Mortgage payment not taken by Scottish Widows

pickled

Hi,

I have a mortgage with Scottish Widows which I have been paying every month. Last month I switched bank accounts to Alliance and Leicester and received a letter from Scottish Widows dated 22 December informing me they were aware of the switch and would take my next payment on 2 January from the new account. However, the payment hasn't been taken and when i phone Scottish Widows they first tried to tell me that they had received notification on 29 Dec and as they required 3 working days, they hadn't been able to action it and therefore couldn't take a direct debit. I pointed out to them that the letter was dated 22 Dec and then they couldn't ecplain why they hadn't taken the payment. However, I now find that I can't make a payment by debit card over the phone until I have received a letter from them informing me I'm in arrears. Is there anyway I can avoid this and will this leave me with a black mark on my credit rating? I am very unhappy with this as it is entirely their fault

dunstonh

I am very unhappy with this as it is entirely their fault

It's not really their fault. They just didnt have enough working days in there to get it sorted. I dont know when in advance Scot Wid submit their direct debit requests. Typically it is more than a week and upto three weeks.

It's been a while since a did the direct debit role and it may have changed but when you transferred direct debits between banks, the instruction would be cancelled by the old bank as "account transferred" which would let the provider know in advance electronically that you were moving your bank account and then a notification sent seperatly from the new bank (by post back then) with the new account details. If they still do it that way, it would explain the date differences with the initial notification and the details supplied on the 29th.

You dont say what their solution to this was. I would have thought they would try one of two things. Either collect the missing payment when they can (i.e. around 15th Jan) or ask you to send a cheque in.

There is nothing to be concerned with here and moving banks does muck your direct debits up when payment dates are close to the transfer date. Nothing you can do about it.