£1000 overdrawn but really £3000 in credit

taxcollector

We wrote a cheque for £445. Our account has been debited by £4450. Have contacted Lloyds TSB but as a Sunday did not get brilliant answer. Have been told that we will have to arrange an overdraft. Pay any charges and will be reimbursed when matter sorted. NOT HAPPY. We do not have an overdraft agreement so bank should not have honoured the cheque even though not our mistake that too much has been debited.
We want this mistake rectified ASAP but bank say 2 to 3 weeks. Can anyone give us any advice ?

Tim_L

If you arrange an overdraft then you screw your credit report, and since the bank has made an unauthorised debit from your account they are responsible for finding a way to accomodate their mistake, not you. This is going to cause you serious knock on problems since there's a risk that any other payments out of the account will be screwed for however long it takes to sort out.

I would also write to their complaints department and charge them £50-100 for screwing up - they'll pay up without a whimper.

rio

I would go in and demand sight of the cheque, and not leave until you have done so. It will probably be held at a service centre, but they can fax a copy through to your branch, although they will huff and puff about doing so. When a cheque passes through the clearing system it is encoded with the amount debited from your account in the bottom right hand corner. You should be able to point out to the bank clerk the discrepancy in the figures, and they should be able to offer you a solution there and then. They want you to take out an overdraft for their convenience and not to solve your problem. In the old days all cheques written by customers were sent back to their branch and it was the junior's job to check the encoded amounts against the amount of the cheque. Banks would like customers to believe that this is still the case, but in reality it isn't. It was deemed cheaper to pay out when problems occur that employ more staff to check everything.

I am presuming that the person you paid only paid in your cheque with their credit, and therefore they have been credited incorrectly. It may be worth contacting them and see if they will approach their bank to try and sort it out from their end as well. Hopefully they are honest and will be happy to do this, after all if it is a business it will mess up their accounting and possibly their tax implications.

Best of luck, and stand your ground!!

oldwiring

bank committed theft

. That's saying they intended to deprive taxcollector of the money. Come off it:D ISTM that paranoia and victimhood is rife as a perceived status vis a vis dealings with banks! I am not completely u.t.d. with bank workings but ISTM that someone at the collecting bank may have encoded the cheque incorrecly at their centre and the error has gone through the system and taxcollector's bank has been wrongly charged. If theft were invoved, which it isn't, unless the payee altered it or it was stolne and amended, the paying bank is also a victim.
One has sometimes to be fair on a bank and from my now becoming limited knowledge it will take time to investigate. That said I am not happy that taxcollector should have to pay charges upfront in this situation, but in fairness he should be prepared to pay if after investigation fault lies with him for such as bad figures on the cheque.

I hope that the matter is sorted well within the timeframe suggested by LTSB

Turning_into_scrooge

ts_aly2000 wrote:

You ought to ask Lloyds what would be their position if instead of the £445 they had withdrawn £44,500.

What would be their position be then? Charges, Overdraft, We'll reimburse you later?? So 2-3weeks with an overdraft of £50k eh.

I'd go in there and kick up a right stink, I'd refuse to leave point blank. That after opening an account at the Nationwide and telling them about it.

Seeing as you are 'responsible' for the running of the account, the bank have effectively committed theft and now their systems are now diligently kicking in
to charge you.

Daylight robbery. Inform the Police, phone the local newspaper, kick up a stink. That all, if you get no joy today. This is no casual or joking matter.

People have been pushed over the edge and ended up bankcrupt because of this kind of thing. Charge upon charge upon charge.
Lloyds are a joke anyway. Were one of my OH's creditors and they were soooo awkward.

I came very close to being forced into bankruptcy 18 months ago through Lloyd's and ended up on a DMP because of them. Now I've won my battle with them and also got my charges refunded they are falling over backward to give me credit.

OP I would report this to the police as the cheque you wrote could of actually been altered fraudulently, Lloyd's may of not noticed this when paying in. I apologise if this a personal friend you gave the cheque to. Its just a thought

rio

Actually I think it will turn out to be a keying error by the bank. People who operate the encoding and balancing machines can normally process 60 cheques a minute. All it take is a dodgy or sticking key on the machine and an extra digit is added, this would be spotted in a multiple item credit as the final total wouldn't balance and the items concerned would be checked, but if it was a one cheque and one credit transaction then it would go through unspotted. Basically Lloyds can't be bothered to sort your query out ASAP, so that is why they have come in with the suggested overdraft as a way of making your account operable short term, but these should always be offered charge and interest free. Banks often suggest this whilst sorting out long complicated queries for customers, but this isn't one of those, so my guess is whoever you spoke to didn't have a clue how to go about resolving the problem. So as I originally suggested I would go in and stand my ground until I had seen the cheque and then take it from there. If it turns out the cheque has been fraudently altered then that is a different kettle of fish and the police will need to be involved, but they cannot demand sight of the cheque without lots of forms etc being completed, so it would be easier for you to see it either way.

M_Thomson

ts_aly2000 wrote:

You ought to ask Lloyds what would be their position if instead of the £445 they had withdrawn £44,500.

What would be their position be then? Charges, Overdraft, We'll reimburse you later?? So 2-3weeks with an overdraft of £50k eh.

I'd go in there and kick up a right stink, I'd refuse to leave point blank. That after opening an account at the Nationwide and telling them about it.

Seeing as you are 'responsible' for the running of the account, the bank have effectively committed theft and now their systems are now diligently kicking in
to charge you.

Daylight robbery. Inform the Police, phone the local newspaper, kick up a stink. That all, if you get no joy today. This is no casual or joking matter.

People have been pushed over the edge and ended up bankcrupt because of this kind of thing. Charge upon charge upon charge.

Lloyds are a joke anyway. Were one of my OH's creditors and they were soooo awkward.

What an OTT melodramatic post!! It could be a number of reasons, somebody fraudulenty altered the cheque, the bank keyed the cheque wrong when it went through the clearing system, it could also be heaven forbid partly be the original posters fault! Maybe they put £4450 in the figures part of the cheque and the bank did not see that the words and figures do not agree. I am sure if it was a bank error they will backdate the transaction so the poster will not lose out. Don't just jump on the bank has commited theft bandwagon!

oldwiring

rio wrote:

Actually I think it will turn out to be a keying error by the bank. People who operate the encoding and balancing machines can normally process 60 cheques a minute. All it take is a dodgy or sticking key on the machine and an extra digit is added, this would be spotted in a multiple item credit as the final total wouldn't balance and the items concerned would be checked, but if it was a one cheque and one credit transaction then it would go through unspotted. Basically Lloyds can't be bothered to sort your query out ASAP, so that is why they have come in with the suggested overdraft as a way of making your account operable short term, but these should always be offered charge and interest free. Banks often suggest this whilst sorting out long complicated queries for customers, but this isn't one of those, so my guess is whoever you spoke to didn't have a clue how to go about resolving the problem. So as I originally suggested I would go in and stand my ground until I had seen the cheque and then take it from there. If it turns out the cheque has been fraudently altered then that is a different kettle of fish and the police will need to be involved, but they cannot demand sight of the cheque without lots of forms etc being completed, so it would be easier for you to see it either way.

You are assuming that LTSB is responsible for the keying ( or as I put it ealier *encoding*) error. It is the collecting bank that encodes the cheques not the paying bank. Unless the payee (benficiary) of the cheque banks with LTSB, LTSB cannot be held responsible. They will have to liaise with the other banks and branches involved and no matter what they do have to rely on the commitment of those others to get a speedy resolution.

M_Thomson

ts_aly2000 wrote:

Companies and organisations that treat their customers like rubbish only understand melodramatic.

Or have you never been on the receiving end of a company that messes up and then continually says they're going to do something but never do?

Why do you think stories like these end up in the Financial Mail. It's not because people are making them up.

I'll rest assured that in your house these things never happen. I do envy you.

I see you left out the rest of my post in your quote. Have you actually read what I wrote?

regularsaver1

I'm sure an error like this can be sorted and back dated

M_Thomson

ts_aly2000 wrote:

Only the juicy bits.

Read the whole post, then you will realise that maybe you were indeed being OTT