried the loyalty number you provided earlier and as you say they are closed at weekends and so will try again tomorrow. Seems unlikely a "loyalty" help desk will do anything for a cancelling client, but maybe I'm just cynical.

MarkyMarkD: I paid the balance off in full online through a Solo card, resulting in a £0 balance, end of July, it cleared a few days later (i.e. appeared on my online statement) and so I called MBNA the same day to cancel the card (I believe this was 1st August). The minimum payment date was 6th August, this is when they attempted the DD. If the DD had debited successfully, they would have needed to credit my bank account £17.17 as the balance was aready £0.

YorkshireBoy

hostman wrote: »

Seems unlikely a "loyalty" help desk will do anything for a cancelling client, but maybe I'm just cynical.

This is why I, and MarkyMarkD, have said be careful not to aggrovate the situation (humble pie, apologetic, contributory negligence etc)...and another reason not to cancel a card until you have a zero balance/letter of closure.

If the DD had debited successfully, they would have needed to credit my bank account £17.17 as the balance was aready £0.

I end all my MBNA deals (and I've had a few) that way, ie with a positive balance. In your case, you'd ask them for a refund, and only when you had this in your bank account (3/4 days later by BACS transfer) would you then cancel the card.

MarkyMarkD

I haven't ended any of my deals with a positive balance; I've always netted off the final DD from my final lump sum payment. Why wouldn't you do it this way, YB?

If the DD had debited successfully, MBNA would have needed to credited the OP's MBNA account, not their bank account, with £17.17.

YorkshireBoy

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

I haven't ended any of my deals with a positive balance; I've always netted off the final DD from my final lump sum payment. Why wouldn't you do it this way, YB?

It gives me a 'genuine' reason to call them. I say I've finished up with a positive balance, and ask what I should do. When they suggest I 'spend' it I say "to be honest, I was thinking of closing the account". At that point you're generally passed through to retentions. To be fair though, since I got hold of the customer retentions number I've been cutting out the middle man!

Also, my current deal is 0.9%, not 0%, so it's not so straight forward (don't want to gamble on the estimated interest figure being correct, so they'll get an extra tenner or so).

If the DD had debited successfully, MBNA would have needed to credited the OP's MBNA account, not their bank account, with £17.17.

Don't follow your logic here. If the OP has a positive balance on the card (due to the DD collecting), then the only way is to return it to the current account from whence it came...isn't it?

hostman

We have a result.

"Manager guy" called me this morning, I explained the situation and he will be crediting the account the £12.00.

speedbird1973

Yorkshire boy.

If the OP was told to cancel the DD.. why should he eat humble pie/admit contributary negligance etc etc?

I've discovered that if you're in the right, then forcefully putting your case forward, not accepting any liability and being willing to proceed ones claim as far as possible gets me fast effective results. If I've screwed up, then humble pie is the way to go!

oh and congrats on the win OP!

MarkyMarkD

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

Don't follow your logic here. If the OP has a positive balance on the card (due to the DD collecting), then the only way is to return it to the current account from whence it came...isn't it?

I'm talking about the first transaction you are talking about the second.

The DD transaction is:

Dr Bank Current Account
Cr MBNA Card Account

The refund transaction is:

Dr MBNA Card Account
Cr Bank Current Account.

But the refund transaction wouldn't have happened automatically. So the transaction that MBNA would have had to do is the first, not the second.

normanmark

Also a word of advice, you need to declare at the start of the call to the advisor that you're recording the call for your own records. As they have an obligation not to continue the call if they so wish (most don't but you just need to cover yourself legally).