First direct warning

samarajames

yes it is per transaction...not per day

Lokolo

samarajames wrote: »

yes it is per transaction...not per day

With a max of £125 a month. So I suspect it is the same as HSBCs, jolly useful to know.

melian73

simax wrote: »

Ignorance is no excuse. Your fault, you pay.

Sorry.

Interesting, if only the banks could have had the same analogy applied to them when they were investing their profits on toxic debt / sub prime mortgages.

melian73

samarajames wrote: »

yes it is per transaction...not per day

As I said this is news to me, is this standard across the board?

I would also like to stress this isnt something that happens regularly, when we were with Nat West I dont remember this being their policy.

To those who think that this would never happen to them.... I hope it never does but you never know what is around the corner, life is full of complications and one day YOURS may bring something completely out of the blue that will change your life forever.

eslick

sorry, so you went overdrawn and you want everyone to have a warning about FD. You went over your OD limit, they give you £250 interest free, £500 in total and charge you £25 if you go over the £500 which is clearly stated on the website, found it in 2 mins. Dont think its just FD that would charge you others would to and you may not be that lucky with the interest free periods as well.

Looking at the below, looks like you didnt transfer funds in to cover it the same day as you went over drawn

For those asking its one payment per day.

Arrangement Fee Waivers


We will not charge an Arrangement Fee:-

• for your first ever overdraft with us; or
• provided within the last 6 months, we have not agreed to an overdraft request from you; or
• for Informal Overdrafts if covering funds are paid in before the end of the day; or
• if debited Arrangement Fees (or interest) cause your account to go overdrawn or further overdrawn.

We will not charge more than one Arrangement Fee a day.

Lokolo

melian73 wrote: »

As I said this is news to me, is this standard across the board?

I would also like to stress this isnt something that happens regularly, when we were with Nat West I dont remember this being their policy.

To those who think that this would never happen to them.... I hope it never does but you never know what is around the corner, life is full of complications and one day YOURS may bring something completely out of the blue that will change your life forever.

HSBC/FD isn't the same as other banks.

With this, they charge you everytime you make a request for an overdraft. This can be formal or informal.

You get a free one every 6 months.

So if you have £10 and you want to spent £100. You make a request for an overdraft, this incurs a £25 fee.

Now you are in your unauthorised overdraft of £90. You then want to spend more money, e.g. £50. You need to request another £50. This costs £25 as you are requesting more overdraft.

This can go on for a maximum of 5 days in X period (I think X = a month, not sure).

melian73

eslick wrote: »

sorry, so you went overdrawn and you want everyone to have a warning about FD. You went over your OD limit, they give you £250 interest free, £500 in total and charge you £25 if you go over the £500 which is clearly stated on the website, found it in 2 mins. Dont think its just FD that would charge you others would to and you may not be that lucky with the interest free periods as well.

Looking at the below, looks like you didnt transfer funds in to cover it the same day as you went over drawn

For those asking its one payment per day.

Arrangement Fee Waivers


We will not charge an Arrangement Fee:-

• for your first ever overdraft with us; or
• provided within the last 6 months, we have not agreed to an overdraft request from you; or
• for Informal Overdrafts if covering funds are paid in before the end of the day; or
• if debited Arrangement Fees (or interest) cause your account to go overdrawn or further overdrawn.

We will not charge more than one Arrangement Fee a day.

errrr sorry no, I dont think First Direct is the same as other banks as correct me if I'm wrong SOME other banks (maybe not all) will charge you a one off fee if you go over your overdraft. For the record I couldn't find any info about their fees relating to this particular matter on their website and we didnt go over £500 overdrawn. So sorry..... yes if I can highlight this for other people with a view to them avoiding the same mistake then yes I would like to highlight it as I personally think their fee structure is unfair.

melian73

Lokolo wrote: »

HSBC/FD isn't the same as other banks.

With this, they charge you everytime you make a request for an overdraft. This can be formal or informal.

You get a free one every 6 months.

So if you have £10 and you want to spent £100. You make a request for an overdraft, this incurs a £25 fee.

Now you are in your unauthorised overdraft of £90. You then want to spend more money, e.g. £50. You need to request another £50. This costs £25 as you are requesting more overdraft.

This can go on for a maximum of 5 days in X period (I think X = a month, not sure).

Thanks for clarifying this, as I said I admit we went over our overdraft limit, this I cant deny and I don't mind paying a penalty but as I suspected not all banks are the same and I just wanted to highlight this so other FD customers don't make the same mistake of assuming they are only going to get charged once.

karatedragon

melian73 wrote: »

we were away with family and so didn't really have a chance to keep up to date on how our finances were going and like all people this time of year is a particular struggle.

So where you were didn't have internet access to check your balance? There were also no cashpoints to get a mini statement? To avoid the "struggle" how about spending less this time of year? People always blame Christmas and this time of year for overspending when in fact it is them choosing to overspend.

melian73 wrote: »

To cut a long story short we went over our overdraft limit and despite being registered for txt messaging etc. we heard nothing. We got charged £25 a day... A DAY!!!!!!!!! for going over our overdraft.

The answer to this is live within your means and don't go over your limit. Then you won't get charged. It isn't rocket science.

melian73 wrote: »

We phoned them up and just went round and round in circles so we are in the process of finding a new current account and seeing if we can reclaim or dispute the charges.

So let me get this right. You sign up to an account agreeing to the charges for going overdrawn unauthorised. You then go overdrawn unathorised and incur the charges you agreed to. The you think you can simply claim them back.

Sorry I will probably get shot but I don't agree to all this complaining about charges when you know full well the consequences for going overdrawn unauthorised.

melian73

karatedragon wrote: »

So where you were didn't have internet access to check your balance? There were also no cashpoints to get a mini statement? To avoid the "struggle" how about spending less this time of year? People always blame Christmas and this time of year for overspending when in fact it is them choosing to overspend.



The answer to this is live within your means and don't go over your limit. Then you won't get charged. It isn't rocket science.



So let me get this right. You sign up to an account agreeing to the charges for going overdrawn unauthorised. You then go overdrawn unathorised and incur the charges you agreed to. The you think you can simply claim them back.

Sorry I will probably get shot but I don't agree to all this complaining about charges when you know full well the consequences for going overdrawn unauthorised.

All of this is true I'm not saying I shouldn't get charged a fee.
I'm saying if you bank with FD then beware this is what their fee structure is, I'm sure there are people out there who bank with them and for whatever reason may go overdrawn and don't fully understand their fee structure.

Do you think £25.00 per transaction is fair when another bank may charge you a one off fee? Maybe me being a Money saving expert novice is becoming apparent here but I just thought warning people who may not be as financially well off as the next person (as well as me having a rant) was the right thing to do and forgive me if I'm wrong what part of this site was actually set up to do.