No more bank chanrges

juanfernandes

I have an easy fix to stop getting bank changes, but the bank wont play ball.

I had a quick look on the web and the forums, but could find anything related to this, so I decided to post on here to see what everyone thinks.

I asked my bank, if I was able to instruct my account NOT to pay anyone, once I had reached my overdraft limit. I was told NO, it cannot be done.

Surely, it's my decision on whether I should allow the bank to pay anyone on my behalf or not.

Obviously, this would not benefit the banks, as everybody would instruct the banks to NOT pay anyone if there was no money in the account.

What does everyone think? Would this work if the bank allowed it? Is it against the rules of the Direct Debit?

Would like to hear your thoughts on this and sorry if this has already been covered.

Juan

sdooley

Surely, it's my decision on whether I should allow the bank to pay anyone on my behalf or not.

I have a lot of sympathy and think the bank charges are completely over the top.

The problem is your bank has two conflicting instructions both from you.

You gave the mandate to the bank to pay standing orders.

You gave the mandate to third parties to claim direct debits.

You wrote a guaranteed cheque.

You took cash from a cash machine.

Those are all valid instructions, from you. They conflict with your other instruction to the bank. If you did not give those instructions, you have a right to claim back from the bank (e.g. under the direct debit guarantee or for 'conversion' if the bank cashed a forged cheque).

If you cancel the mandate, the direct debit, stop the cheque and don't take out the cash, then if you do it in time then the money won't leave your account. But you can't make those mandates, direct debits, cheques or cash withdrawls 'conditional' on your having sufficient funds to cover them. That would require a manual assessment of each payment to see if the condition for payment was met or not. That 'private banking' model would cost a lot more - you see it on the continent a bit but only for accounts where people pay hefty monthly fees.

The old system used to be that the bank would bounce the payment and charge you for bouncing it. That would be even worse as you'd have default charges from your bank and the people you were going to pay.

Be grateful you're not in France where it's a criminal offence to write a cheque where you don't have cleared funds. And hope that the OFT case makes the charges more reasonable in the future.

ILW

I avoid charges by not writing cheques etc. if I do not have the funds to cover them. It seems to work quite well.

dunstonh

I spent some time do the lending manger role and the problem you have is that you are trying to guess if the person is a genuine mistake, frequent offender getting worse or just taking the pee.

Whatever happens though, work is required whether you have the item paid or have the item bounced. More work is involved if the item is bounced than if it is paid. So, you should be charged more for it (not saying the level of charges is fair but there will be charges whatever the legal outcome).

I avoid charges by not writing cheques etc. if I do not have the funds to cover them. It seems to work quite well.

If funny that. Who would ever have thought that not spending money you dont have is the best way

flaura

ILW wrote: »

I avoid charges by not writing cheques etc. if I do not have the funds to cover them. It seems to work quite well.

excellent :rotfl:

ILW

dunstonh wrote: »

If funny that. Who would ever have thought that not spending money you dont have is the best way

Its a rather quaint idea, don,t think it will catch on though.

dunstonh

ILW wrote: »

Its a rather quaint idea, don,t think it will catch on though.

That sounds a bit too much like personal responsibility though. There isnt much of that around here.

natweststaffmember

It's very rare where I agree with Dunstonh and ILW and with everyone from post 2 but this is that rare event in which quite frankly, it appears justified from what the OP has said.
I think Sdooley cover all the points tbh. Can't add anything further for a change, not even gonna argue with you either on this thread

sdooley

I avoid charges by not writing cheques etc. if I do not have the funds to cover them. It seems to work quite well.

It's not inconsistent to see that although some people are good at managing their finances, and it is better to avoid charges if you can, the way bank charges are set up is to deliberately trap people into large amounts of repeated charges, especially those on lowish incomes. A fairer way of dealing with things would be a series of overdraft bands with increasingly punitive interest rates, followed by a 'hard limit' at which your overdraft is converted into a fixed loan, with the privileges of flexible banking removed from the account holder (e.g. no cheque guarantee card, no further overdraft and only an electron/solo payments card).