By Law do Banks need to inform you of charges?

honey71

Hi,

Just wondering if banks need to inform you before they take charges from your account?

I recently moved house and changed my address with my bank. A few weeks later I received a phone call from the bank telling me that they were charging me just over £700 for being £96 overdrawn. They had the wrong street number and I had not received any of the letters they had sent me. The bank did admit that the mistake with the address was there falt but told me that I would still need to pay the charges. I thought banks had to give you 7 day notice before applying a charge to an account. Am I correct?

natweststaffmember

It isn't unlawful for them not to notify you since there are other means of viewing your account, ie online, ATM, branch visit etc,etc, however it may help with any payment plans if the bank have made an error on the statements.
The fact that they did make an error on the statement address has no bearing on the charges.

davidgmmafan

Not often I disagree with Natwest staff member, and I am doing so on the basis of a hunch but a hunch that may help. I recall when working at Nationwide many queries from customers who were registered for online banking who were bemused when they stil recieved a paper bill. I have experieince this myself.

The answer I got was that under the banking code they have to send paper copy of any charges and debit interest. Now this could be due to Nationwide being a mutual and generally taking a 'by the book' approach, or they could've been going above and beyond what is required.

Given that the bank has admitted it was THEIR fault that the address was wrong I would push for some kind of refund. You probably should have had some idea that there was going to be a charge, but I see no harm in going to the FOS on the grounds that had you known about the charges you would've taken action to either make payment or discuss the situation with the bank.

natweststaffmember

davidgmmafan wrote: »

Not often I disagree with Natwest staff member, and I am doing so on the basis of a hunch but a hunch that may help. I recall when working at Nationwide many queries from customers who were registered for online banking who were bemused when they stil recieved a paper bill. I have experieince this myself.

The answer I got was that under the banking code they have to send paper copy of any charges and debit interest. Now this could be due to Nationwide being a mutual and generally taking a 'by the book' approach, or they could've been going above and beyond what is required.

Given that the bank has admitted it was THEIR fault that the address was wrong I would push for some kind of refund. You probably should have had some idea that there was going to be a charge, but I see no harm in going to the FOS on the grounds that had you known about the charges you would've taken action to either make payment or discuss the situation with the bank.

There is no law stating that they have to send a statement, however there is regulation stating that they have to do so once a year. I doubt the OP could argue the case based solely on that basis since they would not have been unaware of payments going out or may not have been too concerned by not receiving statements.

davidgmmafan

Apologies, I was directing my reply to

"Just wondering if banks need to inform you before they take charges from your account?"

I can see where you are coming from in relation to thread title legally this is not required. I presume you would be aware if the there was such a condition in the banking code and it probably was just Nationwide playing safe. I believe most people get monthly statements, and sending them to the wrong address does somewhat defeat the point.

Regardless I do still feel the bank should do something to acknowledge thier error, although the timescale is important.

Can we have more info pls specifically how long is a few weeks? I'd see that as less than a month and therefore £700 seems a lot of charges.