East Coast tickets making me out of pocket!

beckylewis1983

Hi,
I purchased some rail tickets for a journey on the day of travel back on 26th August 2011 and paid at the train station using my debit card however the money has only just been taken out of my account over a Month later! This in turn is now going to make me out of pocket for the next week and possibly overdrawn!
Does anyone have any advice on what I can do in this situation?
Any help would be appreciated
Thanks

Bongedone

They don't have to take the money straight away. Happened to me a few years ago in a shop and it knocked me overdrawn.

Your meant to know how much you have left. I know I don't take any notice either to be honest.

May be best to get a temporary overdraft to cover it.

dzug1

I don't think there's anything you can do - apart from keeping a better reconcilation on your bank account of receipts and payments in future. You should have known that the payment was pending

beckylewis1983

Well im sure it went out on the day as i remember checking my account later that day however ive just checked now and it seems it never went out on the day so im confused!

thenudeone

yes. keep a spreadsheet of your transactions and reconcile it to your bank account regularly.

dzug1

What happens some of the time is that on the day of the transaction it disappears from your available balance.

However for some reason (processing problems, reconciliation problems - it's never clear what they are) it doesn't go through properly and gets added back into the balance

Then when the problems are solved and after you've forgotten all about it, it gets taken for real.

JimmyTheWig

They are certainly allowed to do this, so the only thing you can do is appeal nicely to their goodwill. They may give you some vouchers for your next trip.

In terms of it happening in the future, when you check your balance do you get a current balance and an available balance? We certainly on our HSBC account - the available balance seems to update as soon as a transaction has been made while the current balance is only updated when the money is taken (generally within a day or two!).

Meepster

As others have said, there isn't a lot you can do.

They have 6 months to process the original transaction and a further 66 months to ask for payment if the original transaction fails...