Exceeding overdraft limit

nimuemusic

Last year I asked my bank to close my current account. They claim they never received my letter so the account remained open. They continued paying a number of direct debits. I had an overdraft limit of £3500 on the account but they paid direct debits causing an overdraft of £7000. I was unaware of this at the time. Do the bank have a right to claim all this overdraft back? If so what is the point of a limit if it is ignored by them?

dexters_mum_2

You can probably reclaim all the charges accrued plus statutry interest but you may find that you get more response over in the 'Reclaiming Bank Charges' forum, Martin's letters are also available on the main site.

kelloggs36

Did you not cancel all the direct debits? did you switch accounts and expect the new account to do it for you?

dexters_mum_2

Also, the bank could argue that to close an acount you'd need to go into a branch, rather than write, but certainly worth the price of a first class stamp to request your charges back.

nimuemusic

I cancelled my account which would automatically cancell aa DDs.

regularsaver1

No it would not

You would have had to:

1. Cancel direct debits yourself - direct with bank and company
2. Arrange for them to be taken from new account - by telephoning company giving new bank details
3. Repay all the money owed on the account, hand back in card and cheque book. An account is not closed until all money owed has been repaid

Can I ask, what other may think - but how on earth could it get to £7000? Did you get bank statements?

After all the direct debit firms have been paid - were the owed the money?

tom188

1. Was the account in credit when you wrote to the bank?
2. Why were you unaware of all the direct debits? did you just think they were being paid themselves?

Phoenix79_2

First of all you should have realised that the money wasn't being debited from your new account. Unfortunately you can't rely on just sending a letter. Secondly, as no DD's were being taken from your new account i'm guessing there is quite a bit of money in there to pay off your overdraft on your old account?

edit: you don't mention opening another account? Have you done that? Or did you just want to cancel the account and stop paying DDs?

chomps13

Hi everyone

My first time - woohoo! If I have repeated someone elses question, please forgive me. After trawling through the first 10 pages, I realised that it'd take weeks to read all 98!

In a nutshell, I sent the initial letter (request for list of charges) on 23/01/07 and LLOYDS have until 04/03/07 (a Sunday, as luck would have it) to respond. However, I have read through Martin/s comprehensive guide with the template letters, but cannot find what the next step is should banks not respond to the initial letter. He does suggest contacting the Information Commissioner's Office and follow up with a telephone call to the bank.

My query is...do I just sit back and wait for LLOYDS to either respond to my phonecall (assuming they do not respond by 04/07)? Or I have to contact the ICO, do I just wait for them to force the information my way? I havelooked at all the next template letters to send and they are all devised around the assumption that the initial letter has been responded to within the 40 day period.

Help! And thank you in advance!


Martin is really a fantastic person to us all, could you imagine, if all usersput together £1, what we could buy him?.........

A plane perhaps?!!!!! A country?!!!!! (I know I have an overactive imagination.....)

thesaint

Hi Comps13
You will get more response if you posted in the 'Reclaim bank charges' section.

s1h

nimuemusic without trying to sound sarcastic. Did you not think for however long this was going on for, how are my bills being paid? Why has my new account got no dd's set up on there? Why has my new account got more money in it available than it should do? Didn't you get bank statements in the post?

Or did you just think that you had got a squeeze and hoped you would get away with it?