Barclays Fees

kentguy07

I moved to Lloyds from Barclays because I dislike barclays ,dislike is putting it strongly.

So I opened a new current account with Lloyds and I canceled direct debits by going in to Barclays and the man there stopped them and showed me. Some weeks later I was getting letters from barclays saying I was overdrawn ,that a direct debit had bounced.

Then came the phone calls.

So I went in branch and explained to them and the lady assured me that there would be an audit to see what was accessed by the man who stopped my direct debits and that she assured me the calls would stop until this matter was resolved and that she would contact me within a week

A week is now up ,no call from her ,calls from the bank started again.
The banking charge is £20 odd.

How do I stand legally about getting the fee sorted out and also how do I stand about harassment, from what I gather it is not lawful to harass people by telephone when they specifically asked for calls to be stopped.

The calls are some times 5 times a day.

I received one just moments ago. If I owed them money and I had not cancled direct debits then Fine ,but Barclays are not even attempting to resolve this and instead decide to harass me instead.

2sides2everystory

When you opened the account with Lloyds did they not offer to arrange an automatic transfer of regular payments to your new account? They could have even taken your authority to cancel the Barclays account when they had finished, getting Barclays to transfer any remaining balance to Lloyd's when they'd finished.

So you decided upon the DIY route? Did you tell Barclays you were closing the account? Did you ask Barclays for a print out of regular payments? Have you got any Continuous Card Authority Payments outstanding on the Barclays account (which they can do little about)?

You said the man at Barclays showed you he had cancelled direct debits but did Barclays give you a print out of the regular payments showing which ones they had cancelled? It would require that ALL regular payments were cancelled not just DDs. STOs for example as well as the CCAs mentioned above which only you can cancel or change directly with the merchant and which do not show up to Barclays until the money gets taken.

This all sounds a bit haphazard and optimistic if it was a DIY account transfer.

kentguy07

2sides2everystory wrote: »

When you opened the account with Lloyds did they not offer to arrange an automatic transfer of regular payments to your new account? They could have even taken your authority to cancel the Barclays account when they had finished, getting Barclays to transfer any remaining balance to Lloyd's when they'd finished.

So you decided upon the DIY route? Did you tell Barclays you were closing the account? Did you ask Barclays for a print out of regular payments? Have you got any Continuous Card Authority Payments outstanding on the Barclays account (which they can do little about)?

You said the man at Barclays showed you he had cancelled direct debits but did Barclays give you a print out of the regular payments showing which ones they had cancelled? It would require that ALL regular payments were cancelled not just DDs. STOs for example as well as the CCAs mentioned above which only you can cancel or change directly with the merchant and which do not show up to Barclays until the money gets taken.

This all sounds a bit haphazard and optimistic if it was a DIY account transfer.

All I had was direct debits ,no standing orders or CCA "Whatever they are".
I was assured and shown on screen that they direct debits had been stopped.

Its not the £20 ,I would pay that ,but its the constant harassment which I believe is not lawful.

If I called people up all hours ,making unwanted phone calls ,the police I believe would be involved.
Which makes me think that the calls are not legal and if this is the case then I would like to know how to take legal action or report them to the authorities.

Iv always kept my barclays account in order and Iv been with them for over 6 years and that is how they treat a customer ,when the fault I believe was their own.

YorkshireBoy

kentguy07 wrote: »

...I would like to know how to take legal action

You'd need to consult/instruct a solicitor. If that proves to be too expensive I believe you can sue them in the small claims court a little cheaper. If you lose you may be awarded costs against you.

when the fault I believe was their own.

Not necessarily. The DD guarantee states that you should inform the DD originators when you cancel a DDI with your bank. Did you do this? If not, they've (the originators) likely used AUDDIS to set the DDIs up again in order to fulfil your contract with them. How have you been paying the originators since you moved banks? If by other means then you've been paying twice haven't you?...unless Barclays simply refused the request and charged an unpaid item fee?

BoGoF

This is why the advice when switching current accounts is to keep funds in the old account to cover any 'stray' direct debits - there is no such thing as a seamless transaction. As YorkshireBoy said cancelling the DD with the bank is sometimes not enough.

2sides2everystory

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

... (the originators) likely used AUDDIS to set the DDIs up again in order to fulfil your contract with them. ...

Can originators actually do that?? Actually my question is not "Can they?" but "Do they now?" because we live in a world where anything goes if you are a corporate.

OP forgive my less than empathetic first response - I am normally not quite so hawkish. Clearly you ought to be interested in how the DDs were to be paid after you'd cancelled them, but those phone calls do sound bang out of order.