Do you have money worries and a loan or credit card with your bank?

Hayls17

I had never heard of setting off untill last month when Barclaycard emptied my Barclays current account. I am a single parent and a mature student in my final year at university. I had just recieved my final student bursary payment of £2500 which was supposed to pay for my rent, bills and other expenses until I complete my degree and find work. Barclaycard took the majority of this leaving me with £400 to live off and support my family. I rang to explain my situation and that there was no way I could manage on the money they had left as I had no other income except for child benefit and child tax credits. They actually agreed to give me £1000 back which although would not solve all my problems it helped to keep me afloat for a while. I then contacted my university to ask for an emergency payment, I was granted £500 by cheque which I had to pay into my Barclays account. I paid a few bills and left the rest in my account to cover direct debits. Suprise suprise along came Barclaycard and helped themselves to everything that I had left. I can't work yet because I don't have time until I finish at university and then I still need to find a job, I'm not eligible to claim benefits because I'm a student and I just don't know what to do now. I don't know where I am going to get any money from or how we are going to survive this. I know I owe the money but I think it is discusting that banks can leave people in a situation that simply increases hardship.

Numenor

I hope you have some success getting it back off them; it's horrible that they're doing things like this without consulting with the customers. There are likely to be plenty of folks here with suggestions for how to proceed.

In the meantime I would suggest you try and open another bank account with a bank you have no debts or credit cards with, and move all your payments / direct debits to that new account. If the money isn't in a Barclays account, they can't touch it.

DICKD

Hi,

my bank have recently debited money from my mortgage flexi account ( secured against my house) to repay £700.00 from an unsecured credit card with them, and then transferred the same amount from my current account which was overdrawn and made the debit balance increase back into my mortgage account.leaving me with no money for living expenses until the month end

with all the accounts being in debit and no having no credit balances is this allowed?

thanks

becci_2

This makes me SO angry!

I have just come back from holiday - whilst I was there I tried to withdraw money (which I knew I had as I had only paid a cheque in a few days earlier) only to be told "you have insufficient funds in your account". This sent me into a blind panic and I spent the whole holiday worrying that someone had emptied my account and how I was going to make it to pay day. It was my first holiday in 6 years so I was REALLY upset about this!

All was revealed when I got home, opened my post and saw that HSBC had debited £1,200 from my account towards a credit card debt of £3,000. I just love the way they don't give you any prior notice, but just tell you when they've already done it!!

What makes it worse is that the month before I paid off a £8,000 personal loan with HSBC, plus my overdraft which they kindly called in in November 2008. Every single payment has gone through with no problems. The really stupid thing is that if they had written saying "we notice you have now paid off your loan and overdraft, let's make an arrangement to get the credit card paid off" then I would have been quite happy! Instead, I get their horrible solicitors/debt collection agency letters, which I am afraid go straight in the bin. I refuse to deal with those people and their underhand tactics so I was saving the money to pay the credit card off in full so I could avoid this.

HSBC should be ashamed of themselves!!

GGGGRRRRRR!!!!

JES_F1

Nationwide are about to do this to me.

I've been on a DMP with the CCCS since the beginning of 2008, and it includes a Nationwide credit card. As I'd been able to clear my overdraft a couple of months before starting my DMP, I decided to keep my bank account with them - stupid, I know and contrary to advice given to me by the CCCS and on here but must confess to thinking it "won't happen to me".

I owe Nationwide a relatively small amount - and they're almost my smallest creditor at less than £2k - but they've been the most difficult to deal with.

The Nationwide (via KPR, their in-house debt collection people) has now frozen my bank account for 14 days, at which point they'll take out the arrears unless I clear them beforehand.

I'm getting advice from the CCCS about what to do next especially as I get paid in that 14-day period and don't have time to get a new account opened and my pay put into that.

I'm also so mad at myself for thinking it wouldn't happen to me and ignoring the advice to open an account elsewhere.

I'll keep you posted.

longshot

surely though they can't offset if the direct debit is closed????

i would have thought that illegal unless in the small print?

notomonkeys

JES_F1 wrote: »

Nationwide are about to do this to me.

I've been on a DMP with the CCCS since the beginning of 2008, and it includes a Nationwide credit card. As I'd been able to clear my overdraft a couple of months before starting my DMP, I decided to keep my bank account with them - stupid, I know and contrary to advice given to me by the CCCS and on here but must confess to thinking it "won't happen to me".

I owe Nationwide a relatively small amount - and they're almost my smallest creditor at less than £2k - but they've been the most difficult to deal with.

The Nationwide (via KPR, their in-house debt collection people) has now frozen my bank account for 14 days, at which point they'll take out the arrears unless I clear them beforehand.

Since the action to reclaim bank charges and the 'credit crunch', banks are now using their small print as a get-out clause to recover bad debts, seemingly irrespective of the amount and/or any other arrangements.

I'm getting advice from the CCCS about what to do next especially as I get paid in that 14-day period and don't have time to get a new account opened and my pay put into that.

My advice would be to.
1. Ask your employer to pay by cheque this one time( embarrassing i know) as it is unlikely that the bank will back down as they are within their legal rights.
2. Open a new account straightaway at a different bank. There are many basic accounts that will let you set up direct debits, standing orders etc..
but without overdraft facilities,charges etc..
3. As you've found out, keeping your eggs all in one basket seems fine in the good times, but when it goes wrong it can go seriously wrong.
4. Try to keep to any debt arrangements you already have, even if that means you do it personally.

I'm also so mad at myself for thinking it wouldn't happen to me and ignoring the advice to open an account elsewhere.

I'll keep you posted.

Good luck, I'm sure things will become clearer for you and much easier to manage in the future.

JES_F1

notomonkeys wrote: »

JES_F1 wrote: »

Nationwide are about to do this to me.

I've been on a DMP with the CCCS since the beginning of 2008, and it includes a Nationwide credit card. As I'd been able to clear my overdraft a couple of months before starting my DMP, I decided to keep my bank account with them - stupid, I know and contrary to advice given to me by the CCCS and on here but must confess to thinking it "won't happen to me".

I owe Nationwide a relatively small amount - and they're almost my smallest creditor at less than £2k - but they've been the most difficult to deal with.

The Nationwide (via KPR, their in-house debt collection people) has now frozen my bank account for 14 days, at which point they'll take out the arrears unless I clear them beforehand.

I'm getting advice from the CCCS about what to do next especially as I get paid in that 14-day period and don't have time to get a new account opened and my pay put into that.

I'm also so mad at myself for thinking it wouldn't happen to me and ignoring the advice to open an account elsewhere.

I'll keep you posted.

Good luck, I'm sure things will become clearer for you and much easier to manage in the future.

Thanks for the reply and advice.

I shall be speaking to our pay department tomorrow and see what the options are. I do have a prepaid Mastercard, into which a salary can be paid - I shall be asking if this is possible for this month.

I'll also be getting hold of the CCCS tomorrow for further advice.

I've set up a new bank account online with the Abbey so at least that will all be in place for when I get paid at the end of July.

My direct debits come out of my account during the last week of the month or on the 1st, which are all inside the frozen period on the account. At the end of the 14 days, Nationwide will take the arrears and release the account back to me. There will be enough left to pay all my direct debits, including my usual amount to the CCCS, but they'll all be late this month.

If my new account is open by then, I will be instantly transferring the remaining amount out of Nationwide into Abbey!

Fortunately, I have enough cash on me to get through to payday - I withdrew some cash quite by chance the day before the account was frozen!

I've also written a letter to Nationwide telling them once again about my DMP and explaining how stressful this has been. It's polite yet assertive!

Despite advice to the contrary, I think I'd kept my bank account with Nationwide out of misguided loyalty. I've banked with them for over 20 years and have always found the staff in my local branch very friendly, though I rarely go in there these days because of doing everything online.

Learnt the hard way ...

AlanAlger

I have just read your article about setting off.
My friend has just had money taken out of her second account which
is for the children from csa money.
Can they take CSA Money to pay off late credit card payments
it seems unfair on the children.

chriswa1

Hi!
Does anyone know if a bank is allowed to create greater debt in one account by using an overdraft facility to pay off a loan?

I was around £1500 behind in payments to a Lloyds TSB loan, when Lloyds took monies from my current account with them. I should point out that I was already considerably in debt (over £5500 in the current account), so this meant I was around £7000 overdrawn. They put my overdraft limit to £10000 and have now started charging me interest (previously they had frozen the interest on the current account). So they have paid off a low interest loan, and I am now paying of monies at a much higher rate. I would have thought (this is based purely on my feelings not any legal knowledge), that a bank could only take actual monies to pay off a debt, not re-order your debts to lumber you with the highest costs (admittedly with me being behind with the loan payment).

Any thoughts or comments would be gratefully received!

Thanks