RBS Credit Card - Check your statements!!

Downsizing__for_sanity

Hi all,

Just to advise anyone else out there - check statements for erroneous charges!

I had a zero balance on my RBS card and they offered me a good 0% balance transfer for 6 months, in December. I didn't need to really, but decided to use this for all our Xmas spending as I was using their money not ours for 6 months, and pay it off at the end. I had a Direct Debit set up for the minimum amount anyway, so I wouldn't get distracted and forget to pay anything. However - on this month's statement (19 Feb) I had a "Late Payment Charge" of £12 plus a statement that as I had not stuck to the T&Cs my balance transfer offer was void.

Fair enough - except the statement also said the usual " payment will be taken from your nominated account by direct debit etc etc" so I called to query. Apparently RBS have a glitch in their payments processing software, so if you have had a nil balance on your card for 3 months in a row or more (as I had for Aug/Sep/Oct) your nominated Direct Debit account becomes DORMANT - so the minimum payment bounces back.

When I called, the customer service agent was more than helpful and we managed to work out the problem, but if I had just tossed the statement in my filing pile (assuming it was all automatically taken care of), I would be £12 a month down, plus paying the interest on £1000 over 6 months when it was specifically 0%.

I don't want to sound too suspicious, but if only 10% of customers ended up paying this in error every month...maybe RBS would make back their debt to the taxpayer (!)

And annoyingly today I received my first ever default notice (Grrrr) which they told me to ignore at least. And they DID say that it wouldn't adversely affect my credit rating, but that I will check...

HTH someone,

DFS :