Faster Payment - Bank Error

Sparkle_66

On Friday 1st March I went into the bank after 4pm to pay my Virgin credit card bill. I made a mistake with the amount stating I wanted to pay £850 instead of £550 but was advised that they could change the amount which they did immediately or so I thought. Imagine my shock today when I have discovered both payments totalling £1400 have been made to Virgin leaving me overdrawn and no money for the rest of the month. I'm worried I wont be able to get my money back and the fact I can't do anything about it til tomorrow is driving me mad. Any advice would be much appreciated.

grumbler

Do you have any receipt?

That said, it amazes me that in 21st century people go to branches to do something that can be easily done comfortably at home.

Sparkle_66

Yes my credit card bill is stamped by the bank with £850 handwritten. I only paid in branch because I had the cash to pay but now they put the money into your account so payment can credit faster. A bit too fast in my case.

TheBanker

Might be worth phoning Virgin and asking if/how quickly they can return the money. The bank should assist also but phoning Virgin might be quicker. Make sure that the bank know to waive any overdraft charges as a result of their error.

What expenditure do you need to make before your next payday? One solution would be to pay for as much as possible on the credit card, but only if this won't affect any special interest rate or BT rate you're taking advantage of.

JulieM

What about phoning your bank? I'm with Lloyds and there is a 24 hr telephone number shown for queries, not sure about other banks though.

dalesrider

Sparkle_66 wrote: »

I made a mistake with the amount stating I wanted to pay £850 instead of £550 but was advised that they could change the amount which they did immediately or so I thought.

So your fault and not the banks then....

Although whoever said the amount could be changed, must have already pushed the button to make the payment, of £550.
As a FP cannot be changed once submitted.

Sparkle_66 wrote: »

Imagine my shock today when I have discovered both payments totalling £1400 have been made to Virgin leaving me overdrawn and no money for the rest of the month. I'm worried I wont be able to get my money back and the fact I can't do anything about it til tomorrow is driving me mad. Any advice would be much appreciated.

You are going to be pretty much at the mercy of Virgin here. Will this leave you with a credit balance?

Also why no money for the rest of the month. You can still use the credit card, as it now has plenty of avaiable balance.

Your bank won't phone Virgin. Unless they admit its their error. Even then they can not recall a faster payment.
As you only have one reciept, going to be hard to prove.

Best option would have been to simply make a 2nd payment of £300.

Sparkle_66

JulieM wrote: »

What about phoning your bank? I'm with Lloyds and there is a 24 hr telephone number shown for queries, not sure about other banks though.

Tried that even though it's Sunday and it's just an automated service for balances, credits/debits, request bank statement etc. Will be phoning bank first thing in the morning.

Sparkle_66

dalesrider wrote: »

So your fault and not the banks then....

Although whoever said the amount could be changed, must have already pushed the button to make the payment, of £550.
As a FP cannot be changed once submitted.




You are going to be pretty much at the mercy of Virgin here. Will this leave you with a credit balance?

Also why no money for the rest of the month. You can still use the credit card, as it now has plenty of avaiable balance.

Your bank won't phone Virgin. Unless they admit its their error. Even then they can not recall a faster payment.
As you only have one reciept, going to be hard to prove.

Best option would have been to simply make a 2nd payment of £300.

Yes initially my fault and I would have accepted that but the clerk checked with other bank staff & all agreed could be changed until close of business.

I will also phone Virgin in the morning guess I'm going to have to grovel a bit. It wont leave me in credit with them as I was paying off 1 of 3 balance transfers where 0% rate was ending. Never actually used the card filed away somewhere only ever BT. No wages left now paid monthly too and all my bills are paid by direct debit.

Fortunately I am on first name terms at the bank so I'm sure they will do their best to help me recoup the money. The £850 was paid first in error should have been £550 so I overpaid by £300 now thanks to the bank I've overpaid by £850.

Sparkle_66

Well I have just phoned Virgin who were absolutely no help at all. Advised to take it up with the bank & gave me the Disputes tel number. Stated I owed the money which I'm well aware of. Requested that he record my issue on my account.

dalesrider

Sparkle_66 wrote: »

Well I have just phoned Virgin who were absolutely no help at all. Advised to take it up with the bank & gave me the Disputes tel number. Stated I owed the money which I'm well aware of. Requested that he record my issue on my account.

Sounds like you got fobbed off.
No way will the disputes team be able to do anything. They will only cover card payments that came from your Virgin acc (I take it that, it is a Virgin number) if its the banks, then again nothing they can do.

Yes initially my fault and I would have accepted that but the clerk checked with other bank staff & all agreed could be changed until close of business

Time that branch staff got some proper training then... They should know that a faster payment is just that....

Can't even see what your bank (not named?) can do as it will have gone via faster payment. These cannot be recalled.
So best option they can look at is incresaing the overdraft on your bank account. Till you can get some funds in there to cover outgoings.

You really are going to have to raise a complaint againt the staff at the bank. As clearly they have failed to adhere to procedures.

agrinnall

I agree with Dalesrider about staff training - FPS has been live for over 4 years now, and staff should know by now what is and isn't possible. If the OP's bank is actually a bank, then there has never been a way of altering a single immediate payment once it's been sent. If they bank with one of the organisations (such as some building societies) who only send transactions overnight then they may have a process to amend payments before a cut off time, but even if that is the case it's clearly failed on this occasion. Either way, a formal complaint is the way to go.