Bank charges con. Online account is not in realtime

weeman5

So... you looked at your bank account on Tuesday morning after the Bank Holiday and you see payments & direct debits going out to make your account overdrawn . You immediately deposit enough money that will cover that debt. Your online account shows you are in credit that day Tuesday) and you relax.
WRONG!!! The online account is NOT run in realtime and the bank will make a charge for you being overdrawn because the direct debits etc. which were on hold over the holidays could be deducted at anytime after 12.01 am of the Tuesday. This is a complete con by the banks .
Banks should be made to record the time as well as the date of transactions and show these on anyone's online account.
Most online bank accounts show all transactions within a 24 hour time frame (by day & date) but their background system runs in realtime so you have no way of knowing your actual balance in realtime. This enables the banks to catch thousands of people (me included) and slap overdrwan charges on them even though you thought you were in credit all the time

natweststaffmember

weeman5 wrote: »

So... you looked at your bank account on Tuesday morning after the Bank Holiday and you see payments & direct debits going out to make your account overdrawn . You immediately deposit enough money that will cover that debt. Your online account shows you are in credit that day Tuesday) and you relax.
WRONG!!! The online account is NOT run in realtime and the bank will make a charge for you being overdrawn because the direct debits etc. which were on hold over the holidays could be deducted at anytime after 12.01 am of the Tuesday. This is a complete con by the banks .
Banks should be made to record the time as well as the date of transactions and show these on anyone's online account.
Most online bank accounts show all transactions within a 24 hour time frame (by day & date) but their background system runs in realtime so you have no way of knowing your actual balance in realtime. This enables the banks to catch thousands of people (me included) and slap overdrwan charges on them even though you thought you were in credit all the time

I apologise but to state the obvious, it has been the same for YEARS(its even in most banks terms and conditions re paying in the previous working day prior to items going out of the account). However, I would always advise you to ring the bank if you do transfer funds over to cover direct debits so that they can be manually paid once the funds have hit the account.

weeman5

Just because it's been done like this for years , does not make it right. If Banks can run a realtime account for themselves, then i see no reason why they cannot do the same for online customers when they view their accounts.
All they have to do is add the time to the transactions.
It's just another way the banks can ambush their customers with extra charges

natweststaffmember

weeman5 wrote: »

Just because it's been done like this for years , does not make it right. If Banks can run a realtime account for themselves, then i see no reason why they cannot do the same for online customers when they view their accounts.
All they have to do is add the time to the transactions.
It's just another way the banks can ambush their customers with extra charges

No one said it was right. The problem is that information given to customers is not that good. I think in this day and age that banks' perhaps could give clear warnings that if funds are being transferred to cover payments going out that perhaps a phone call/visit to the bank is required. Remember, most things are completely automated including decisions to return payments such as Direct Debits/Standing Orders and Cheques. Very rarely is there any human intervention(unless the personal banker is calling you to try and get you take a loan out ).
I do have an idea though, can you ask the bank why they don't work in this manner cos the response would be very interesting to see.

willo65

weeman5 wrote: »

Just because it's been done like this for years , does not make it right. If Banks can run a realtime account for themselves, then i see no reason why they cannot do the same for online customers when they view their accounts.
All they have to do is add the time to the transactions.
It's just another way the banks can ambush their customers with extra charges

If this information was available to you then it wouldn't make any difference, you look online and you are o/d so you immediately t/fer in to cover, you were still overdrawn only you know the exact time the transactions occured and you still get charged.

weeman5

I went to the bank and they actually printed out 'their' version of the realtime dd's and i had my online version which only covers the 24hours of that day. As the bank pointed out, actual times and even actual dates of d/d 's is variable - it's up to the company to initiate this.
If a company only makes its DDs a day or two later, why should we the customer have to 'load' up our account many days in advance (weekends and bank holidays can mean you might have to do this at least 4 days in advance).
By the way, natwestman - you talk about 'systems' being set up to do this and that. Well, it was a human being who set up the 'system' in the first place. I still see no reason why Banks cannot show all transactions in realtime - they do that for themselves then why the heck not for customers??

natweststaffmember

weeman5 wrote: »

I went to the bank and they actually printed out 'their' version of the realtime dd's and i had my online version which only covers the 24hours of that day. As the bank pointed out, actual times and even actual dates of d/d 's is variable - it's up to the company to initiate this.
If a company only makes its DDs a day or two later, why should we the customer have to 'load' up our account many days in advance (weekends and bank holidays can mean you might have to do this at least 4 days in advance).
By the way, natwestman - you talk about 'systems' being set up to do this and that. Well, it was a human being who set up the 'system' in the first place. I still see no reason why Banks cannot show all transactions in realtime - they do that for themselves then why the heck not for customers??

Its exnatwestman(now anyway). I did say to ask the bank for the reason which was my last sentence. I still think you should ask the question why real time banking does not take into account transfers being made to cover payments going out on the same day they are taken, ie if the account is overdrawn this morning, and you transfer money to it this morning, why Direct Debits/standing Orders/cheques are not paid. I would be interested in their response because I think it is a valid question to ask.

amersall

i have this problem and did go into my branch and ask why the online banking shows wrong, the reply i got was i should make sure the funds are in before and not on the day due as there is a time delay on the internet, and i was told to read the terms and conditions of internet banking! but the bank would refund my charges as a gesture of good will!!! work that one out lol

willo65

natweststaffmember wrote: »

Its exnatwestman(now anyway). I did say to ask the bank for the reason which was my last sentence. I still think you should ask the question why real time banking does not take into account transfers being made to cover payments going out on the same day they are taken, ie if the account is overdrawn this morning, and you transfer money to it this morning, why Direct Debits/standing Orders/cheques are not paid. I would be interested in their response because I think it is a valid question to ask.

Natwest do let you pay in up until a certain point of the day and the system will pick this up and pay d/d's that may have been bounced otherwise

natweststaffmember

willo65 wrote: »

Natwest do let you pay in up until a certain point of the day and the system will pick this up and pay d/d's that may have been bounced otherwise

That is the auto sweep facility and 2:30pm is the cut off point. However, that is not for every single customer. For example, I have seen 2 customers transfer money into their accounts online, 1 customer had no charges and the other £38. The Auto Sweep is not uniform in the way it is done. It should be that no decision is made until that cut off point has been reached.(I know that the cut off point is later on cheques than Standing Orders/Direct Debits). We both know, well I do, about the reports the Customer Advisors go through in the morning in the branches for sales opportunities so decisions are already made automatically. If someone wanted items paid then yes you can MANUALLY change that but not if it the transfer is done online and the customer's DD's are already set to be returned. It is a kinda contradiction in NW's systems.