rules of credit cards

macdo

Hi, I have just been a bit dim. I have a credit card from Metro bank. They tell you about a month in advance how much your full bill is. Mine is on "automatic full pay off" from a Metro bank account.
One of the big payments (about £900) went out on 21/9/12 before the bill date end of Sept and was refunded 9/10/12 well before 27/10/12 when it was to be paid.
I tried to find out if the bill of 27/10/12 would deduct the refund or not they were rather vague and then said I would be paying it, the repayment would come off the November bill.
I stupidly did not have enough to cover all the bill in the account on 27/10/12 so nothing happened automatically - no minimum payment, no notification(yet) and I assume I will get stung for non-payment.

This made me wonder about
1. whether the rule Metro has whereby you can only pay off your account on a Metro Credit card automatically from a Metro bank account is legal. (Surely one should be able to pay from any UK account? - in part I say this as I then wouldn't have to keep an eye on this as it would come out of the same account as the one my pay goes into)

2. Am I alone in thinking that paying something that has already been reimbursed to the credit card is a bit steep?
(to be honest this is probably why I let the error happen..)

3. If one is set up to pay everything off and technically they cannot but there is enough to cover the minimum payment wouldn't it be good practice to do that automatically?

Clearly this is all probably my fault but I would be interested in someone else's perspective.
Thanks, grumpily
macdo

molerat

macdo wrote: »

Hi, I have just been a bit dim. I have a credit card from Metro bank. They tell you about a month in advance how much your full bill is. Mine is on "automatic full pay off" from a Metro bank account.
One of the big payments (about £900) went out on 21/9/12 before the bill date end of Sept and was refunded 9/10/12 well before 27/10/12 when it was to be paid.
I tried to find out if the bill of 27/10/12 would deduct the refund or not they were rather vague and then said I would be paying it, the repayment would come off the November bill.
I stupidly did not have enough to cover all the bill in the account on 27/10/12 so nothing happened automatically - no minimum payment, no notification(yet) and I assume I will get stung for non-payment.

This made me wonder about
1. whether the rule Metro has whereby you can only pay off your account on a Metro Credit card automatically from a Metro bank account is legal. (Surely one should be able to pay from any UK account? - in part I say this as I then wouldn't have to keep an eye on this as it would come out of the same account as the one my pay goes into) Their card, their rules ..... but not a card I would use with that sort of restriction.

2. Am I alone in thinking that paying something that has already been reimbursed to the credit card is a bit steep?
(to be honest this is probably why I let the error happen..) Some cards do reduce the payment by refunded amounts ..... again see 1.

3. If one is set up to pay everything off and technically they cannot but there is enough to cover the minimum payment wouldn't it be good practice to do that automatically? Very difficult for their systems to cope with this really, I doubt the card dept can see the status of current accounts, would you be happy with 2 failed payment charges ?

Clearly this is all probably my fault but I would be interested in someone else's perspective.
Thanks, grumpily
macdo

Also sounds like poor CS if they cannot tell you what will happen after a refund, looks like another case of see my answer to 1.;)

YorkshireBoy

1. I'm not familiar with the Metro accounts, but it doesn't sound like an unfair condition to me. At the end of the day if the T&Cs say you can only pay by DD from a Metro current account then 'them's the rules' so work with them.

2. Many card providers say (in their T&Cs) that refunds do not count towards a monthly payment. Do your T&Cs say the same?

3. Impractical. That would involve 2 attempts at a DD collection, some several days apart. And that wouldn't be allowed under the terms of the DD guarantee since they have to give you at least 10 (working?) days notice of both the amount and date to be collected. Even if they could re-attempt a minimum payment, if that failed you'd then be looking at 2 x £12 default (returned DD) fees for that month.

Cell

The answer is here:

https://www.metrobankonline.co.uk/Global/NEW%20WEBSITE%20FILES/Personal/Borrowing/205%20IIS%202.0%20(0512).pdf

• Payments You can pay us money you owe us from either your
Metro Bank Current Account or from another bank (unfortunately at this time we cannot arrange for payments by Direct Debit)

Presumably you can cancel your payment authority from Metro Bank, but you would have to pay directly through BACS/FP from another account manually.

dalesrider

macdo wrote: »

One of the big payments (about £900) went out on 21/9/12 before the bill date end of Sept and was refunded 9/10/12 well before 27/10/12 when it was to be paid.
macdo

The credit would only count if it hit the account before the statement was produced. After this date it would be counted towards your next statement.
So I'm guessing that your statement date was before 09/10.

As such you would need to make the full payment for that month. As you pay in full. you should be able to request the credit to be transfered back to the funding acc free of charge. Unless you are planing on spending that amount again next month.

Some card providers would class it as a payment. But given the vauge info you got. If you get hit with a charge I would be contesting it on the basis of miss information.