VANQUIS - took my payment twice, now have locked my account !!!

SusieDo

First month with VANQUIS, dear God is it usually as hard as this!?

Set up a DD, had a letter through from VANQUIS saying to ensure I made alternative arrangements for the 1st payment as the DD would not be set up on time.

I paid by DC last week, then yesterday VANQUIS decided to take the statement balance AGAIN from my bank, plunging me over my overdraft and leaving me in the position where some other bills are bound to bounce now.

Rang V yesterday, they said oh yes there are two payments. Your choices are to go to your bank and ask them to refund the DD which will take a long time or we put the money back through your debit card which will take 3 days :mad:

Remaining calm, I opted for the refund on my debit card and advised V that I had a letter from them which is why I paid by DC in the first place and that they would be held liable for the influx of charges I am likely to get for going over my overdraft and for DD bouncing all over the place. They asked me to send the letter along with my statements as proof.

Today, although I didn't use my card (glad I didn't as it would have been embarrassing) I tried to check my account online and it was blocked. I rang them up and they said that the account was blocked until the money is credited back to my debit card.

I still have the problem of trying to convince my bank this was a genuine error and will not happen again, while all the people I should have paid will be sending me threatening letters soon.
I am looking at about £100 worth of charges as well as the defaults on the other bills which will bounce.
My extra £361 is now in the slimey hands of Vanquis for another 3 working days. I also cannot use the card until this payment has come out!

Has anyone had a similar experience, or had refunds from VANQUIS? Will I ever see my hard earned cash again or is there anything else I need to do?

I got a VANQUIS card to repair my credit rating, and within a month they have put me over my overdraft limit (for the first time on 2 years) and clocked up charges as well as putting defaults on my mobile phone bill and other CC payments - oh the irony!

SnowTiger

SusieDo wrote: »

Rang V yesterday, they said oh yes there are two payments. Your choices are to go to your bank and ask them to refund the DD which will take a long time or we put the money back through your debit card which will take 3 days :mad:

Remaining calm, I opted for the refund on my debit card and advised V that I had a letter from them which is why I paid by DC in the first place and that they would be held liable for the influx of charges I am likely to get for going over my overdraft and for DD bouncing all over the place. They asked me to send the letter along with my statements as proof.

Hmmm, not really sure what to advise. I think it's going to take a while for all this to be sorted out. Obviously Vanquis should refund any charges you incur. As for the impact it will have on your credit report, I simply don't know how you can get all that sorted out. Perhaps you should insist Vanquis contacts your creditors and explain how their action caused your direct debits to bounce. But I don't think they are under any obligation not to report missed payments to the credit reference agencies.

For future reference, you should have contacted your bank and requested a refund under the Direct Debit Guarantee. When I last did this the refund was instantaneous and, of course, any charges caused by the DD error would be refunded.

catflea

You should have gone via your bank, you would have been able to make a claim under the DD guarantee (commonly known as an indemnity claim) the cash should have been back in your account within 24 hours and the bank would have known there were problems.

I've a vanquis card and their customer service is non existant - get rid of it as soon as you can get a proper card.

Ooops, snow tiger beat me to it!

SusieDo

Oh my goodness, Vanquis told me not to go through the indemnity claim route as it could take many days! I wonder why that was? Probably ignorance more than anything sinister, but maybe I am giving them too much credit!

Is it worth doing that today?

catflea

You've already arranged the refund with Vanquis, so I wouldn't bother TBH. All that will happen is the bank will take the funds back after they credit them.

MorrisonsEmployee

Hmm as a new Vanquis user too this thread has made my mind up to cancel my DD with them and pay online by debit card or bank transfer!

SusieDo

Update for you, Vanquis paid the money back to my debit card yesterday morning. I had to call up to get the account unblocked, but that's all sorted now.

I transferred the money straight away to my current account. Up until now, I have not had any charges from my bank (Bank of Ireland) for going into an authorised overdraft. This is normally applied on the day I go overdrawn, well has done in the past (2 years ago). They have also paid out a DD for another CC on the day I transferred the money back from my debit card. Not sure if they will count this as a transaction when I was over-drawn unauthorised.

The charges from BOI for unauthorised over-drafts and subsequent payments out of the account are enough to make you reach for some hard liquor (up to £187 in certain cases!!!!)

But the question is, do I call the bank and ask if there are any charges that will be applied (Vanquis are getting the bill for that anyway) and so drawing their attention to it or do I just stay quiet and see what happens? Maybe the charges are automatic, I'm just not sure how it works.

If I get some of the charges applied on the account, it will certainly take me back over into the unauthorised over-draft again until I can rectify on the 25th May when I get paid.
What a blooming mess, stupid Vanquis. :mad:

SusieDo

Oh and another thing I have just noticed, Vanquis back dated the refund to the 3rd of May (instead of the correct 11th May) and so it makes it look like I paid by debit card on the 3rd, they refunded it straight away and then they took the direct debit on the 10th!

Good job I took a screen shot of my online statement before they locked the account and will also back up with the statement from my debit card as to when the payment went in.

The sneaky !!!!!!s, trying to make out that they have done nothing wrong!

Is it normal that a refund will be dated the same day that the payment went in rather than the date the refund was made?

JohalaReewi

catflea wrote: »

... the DD guarantee (commonly known as an indemnity claim) ...

Not quite true.
The DD guarantee scheme and DD indemnity are two different things.

The guarantee is what your bank makes to you (the account holder). If there is an error with a DD, under the guarantee scheme, the bank has to refund you immediately.

The indemnity scheme is how the bank gets the money back from the company that took the DD in error. This can take several days.

The confusion arises because bank staff are often 'unaware' of the guarantee scheme (not sure why) but they do know about the indemnity scheme. So when you ring to ask for an immediate refund under the guarantee scheme, you get told 'you mean an indemnity claim'....

SusieDo

Update for you, have been charged £40 for the informal overdraft (£21) and one direct debit payment made while it was in the informal overdraft (£19) (at least it didn't bounce)

So have today sent a letter to Vanquis with all my evidence and asked them to refund the charges that they caused.

Let's see how they react to this!

catflea

I was of the impression that credit card co's are limited to £12 default fees....