Charges Now Deducted as "Interest" and "Corrections"

Ellesbells_2

Hi all,
I've just checked my online account with Nationwide and they have deducted some charges, but instead of the usual "unpaid direct debit fee" etc they have changed it to "interest". They also changed the "returned direct debit" to "corrections". Has anyone else had this change in wording this week?
I've put the whole story on CAG forum yesterday but no one has replied as of yet.
Thank you in advance for any info on this

esmerellda

Will try find your whole story, what are the amounts of the charges ?

okay easier to paste it here

A couple of months ago I had a payment going through paypal. The payment was supposed to be taken out of my paypal account but went through my flexi account instead. Nationwide returned the payment and canceled the direct debit. I contacted paypal and asked them why did they not take the payment from my account etc. They replied that it was a technical error and all financial systems that are reliant on computerized systems aren't 100% accurate all of the time and glitches do happen. They stopped the second attempt and took my payment through my paypal account.


Nationwide charged me £30 unpaid direct debit fee and a £30 overdraft fee. I put this in a thread as someone was charged overdraft fees but they weren't technically overdrawn. These fees were charged on the same day, I was not overdrawn because they didn't take the money out of my account they just stopped the direct debit as I can't go overdrawn on this account.


I was advised by JM to go and talk to the manager and explain to him that it was a technical error, I wasn't overdrawn etc and see what happens. I went to speak to the manager and he just said that in the terms and conditions they have to charge if a direct debit is returned and even though I wasn't technically overdrawn I still had to pay an overdraft fee because it is seen as I tried to get an unauthorized overdraft and he can't do anything about it.


The same happened in November and I received some info at the end of my statement that they would take £60 unpaid direct debit fee,£20 unauthorized fee, 10p interest. They wrote saying that they would take it out of my account mid December 09. I kept checking my account and they hadn't taken any of these fees out. I made sure that I had enough funds in my account incase the paypal system did it again ( they can't understand why this has started happening with my account as it was fine before). I checked my account this Monday and the money was still in there. I checked on Tuesday morning and it seems that Nationwide waited until my tax credits totaled the charges and took 2 weeks worth of my tax credits which I use to live off and to pay my paypal fees. So next month I will be charged another £80.


But on my online statement the charges are not named as "charges/unpaid fees etc" but as "interest" . And my returned paypal payment has been named as a "correction" but this time they did take the payment out of my account for probably a few hours then returned it ( again on the same day).


Should I start with a prelim letter, if so should I mention that they waited until I had enough tax credits in there so that they could take out their charges or should I wait until the new POCs. Has anyone else had the name of the charges changed to interest.
Many thanks for any advice given

esmerellda

okay what amount is shown next to interest ?

Correction will be the return of the paypal payment to the account, so should be a credit figure of the same amount that was debited earlier.

i think its a bit confusing with regards the paypal fees. Are paypal trying to take money from your account and just keep trying until theres some money in, which happened to be the same time your tax credits arrived ? or are they actually the nationwide fees which were taken on that day.

I think the simplest way to understand will be to type out the relevant entries on your statement with the amounts.

Ellesbells_2

Hi,

okay what amount is shown next to interest ?

On the original statement in November 09 the charges were listed as;
Unpaid direct debit fee £30
Unauth overdraft fee £20
Interest charge £0.10
Unpaid direct debit fee £30

On my internet banking transactions page January 18th 2010
Interest £60
Interest £20
Interest £0.10

They have returned the d/d from paypal as they took the funds that I had put there to cover the payment.

i think its a bit confusing with regards the paypal fees. Are paypal trying to take money from your account and just keep trying until theres some money in, which happened to be the same time your tax credits arrived

Yes kind of. I have the money in my paypal account to cover any fees or purchases. But for some reason the past few months the payments have not gone through the paypal account ( as they should) and gone through the Nationwide account. I received and email from paypal and they still don't understand why this has started to happen the only thing they suggested was to cancel the direct debit altogether and when I receive my invoice for feebay to just pay it separately .
The tax credits bit is about I live off my working tax credits and its the only regular income that I get. The £80 charges according to the Nov 09 statement should have been taken out of my Nationwide account on the 21st December 09. But there has never been enough in my account to take the charges as I get £50pw. But because I left £50 in the account to cover the paypal d/d ( which was supposed to be taken out on the 14th but they took it out on the 20th) and then on the 18th my next £50 tax credit went through so they had £100 in the account to take the £80.00 out.

esmerellda

Thanks hun.

Okay makes more sense, and actually, though it might not feel like it, that is a better system than the old one. they havent just taken the charges off from you pushing you deeper into an overdraft thus incurring more charges, they have waited until there is enough money to take the charges and leave you in credit.

I agree about the paypal situation, cancel the dd and the card link on paypal, then set it up again once a statement period has gone through. If you have money in your paypal account then payments should go from paypal, unless its setaside for other payments/fees. So the issue does need to be sorted via paypal, and you should probably do this as a formal complaint in writing outlining the problems it has cause you with bank charges etc. and ask for recompense.


The online banking showing the fees coming out as interest does sound a bit odd. Have you contacted nationwide and asked them why this is - it might just be something to do with the online statement system not being set up right to recognise the fees or a keying error. If they are starting to call bank charges 'interest', then they would be in poo with the FSA - but you need to speak to them first about it, and see whats happening.

Ellesbells_2

Thank you so much,
I'll send Nationwide an email for starters about the "interest" bit and paypal.
I did start to get worried because what if Nationwide and the other banks are starting to cover themselves from refunding charges when the new templates come through so that they can keep things on hold for another 2 years.
if I have no luck should I send them a usual prelim letter or wait until the new POC's are out?
Thank you again for your advice

esmerellda

See what they say first then look at the situation, and where the campaign is at legally with regards bank charges.

The banks cant just pretend overdraft fees are interest, so it should be an error or something on their system, if its not we can have a moan to the OFT/FSA and get them slap wrists for it. lol.

Ellesbells_2

Hi all
Just a quick update
I wrote a letter to paypal about a recompense but they just replied with an apology about the situation and advised me to do the same as what they had advised before. They replied that as they didn't take the bank charges it is upto Nationwide to refund the charges.

Nationwide have not changed the "interest" back to "unpaid direct debit fees" on my internet account but have on my paper statements. Its a good job that I haven't changed to paper free, and I don't think I will with these glitches.

I have just typed a Preliminary Letter that I found on the consumer action website, should I send it or wait for the new templates?

Thank you

davidgmmafan

Personally I'd say you have better chance of success if you angle for a goodwill gesture from either Nationwide or Paypal.

"They replied that it was a technical error and all financial systems that are reliant on computerized systems aren't 100% accurate all of the time and glitches do happen. They stopped the second attempt and took my payment through my paypal account."

If Paypal made the error, and you incurred charges because of this, they should pay those charges. Although this is not explicitly stated in the DD guarantee there are threads on here which suggest the bank can claim for consequential losses from the originator.

Now I used to work for Nationwide, and took a keen interest in such things a I didn't know about this element of the DD guarantee. So complain to Nationwide, expect to be knocked back, complain again. The higher up the complaints process you get the more likely it is that someone will look into it and know about that little known rule.

I can't recall the name of the thread but I believe it was Premier and natweststaffmemeber that were discussing it. Good luck.

Premier_2

Yes it was me that brought up the discussion on consequential loss under the rules of the DD scheme...however I'm not sure that will be successful here.

Let me see if I've understood the situation correctly.

The OP has a paypal account. The paypal account had sufficient cleared funds in to cover a payment the OP authorised. Attached to the paypal account is the OP's (Nationwide) bank account where payments are collected in the case that there is insufficient cleared balance in the paypal account.

If I am correct with the above, then the OP is saying there was indeed sufficient cleared funds available in the paypal account, yet paypal still collected money from the bank.
Whenever I've used paypal, it tells me where the money is being taken from (e.g. existing balance, bank, credit card, etc)

I'd be really surprised if the OP has some documentation (e.g. screen grab, etc) that says the funds would be taken from existing paypal balance yet paypal took the money from the bank. If the OP has this, then for sure, the DD guarantee scheme would apply ... and that includes the ability to claim consequential loss.
However, without that, I would suggest the argument would be that the OP was advised the payment would be collected by DD and any claim refused (or in fact counter claimed as per the rules of the DD scheme)