Unauthorised overdraft been given to an under 18 year old

rev_henry

I'm 17 at the moment, I've been with Alliance and Leicester for a year, with my interest fixed at 10%. Now that fixed rate has gone I've transferred to Abbey. On June 5 I went and opened an abbey current account and the barclays regular 6% saver account, to replace my A&L account. I then set up a standing order to go out on the 15th of each month for £250, to the barclays account. Now, on Saturday 13th, my balance was still showing in full, the money hadn't gone to barclays yet, so I transferred my full balance to my Abbey account, which arrived today via BACS. A little later that day my balance showed as -£250, which I knew must have meant that they had gone and taken the barclays standing order out even though I cancelled it (a little late in the day I will admit).

My point is, why did A&L allow this situation to occur, whereby an under 18 year old without an authorised o/d was allowed to go overdrawn in this way, by the flaws of their own automated systems.
Now I have just sent £250 back from my abbey account to sort this out, but I spoke to a woman at A&L call centre a few minutes ago, to see what was going on exactly. I pointed out that she couldn't legally do anything to get the £250 back from me, but I would be paying it back of course, and that there was obviously a problem with the system to allow this situation to occur, at which point she just got rather shirty with me and said I do have to pay it back, all calls are recorded and my credit rating might be affected. Didn't seem to understand/care that what the bank had done was pretty irresponsible.

Does anyone have anything to say about this? Anything specific I should do? It should all be fair and square now as I've sent the £250 back, but I was just rather disappointed by the whole thing. Glad to see the back of them (albeit to another part of Santander!).

dunstonh

Banks can allow under 18s to go overdrawn. They just cannot enforce the debt.

Standing orders need to be cancelled 2 working days before they are due. So, if due on Monday the 15th, it is already in the system to be processed before you checked the balance on Saturday the 13th (a non working day). Transactions for a Monday often appear over weekends at different points as the batches are processed.

So, it is a limitation in the system but banking T&Cs normally make reference to cancelling direct debits and standing orders at least 1 or 2 days before they are due. You didnt do that (with Sat, Sun and Mon all being one day effectively).

Put it down to experience and remember next time about cancelling payments at least 1 or 2 days before its due.

rev_henry

Thanks dunston, as I thought about overdrafts. I am kinda aware of the whole cancelling enough in advance thing, I was just rather disappointed by the unhelpful and bullish attitude of A&L. No matter, I've left them now.

dunstonh

I was just rather disappointed by the unhelpful and bullish attitude of A&L.

Owned by Santander now. So, it sounds like they are getting into tune with the service offered by Abbey which really went downhill after Santander bought them.

blue35_2

makes me worry , as I have a A&L acount - no problems though!

rev_henry

dunstonh wrote: »

Owned by Santander now. So, it sounds like they are getting into tune with the service offered by Abbey which really went downhill after Santander bought them.

Oh dear, this doesn't bode well for my new Abbey account. Still at least I now have a local branch, and they were pretty good when I went in to open this new account.