Clydesdale Bank promising then refusing

martinandev

Hi, we have received £150 worth of bank charges, because clydesdale bank use a shadow payment system, the money is initally removed from your account when you pay via your maestro card, then the amount just dissapears from your internet and telephone banking and goes back into your available balance. we were not happy about this so we took it up with the branch, they said that they were not willing to refund the charges, so they advised us to contact the customer engagement team. Mind you the bank were also quite nasty the way that the spoke to us, they told us that we needed to check our internet and telephone banking more often, ( hmmm i check it minimum 10-15 times a day!!!) due to the payments "dropping off" we had £240 available, so popped out to do some shopping, came home, then checked the balance, was all good, had around £60 still available, then...... the next day checked it we were £70 overdrawn!!! because the "shadow payments" had gone back on to the account. so after a bit of a an argument with the bank, we got through to Gordon Sinclair in the customer Engagement team in Glasgow, now he promised us that within 4 days we would have our bank charges returned someone would call us back and that if we had any more charges to just call them and they would add it to the sheet to get refunded. yay we thought simply solve. so we thought, we phoned back on the thursday to see how it was going, got advised that "we will call you back before 5pm. Ok we thought, 5pm came no call, called again on friday, "sorry the lines were too busy to call you ill see whats happening, Gordon advised us to go to our bank remove all off our funds from the account so that it could get put through as a hardship case and it would be dealt with by the end of the business day. ( his supervisor Linda Mooney agreed with this on the phone that this was the best way to go.) so we wait and we wait and we wait, to cut a long story short, we finally found out on thursday this week that they have decided not to refund the bank charges as they said that they did not promise it also they did not advise us to remove all of our funds out of the account, so customer engagement has lied to us has caused us an extra £75 worth of bank charges in a week let alone all of the stress, my wife has M.E and i have osteoartritis, we have a 19 month old daughter and to get us through the weekend we have had to apply for a crisis loan from DWP, all because we got promised the £150 back and now they have refused it, this matter has now been taken up to the ombudsman because i feel that in this day and age banking systems should be up to date, and if the money has been spent it should not go back into your available balance. We have it in black and white that the transactions drop off and go back into your available balance.

Anyone have any advice of what to do?

thanks martin and ev

bengal-stripe

That is the way all debit cards operate: you make the payment, the money gets ‘earmarked’ (taken off your available balance), then, when the merchant submits his claim it gets deducted for good.

Sometimes merchants are late with their claims. If it is not claimed within a number of working days (maybe five) the ‘earmark’ falls off. That does not mean that the merchant has lost his money: whenever he puts in his claim, it will get paid. (I have had payments appear some three months late.)

The only way you can avoid that, keep a tally and regard every payment as having gone, as soon as you present the card; regardless of how long it still hangs around in your account.

martinandev

thanks for your help, i guess that the bank should have explained that to us when we opened the account, the annoying thing is that on the internet banking it does not show that you have an available balance and a cleared balance, the bank turned round and told me that they do not have any way of telling what money has been spent on the card???? But then i phone up Royal Bank of Scotland who also operate Maestro and they told me that their system gives you a available balance and a cleared balance, so surely it is down to Clydesdale/Yorkshire banks banking technology?

Coupon-mad

bengal-stripe wrote: »

The only way you can avoid that, keep a tally and regard every payment as having gone, as soon as you present the card; regardless of how long it still hangs around in your account.

Doesn't everyone do this, it's common sense?

If a customer has recently used their debit card/paid a bill by cheque/or has got a DD due to come out then the 'available' isn't really available.

Sorry OP, I do think it's down to the customer to keep a tally of their own outgoings and not just 'believe' the available balance at any given time. But hopefully in your case the Bank will possibly refund part of the charges as a goodwill gesture due to their own misinformation. But don't try to blame the debit card system.

jjm26_2

Hi,

Can someone please help me!!

I use the Cheque Centre for a payday advance. The last 2 months, they have taken their money on the agreed day, no issues. The following day, the same amount gets deducted from my balance again.

The first deduction shows the Cheque Centre as the party taking the money. The second doesn't, and last month fell back into my account 4 days later.

The same thing has just happened today, leaving me with £0 available.

Cheque Centre blame Clydesdale and vice versa.

Can someone please help, as I have a family to feed, and cannot wait 4 days to have this returned.

Many thanks

James

jaxm73

Hi I also have had the same problem for the last two months.... the cheque centre take out thier payment when agreed and then it comes out again. Both parties are blaming each other I have been charged also £140 in the last two months because of this... the cheque centre say they only have this trouble with clydesdale customers !!!
Please can anyone advise me on what to do ??? the bank say this will propbably happen again next month !!

Desperate