Deferred Payments

furiousjammin

Sorry for putting this under credit cards, but i couldnt find one for debit cards.

im panicking so excuse if ive missed the correct forum.

Ive received my bank statement and it shows im overdrawn big time. there are 62 transactions that i have done in my local shop apparantly. i rang the bank saying i didnt recognise the transactions.

the bank have looked into it and rang me back, apparantly they are all transactions from the last 3 months, but the shop i use, have not been taking the money out of my account, they have deferred the transactions and taken them all at once.

i have 62 transactions on my account, and 20 on the girlfriends.

due to being overdrawn, each of these transactions have a £25 charge. so i am now £2000 down for bank charges + charges for being overdrawn itself = £3000 overdrawn!

are they allowed to do this? are there any laws relating to a shop or merchant deferring payments.

i cant find any info online, someone please help!

molerat

Do you accept that all the transactions are genuine, do they tie up with your receipts, did you not notice they had not been debited when you reconciled your receipts with your bank account ? Taking them within 3 months is perfectly acceptable under the regulations. It is up to you to monitor your account.

furiousjammin

at first i didnt think any of them are genuine but at least some of them must be genuine if they are old payments.

Is there a set time period they are allowed to defer for?

McKneff

They have up to 6 years I'm afraid.

But after a certain time, not sure if its 3 months or not they must inform you that they are going to do so. Before that, they can just take them.

jonesMUFCforever

Which bank please is this?

mellonicoley

I don't think it matters which bank it is, they can ALL do this. I've had a transaction come out of my account a month later because of the same deferred payment rules. I was with HSBC at the time. Now I try to keep a closer eye on my account.

furiousjammin

Santander is the bank

jonesMUFCforever

Which Santander account is it?

Ben8282

82 transactions is an awful lot for you and your girlfriend to have 'forgotten' about. If you had written 82 cheques and the payees had not paid them in to their accounts promptly would you have forgotten about them and spent the money? Of course not. 3 months is not a long time for transactions to be delayed; unusual these days where electronic terminals rather than manual vouchers are used, but unfortunately not prohibited. You must have known that this money had been spent and made allowance for the transactions to be debited.

jonesMUFCforever

The reason I want to know which type of account it is so that I can check the charging structure as a lot of banks will charge for going overdrawn or over limit but not many will charge for every transaction by debit card.
I too find it strange that so many transactions went unnoticed as surely the money spent would still be in the account wouldn't it?

furiousjammin

the money was still in the account, but as the transactions were each for £20, i didnt notice them not leaving my account. if they were £100 i would have noticed. But £20 i didnt.