FirstDirect most unhelpful

Hooloovoo

DrSyn wrote: »

2. As a new First Direct customer & paying off by computer why, did you leave it to the last minute to pay off the card and not 7 days before. The FD account was not paying you any interest after all.

True enough. But as the OP states FD offer the option of selecting when you want the money to arrive in the external account. He selected that option. Therefore it is up to FD to decide when to send the money and ensure it arrives on time.

They didn't do this, because of sloppy coding that forgot about bank holidays. Therefore it is FD that are at fault.

Yes, the OP could have done things differently to mitigate the possibility of problems occurring. They didn't. But that doesn't make it their fault.

3. Why did you not get and use the First Direct credit card but use the Amex card (does this have a yearly fee attached?). Then this situation should not occur.

Presumably because the OP gets cashback.

Hooloovoo

meer53 wrote: »

When you set up a payment on internet banking, YOU select the beneficiary from a drop down list. Then you confirm the payment to be made. How can it be FD's fault ?

It is the fault of FD because they offered an option of choosing when you want the money to get to the external account.

The OP told FD the correct date by which the money had to arrive.

FD calculated the date the money needed to be sent. That date was wrong. Therefore FD are at fault.

If FD are going to offer such functionality, is it their responsibility to ensure it is correctly programmed to account for weekends and bank holidays.

JimmyTheWig

Hooloovoo wrote: »

It is the fault of FD because they offered an option of choosing when you want the money to get to the external account.

The OP told FD the correct date by which the money had to arrive.

FD calculated the date the money needed to be sent. That date was wrong. Therefore FD are at fault.

Unless, as WestonDave points out, it is a question of when Amex _processed_ the payment.
It seems to me quite possible that FD delivered the money to Amex on the 21st or 22nd as they said they would.
Amex didn't process it until the 24th - making the OP's payment late.

And this is probably covered on Amex's side by saying that payment should be made x number of working days before it is due. I don't think it is FD's responsibility to build this into their payment date routines.

Debt_free_soon_2

I am a FD customer ( and ex employee) I believe it to be AMEX's fault.

DH banks with HSBC (same group & systems as FD) he gets a letter monthly saying payment was late - it never is, it seems their systems are crap to put it nicely! They refund the £12 each & every month after he rings to make them aware he did pay on time - to me that says something ( they are aware they are rubbish)


Did this happen at your previous bank?

lijaloo

Similar thing happened to me when faster payments were first introduced. I wrongly thought that the payment would arrive and be processed by Amex on the same day. I phoned and complained and they refunded the charge. Nothing to do with FD. Amex accepts faster payments but doesn't process them.

meer53

If i remember correctly, when you make a payment on FD internet banking, there is a statement on the confirm screen which advises you that the recipient may take more time to apply the payment ? So the payment may have reached Amex in time, it may have taken Amex a bit longer to apply the funds to the OP's account.

Gromitt

Heng_Leng wrote: »

Their internet banking is old and antiquated. They sent my credit card payment to the wrong payment account even though their system brought up the exact name of my card type/provider when setup.

I had lots of hassle getting the payment back and when I complained they blamed me for 'not phoning to check that their systems held the correct payment information'. They also cited their excellent customer satisfaction rate as if it meant they were never wrong.

I was told that you should always enter the sort code and account number and if the system then decides they already have that information, then you should select the appropriate entry from the list. Hold on a minute, if I've already entered the correct information, why do I need to select it from a list?! Really, some of the things they say are crazy. Plus, when you do select it from a list, you are not allowed to change how it shows up on your statement - you can only change that when they don't have any information about the company.

I've since got fedup of them and now just use whichever bank accounts give me the most for my money. Still have my salary paid into them as I like the regular saver account, but my current is typically less than £50.

richardmk

Hooloovoo wrote: »

It is the fault of FD because they offered an option of choosing when you want the money to get to the external account.

The OP told FD the correct date by which the money had to arrive.

FD calculated the date the money needed to be sent. That date was wrong. Therefore FD are at fault.

If FD are going to offer such functionality, is it their responsibility to ensure it is correctly programmed to account for weekends and bank holidays.

I agree with this posting. It is disconcerting when the messages support the bank when their is an element of doubt. The customer should never be the loser if an error occured due to information provided by the bank being misleading. Ask First Direct for a letter of deadlock on the issue and take the matter to the Ombudsman. I am sure they will credit you with a goodwill payment. Alternatively if you only just opened ask for the £100 for moving to another bank as you are not satisfied with their level of service provided.

maninthestreet

pcb2go wrote: »

I recently arranged a payment using their website to pay off my Amex card. When making a payment, their website offers a menu choice for the date of the payment: "Date it leaves my account", or "Date it arrives at destination account".

No it doesn't - the options are 'to leave on' and 'to arrive by'.

pqrdef

Hooloovoo wrote: »

True enough. But as the OP states FD offer the option of selecting when you want the money to arrive in the external account. He selected that option. Therefore it is up to FD to decide when to send the money and ensure it arrives on time.

They didn't do this, because of sloppy coding that forgot about bank holidays. Therefore it is FD that are at fault.

On the contrary, it's because the FD website recognised that the 22nd was a Saturday that it proposed sending the money on Friday 21st.

A scheduled payment or standing order isn't like an ad-hoc manual payment. It leaves and arrives early on the date specified.

But the FD website is talking about bank accounts, and a credit card account isn't a bank account. So far as FD is concerned, the "destination account" is Amex's collection account at their bank, as specified by the sort code and account number given.

The money will have been in that account early on the 21st. What Amex did after that is their own business. Most CC providers don't process receipts straight away, but when they get round to it, they backdate the credit to the date they received it.

Basically this is just a try-on by Amex, one of those optional charges that you don't have to pay if you can be bothered to phone them and say you'd rather not.