Annoying - Barclays on line payment. £0.55 not allowed

NFH

Lokolo wrote: »

Because its 55p.... you can't even buy a Mars Bar with that nowadays.

You have no idea why the OP needed to pay such a tiny payment. I gave a reason above why I once needed to. You should be a little more open-minded and less presumptuous about others' needs when you don't know the full facts.

Lokolo wrote: »

And why is it not cost effective? You means changing their infrastructure to accommodate this? Basically they would need to hire consultants and soft engs, they would need testers to test it out, then they would need a live test, then they would need to roll it out. All in all, it'll cost a lot more than a couple of complaints whereby the response will be a letter saying "Sorry we do not offer this service, thank you for your comments.".

First, it actually cost Barclays to implement this minimum limit in the first place, so I would question why they spent resources doing so. Second, the limit is unlikely to be hard-coded but will probably be in a config file somewhere. It would not require significant testing to reduce a config setting from 1.00 to 0.01. In any case, the cost of testing would be much less than the manpower cost of branch staff having to make these necessary micro-payments instead.

Milarky

This is sheer laziness on the part of Barclays. Sending penny amounts is routine from many (actually most) banks and presumably those that say they can't ''spend a penny" simply had an inferior programmer when coding this stuff.

In general it's easy to have a workaround (like sending amounts above £1 and returning the £ part) for these niggles but why should anyone accept having those hoops placed there by 'the banks' themselves?

Ironically RBS credit cards do this in reverse - if your spending comes to under £1 they 'write it off'. Of course that would have been seen as a 'cost saving' wheeze by some mad programmer at some time in 80s (no payment to collect, you see) - except they still send a paper statement informing you which collecting the part of a pound might have helped cover!

Lokolo

Milarky wrote: »

This is sheer laziness on the part of Barclays. Sending penny amounts is routine from many (actually most) banks and presumably those that say they can't ''spend a penny" simply had an inferior programmer when coding this stuff.

In general it's easy to have a workaround (like sending amounts above £1 and returning the £ part) for these niggles but why should anyone accept having those hoops placed there by 'the banks' themselves?

Ironically RBS credit cards do this in reverse - if your spending comes to under £1 they 'write it off'. Of course that would have been seen as a 'cost saving' wheeze by some mad programmer at some time in 80s (no payment to collect, you see) - except they still send a paper statement informing you which collecting the part of a pound might have helped cover!

Fyi it wouldnt have been the programmers fault, they only create what they are told to create.

I am also not saying it shouldnt have been different, but thats the way it is, and i wouldnt waste time complaining for the sake of this.

NFH

Lokolo wrote: »

Fyi it wouldnt have been the programmers fault, they only create what they are told to create.

Yes, you're right about this. It was probably the fault of a business analyst who mistakenly made a similar assumption to others in this thread that nobody would ever have a good reason to make a payment below £1, and did not consider the consequences of additional manpower usage upon branch and telephone banking staff.

I do question though why Barclays felt it necessary to waste resources on implementing such a minimum limit. I see only disadvantages, no advantages either for the bank or for the customer.

Nuclear_Themes

Banking may be free to most of us but it isn't to the banks themselves.

Micropayments are difficult to deal with... They often cost more money in admin than the payment itself. All you need to look at is, this is the rule with Barclays; if you don't like it pick a different bank.

NFH

Nuclear_Themes wrote: »

Micropayments are difficult to deal with... They often cost more money in admin than the payment itself.

Absolutely true, and this is my point. This being the case, why does Barclays prevent these micro-payments from being made online (without admin costs), and instead ask customers to instruct them via a bank employee, either in a branch or over the phone (with consequent admin costs)?

ffacoffipawb

Lokolo wrote: »

Because its 55p.... you can't even buy a Mars Bar with that nowadays.

NFH wrote: »

You have no idea why the OP needed to pay such a tiny payment. I gave a reason above why I once needed to. You should be a little more open-minded and less presumptuous about others' needs when you don't know the full facts.

Exactly. Tesco does them for 49p ....

http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=266333285

JuicyJesus

dzug1 wrote: »

Some banks won't handle cheques for under £1

Name and shame... I've never heard of one that refuses cheques under £1. That would immediately stop a good number of dividend cheques from being paid in.

Now if banks would stop accepting cheques altogether...

Gromitt

ffacoffipawb wrote: »

Exactly. Tesco does them for 49p ....

http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=266333285

or 2 for 80p. However, I've raised a complaint with Tesco as they state that a shopping cart consisting of 2 Mars bars are not suitable for home delivery

Hanky_Panky

NFH wrote: »

What isn't cost-effective? To make micro-payments by online banking? Why not? And what is petty about making such payments?

What's petty is complaining about it. You don't have to like it - go elsewhere if their service doesn't appeal to you.