what is a "fair" unpaid Direct Debit charge?

Orford

willo65 wrote: »

Yes but if tesco can charge 3x the cost of the beans why can't the bank charge 3x the cost?

Perfectly reasonable arguement, except of course that it's all based on suppostion. Can you produce any concrete evidence that Tesco gross profit margin is 66% or are these just hyperthetical figures that happen to neatly fit your arguement?

Nathan_Spleen

willo65 wrote: »

Yes but if tesco can charge 3x the cost of the beans why can't the bank charge 3x the cost?

For the same reason you won't answer my question. What do you get for your £35?

There is no written contract in the purchase or sale of beans. In the case of defualt charges there is and contracts must comply with the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations.

If you believe that a utility industry (the PCA market IS defined as a utility in the Crookshank Report) should be allowed to contractually charge what they like then I assume you'd be happy to pay many times what you are currently paying for your electricity bill.

Nathan_Spleen

Orford wrote: »

Perfectly reasonable arguement, except of course that it's all based on suppostion. Can you produce any concrete evidence that Tesco gross profit margin is 66% or are these just hyperthetical figures that happen to neatly fit your arguement?

I suspect he plucked the figure out of the air. Tesco pay way more than 7p for a tin of beans.

Noname29

proeleche wrote: »

And may I also say, how dare you assume I had any sort of credit from the bank! Which is what you meant by your comment!

so what is your signature about then ?

surely its not charges and interest. You would only be charged if you had credit or took it without asking ?

Nathan_Spleen

Noname29 wrote: »

so what is your signature about then ?

surely its not charges and interest. You would only be charged if you had credit or took it without asking ?

You cannot take it without asking. Any attempt to make a payment without the funds to meet it is an implicit request for credit - as successfully argued by the banks in the test case hearing. Even in credit their is a cost to the consumer as the bank profits from the difference in interest it pays for deposits and what it achieves on the money markets.

Orford

Nathan_Spleen wrote: »

I suspect he plucked the figure out of the air.

No, surely not!! I'm shocked. After all, as a bank worker, I'm certain willo65 will have an intimate knowledge of Tesco's costs

proeleche

willo65 wrote: »

Why?

It costs Tesco about 7p for a tin of beans but they charge me 21p not 7p.

This comment just keeps coming up. It may well cost tesco 7p for a tin of beans and they may well charge 21p for it.

What is the difference you ask, why can they get away with charging what they like and the banks cannot - because at the end of the day, it is the consumer's choice to pay that 21p or not.

I said in previous posts first, that banks are in the business of making money and secondly they should not take the hit for mistakes or proprtionality.

The whole test case is about the fact that these terms are unfair, not implicit and not fair, reasonable andd proportionate. I forget the exact wording, but in the Court of the Appeal case, the judge made a comment along the lines of - in the banks advertising of accounts, they are not screaming from the rooftops as to the level of their charges or the fact that they charge £25 for bouncing a cheque as opposed to bank x charging £38. You may well argue, that anyone with a brain on their shoulders could look to each and every bank and chose the one with the lowest level of charges, and that is very true and I'm sure some people do, but I don't think anyone can hand on heart turn around and say that any banks' level of charges is fair and proptionate to what it actually costs the bank for these 'services.'

Why is it free for a person to have their card rejected in tesco buying all these tins of 21p beans when say, a person is 21p short of a direct debit amount and the banks automated system's rejection on that dd costs £38.

I have really disliked the tone of some people's argument implying that everybody goes around willy nilly letting dds bounce and not giving a damn. If people had actually read my posts they would see I'm not out for revenge for revenge's sake.

I also have to say that I think that the courts saying that bank charges do not amount to penalites was a total cop out. Just look at RBS/Natwest - card misuse fee - that in my mind quite clearly means we are charging you because you have done something we do not like/did not want you to do and you should suffer a consequence as a result.

Bnaks make money on all accounts - by investing the available funds in that account etc, even on student overdrafts where technically the bank may not be making money in terms of interest etc but they are using all those funds, up until the point where there is nothing left for them to use. The loan they give to x, comes from customers' money, the mortgage they give to y, comes from customers money. The money these banks put into Madoff - was customers' money. All these billions the governement gave the banks was to replace all our money which the banks had lost.

I also beleive that people forget that banks are actually borrowing our money and that is why traditionally they would pay interest on current accounts. We have now reached a stage where we consider ourselves lucky if we get the bank/account we are are after when all banks should be grateful to have anybody's custom otherwise they just would not be able to operate.

Thank you and good night :-P

proeleche

Oh yes - at times as a student, while I did not have an overdraft, direct debits were retuned unpaid at times, I wrote cheques, tried to play the system - got charged and all the rest of it.

That is how I have accumulated the level of charges on my accounts. I am not proud of it and I have learned from it and I now do my best to meet all my commitments and play within the rules.

However, I believe with all my heart that these 'rules' should be fair to me as a consumer and customer.

Nathan_Spleen

proeleche wrote: »

I also have to say that I think that the courts saying that bank charges do not amount to penalites was a total cop out. Just look at RBS/Natwest - card misuse fee - that in my mind quite clearly means we are charging you because you have done something we do not like/did not want you to do and you should suffer a consequence as a result.:-P

It's worth pointing out that Justice Smith ruled Natwest's T&C's were not incapable of being penal. He did indeed point out that the banks didn't advertise their default fees and this went some way to influence his judgment that unauthorised overdraft charges did not form the core part of the contract and therefore should be assessed for fairness under UTCCR.

Sol00

willo65 wrote: »

Yes but if tesco can charge 3x the cost of the beans why can't the bank charge 3x the cost?

Again, you are ignoring the point I and others have made.

If we use your 'argument', and Tesco charge 3 times the price for beans, then yes they are doing what any business does and is making a profit.

If however, I went into Tesco and accidentally or otherwise broke a display shelf, Tesco would charge me the cost to repair or replace the shelf and would not make a profit from this.

The banks make their profit from deposits, higher end current accounts that charge monthly premiums, people using their overdrafts, loans, credit cards etc. and no one is arguing this as these are their products to make their profit. The charges for going over your limit or bouncing a chq is the only point being argued due to the amounts of the charges. The analogy I used above can be applied here as the customer has 'damaged' their account.

I don't see what's hard to understand about this, it's been plastered all over this site for years, and the is on the news regularly.