DD taken from incorrect bank account

Keith

I'm facing a £30 fee from Nationwide which I'd rather not be paying but I think I may have to. Let me explain:-

2007 - I sign up for a membership at £25 a year paid by yearly DD from NW

June 2008 - I pay again from NW

July 2008 - I move to A&L

June 2009 - I pay from A&L

May 2010 - I receive my two reminders about renewal, I read them, check the figures but not the bank details.

June 2010 - One is paid, one is not. One goes from A&L, one attempts to debit NW.

I've checked my renewal letters from last year and they are both on the A&L account and checking this years one swapped back to NW, the renewal letter stated this but I didn't notice.

NW say the fee is payable, I'm yet to contact the company but I guess they will say I didn't check the renewal letter. Which I didn't, should I try and get them to pay the fee?

The NW DD was created in May 2010, it had been cancelled when I ported to A&L

Mark_In_Hampshire

It sounds like the mistake was made by the payee "reverting" back to an old mandate. I'm guessing they found that had been cancelled at Nationwide and so simply set it up again and then tried to debit the money; either that or the mandate was never cancelled.

Sadly you are liable for the fee. With direct debit you are liable for all consequential losses caused to you as a result of mistakes made by payees; you accept that when you choose DD as the payment mechanism.

You can try to get the payee to pay it for you, but they are not obliged to do so, even if it's their mistake.

Keith

Phoned up this morning and was told that they had always taken it from that account. So I pointed out that I had the renewal letter from 2009 in front of me.

The lady got confused as her system said otherwise, it didn't show where the money was to be debited from either! So they have to wait until it is returned. Strange as their system emailed me on Friday showing what account they had attempted to debit.

It'll be investigated to see how it happened, and then they'll contact me.

Thing is, surely if this mistake is possible then whenever anyone moves accounts there is a chance this could happen? Or is it simply because I didn't close the account?

Mark_In_Hampshire

When you moved the payments to the second bank, you should cancel the mandate with the first bank. Otherwise what you have is a wide open hole from which money can disappear and by which fees can be incurred should the payee elect to debit the account.

With it cancelled the payee should have been notified of the cancellation which might have then triggered a closer look. However the payee can simply set the mandate up again on the first bank account and try for the money, there's nothing in the system to stop that.

However if they did so, they themselves are in breach of the terms of operation of the DD system as they're supposed to "get your permission" to resurrect the dead direct debit mandate.

Keith

Thanks, all sorted now they just called to appologise and offer to pay the fee

Mark_In_Hampshire

Well, there's a result