Don't pay late payment charges - I don't!

the*dark*one

sylwright wrote:

I have just had an argument with Nat West Credit Cards as I had a large purchase in the previous month and paid the full amount online from my bank on the 9th November, the payment date was 10th November but they say the payment didn't reach them until the 11th November so they charged me almost £40 in interest. When I phoned to query this their attitude was one of "tough".

The same thing had happened to me 2 months ago when I missed the payment date by 1 day and the man I spoke to that day said, "I've looked back through your account and notice you almost always pay the full amount so these charges are discretionary and I will refund the charge". This time I asked to speak to a manager who was very rude and patronising who told me because I had the charges refunded to me once, they wouldn't do it again as they only do it once every year.

I was not very happy, I accept that my payment reached them one day late, but in fact it was taken from my Nat West bank account 2 days earlier so they obviously had it anyway.

I have complained to NatWest Bank who were equally unsupportive telling me that they are just obeying the rules.

I have told them that I intend to cancel the card which I couldn't do over the phone as it is in my husbands name and I am an additional cardholder.

I am about to write a letter to cancel the card because of this and wonder if anyone can suggest anything I could do or say.

Thanks

Try here: http://www.bankchargeshell.co.uk :T

MORPH3US

I always moan about charges like this, after all it pays to moan if it gets you some money back.

I usually use the "I will take my business elsewhere" line. It usually works, and if it doesn't then I try someone else.

First Direct recently started to charge for their text messaging service. They wrote me a letter a month ago telling me this and I received it ok, just forgot to cancel them. So when I saw the £2.50 charge, I sent them a mail saying I never received any notification about the new charges. They messaged back and said we sent you a letter. I messaged back saying that I never received any letter and that I wanted to take the matter further, next day I got the £2.50 refunded even though they "believe the charges to be fair"!

Same with my Natwest Mastercard, purchased an item that broke and retailer was an absoloute a***hole, ignored my letter. Wrote to Mastercard telling them that they were jointly responsible for it etc etc. They said only if the purchase is over £100. So i said to them, "the whole reason I shop online on my Mastercard is for the protection. If they aren't going to protect me I might aswell use my debit card" Funnily enough, got refunded the very next week!

M

Rafter

If you have paid a nat west credit card off using a nat west bank account then I would kick up a right stink! How can they possibly justify a 4 day transfer for accounts in their own name.

However, if you really do pay in full each month why not set up a full direct debit - if anything goes wrong then it is totally their fault.

R.

Robert_Sterling

wolftom2001 wrote:

I was told by a barrister (and on reflection, 50 per cent of them are wrong when they come up before the beak).

Most of the time they advise clients and the case does not come to court.
They also advise clients when their is not court case involved.
Sometimes when I have been involved in civil litigation the barrister has said to his client "I will put you in the witness box and run your evidence past the judge and the defendant. Then when the defendant has mulled it over I will try to strike a deal with his barrister. The other barrister advised the defendant to do a deal. The barristers are often there as mediators rather than in a situation where one is right and one is wrong.

Robert_Sterling

JoseChungsDoomsday wrote:

I'm by no means trying to be awkward here, but it baffles me as to why you sign a contract knowing that a company has these practices and enforces them?

It seems strange that since a court of law declares that punitive charges are not enforcable why these companies STILL manage to charge them

If all offers of credit cards have unfair terms you may well decide that all things considered you will put up with it until some knight in shining armour comes to your rescue in the shape of https://www.bankchargeshell.co.uk. More power to their elbow.

They still manage to charge them because on the one hand the charges are measured in £Billions per annum and on the other hand only a limited percentage of the card users make a fuss for whatever reason.

I have had two charges made because twice in fifty years my current account went over drawn by a trivial amount for a few days. In each case, before I knew the charge was unenforceable, I wrote and said that I did not doubt that the terms and conditions notified me in advance that they would make these charges. I did not ask them to make a refund of their charges. I asked them to make an exgratia payment. In each case they did so.

Robert_Sterling

When you say "before too long" are you talking decades here or longer than that.?

The many days delay in processing cheques has survived half a century of computer use and is still going strong.

Fox Hunting seems to have survived three labour governments.
Admittedly you now have to take a bird with you as well.

jimmyjim_uk

wolftom2001 wrote:

"You don’t have to pay the “late payment” fee that credit card companies charge."

Not my words, I was told by a barrister (and on reflection, 50 per cent of them are wrong when they come up before the beak).

However, today I tried it, and it’s true: credit card companies know that they can’t make these charges stick.

I got my two credit card bills, where I had one card with a large (recent) sum added on a very small sum (around £60) plus another card with about £50 outstanding. On both there was also a “late payment charge” of £20. Part of the reason I was late in paying was that the Barclaycard site wasn’t working, again. But that wasn’t the justification I was going to use for refusing to pay the late payment.

So I phoned the Barclaycard people. “Hello,” I said. (Calm, polite, in control.) “I’d like to pay my balance, but I’m not going to pay your penalty charges.”

OK, said the man. Let’s go through some security questions… “now, you say that you don’t want to pay the late payment charges. These are applied for being late with a payment.”

So I see, I said, but they’re not enforceable. You, Barclaycard, haven’t incurred the costs you’re levying here; my missing this payment by a day or two does not add up to twenty pounds of costs for you. It’s not enforceable - it’s an unfair contract term.

He said that they had to levy these charges, that they were averaged for everyone, and there was a whole department for dealing with late payments. Well, I haven’t heard from them, I said. You haven’t had to write me a solicitor’s letter. You haven’t had to get bailiffs in. Charge the costs to the people to whom you have to do those things. There’s no reason to levy these costs on me. (I stopped short of saying “It won’t stand up in court” because that might seem like tempting fate.)

We both stayed polite and calm (which is a key thing in dialogues like these: if you get angry, they win and will make your life hell). But, he said, your bank charges you for an overdraft, and they’ll send you a letter and charge you for it. (This was where he was really beginning to stretch it; for a bank, dealing with an overdraft and *writing a letter* counts as exceptional, whereas the credit card companies simply whack a charge on your next bill.) Well, I’ll speak to my bank if it tries that, I replied. But it’ll be between me and the bank.

It was just getting tothe point where I thought we were going to have to go around the buoy again, with me saying “unfair contract terms… not justified by your costs…”, when he abruptly seemed to decide he had better things to do, because he said “I see you’ve been a customer for some time now.. so we’ll forgive [it might have been some other word, like ‘waive’, but I don’t recall exactly] the late payment charges.” A small troop cheered in my heart. And so I paid up the fair balance of my cards, including the ridiculous interest (and there’s another story..).

So, learn from me: you too can do it. Ring them up (don’t bother with letters; too slow, not interactive enough). Be insistent; it’s about the contract being unfair. Let 'em have it!

Good on you wolftom2001!!! :money: The thing is sh*t happens and when things do go wrong these financial institutions are first to sting you with unjustifiable charges.

M_Thomson

dchurch24 wrote:

I don't think it'll be too long before we see the back of these types of charges.

I actually think that due to people like yourself bank charges will increase not get lower. I feel that banks should be sympathetic with people who have suffered, illness, loss of job or a death in the family etc. They should work with them and come to some arrangement and minimise charges for them. I have 0 sympathy for people like the first poster on this board who claimed he or she could not pay their Barclaycard Bill because the website was closed. Come on!! Take some responsibility here. You have many options to pay your bill, branch, telephone, direct debit etc. You sign a set of terms and conditions at the outset of any credit agreement which if you have signed on the dotted line you should adhere to.

It looks like some credit cards may start charging annual fees again. Why should I have to pay to subsidise somebody who calls up knowing that it was their fault that they have been charged and then moans till they get it reversed?

M_Thomson

MORPH3US wrote:

I always moan about charges like this, after all it pays to moan if it gets you some money back.

First Direct recently started to charge for their text messaging service. They wrote me a letter a month ago telling me this and I received it ok, just forgot to cancel them. So when I saw the £2.50 charge, I sent them a mail saying I never received any notification about the new charges. They messaged back and said we sent you a letter. I messaged back saying that I never received any letter and that I wanted to take the matter further, next day I got the £2.50 refunded even though they "believe the charges to be fair"!

This post illustrates the point I made in my post above nicely. The original poster knew about the charge and yet lied to say they didn't!

Robert_Sterling

The lack of truthfulness of Morph3us does not of itself detract from the truthfulness of the statement that the sums charged by banks, albeit inaccordance with their terms and conditions, are extortionate.

For some evidence of this read "Bob and Laura's" story at

http://www.bankchargeshell.co.uk/charges.html.

and the press release at

http://www.andrewgeorge.org.uk/press/520.htm