Advise - Bank Charges (not reclaiming as such)

BlackBox

Hi there,

I'm hoping someone out there maybe able to answer a puzzler of mine.

I know there is loads going on at the moment regarding bank charges and reclaiming bank charges, and I don't really understand what it's all about.

But just wondering if I have any comeback on a situation I'm at the moment.

I have a bank account with Abbey (or Santander). I don't have an overdraft.

Due to an error with my salary being paid in (no fault of my employer I'm told), I went £3.11 overdrawn for 3 days.

During these 3 days, a number of direct debits failed.

I attempted to arrange a temporary overdraft to cover this. Abbey refused (my credit rating isn't exactly tip top!).

Today I have been charged well over £200 for these Direct Debits being rejected.

This has taken me overdrawn again. This time by an amount I cannot correct and I know more direct debits will fail. Abbey still refuse an overdraft.

In a sense, they haven't done anything wrong. But neither have I. My colleagues had their salaries paid on time, mine didn't for some reason. My Bank blame my employer, my employer blame my bank.

I'm stuck in the middle!

With everything that is going of regarding these huge charges, do I have a leg to stand on if I pushed this further?

Thanks for reading.

Premier_2

BlackBox wrote: »

...
Due to an error with my salary being paid in (no fault of my employer I'm told), I went £3.11 overdrawn for 3 days...

Who told you it wasn't your employers fault? Whose fault was it and why did you receive your salary late?

You need to get to the bottom of that first before seeing who, if anyone, you can reclaim the consequential losses from.

BlackBox

My employer told me they didn't do anything different to any other month. My colleagues (or certainly some of them) all received their salaries on time as normal.

Premier_2

BlackBox wrote: »

My employer told me they didn't do anything different to any other month. My colleagues (or certainly some of them) all received their salaries on time as normal.

And you believed your employer? Not doing anything different to any other month doesn't imply he did things correctly this time.

Forget about what happened to others - it's what happened to you that is important.

Ask the bank why they blame the employer. Find out what they say the employer didn't do correctly. Find out from the employer if that is correct.

You need to bottom out who and why your salary was delayed.


Edit: it's actually in your employers interest to help you bottom this out. You see, your employer failing to pay you on time means he is in breach of contract ... but that can be offset to some extent if he can prove that he did everything in his control to pay you on time but the failure of others prevented him from doing so. Get him to work with you to discover why he didn't pay you on time as he is contractually obliged to do.

hicskis

It's well possible if your employer banks with Bank A and so do your colleagues that they got paid faster than you if you bank with Bank B. There are rules on how long it takes for a payment to go through the system.

Now if you can prove that your employer sent the money on a certain day (easy enough) then you can calculate the date your salary should have hit your account.

If your bank delayed that, which i doubt, then they would be liable.

Have you thought about changing the dates are due on your Direct Debits (push them back a few days) - so this doesn't happen again?