Smile faster payments not made

Roland_Sausage

At the start of the month I logged into my Smile account and set up all my usual bill payments to be made today (29/03) since it is the day I get paid. Three or four weeks ago when I did this, I didn't consider or even realise that today might be a bank holiday.

Tonight I have checked my online banking and noticed that none of the payments I scheduled to be made today have been made. I presume that this is due to it being a bank holiday and they won't get made until Tuesday now?

The annoying thing is that I usually clear one of my credit cards in full each month, and because of this I will get charged interest on it as today is the "pay by" date. :mad:

Fortunately there was a direct debit in place for the minimum amount so I won't get a late fee, although I don't see any evidence of that having gone through either....

Gromitt

Roland_Sausage wrote: »

Fortunately there was a direct debit in place for the minimum amount so I won't get a late fee, although I don't see any evidence of that having gone through either....

Payments booked for a bank holiday will always either be done the day before or the day afterwards, usually the day afterwards.

The DD will probably arrive late (on Tuesday), but you will not get a Late payment marker and it was still requested well in advance.

innovate

Roland_Sausage wrote: »

At the start of the month I logged into my Smile account and set up all my usual bill payments to be made today (29/03) since it is the day I get paid.

This is a very high-risk strategy. What if your salary arrives a day late? Or just hours after your DDs were getting processed? It's much safer to leave some time (say, at least 3 calendar days) between receiving regular funds and making regular payments.

Roland_Sausage

innovate wrote: »

This is a very high-risk strategy. What if your salary arrives a day late? Or just hours after your DDs were getting processed? It's much safer to leave some time (say, at least 3 calendar days) between receiving regular funds and making regular payments.

The wife also gets paid on the same day as me (last working day of the month) and works for a different company so I hadn't really considered this possibility. Also there is an unused overdraft which could provide flexibility for such situations.

The problem I have with this particular credit card (Amazon) is that the pay by date is usually always the same day I get paid. They issue the statement around the 14th and only give just over 2 weeks to pay it so I can't really pay it 3 days after payday. I will certainly bear this in mind with the other regular payments I make as they all have a much longer window in which to make payments.

Back to the original issue, I assume the payments will be made on Tuesday. I suppose it is my own fault for not realising that no payments would be made today. My employer doesn't recognise good friday as a holiday so it didn't enter my head.

At least it is some comfort to know that the direct debit for the credit card minimum payment has been made, even if it doesn't yet show on my bank account.

thenudeone

Smile's systems are stuck firmly in the 20th century and refuse to acknowledge the existence of faster payments.

For example their statements always show payments OUT on a certain day before receipts, even if in the real world you made a payment in, waited until it showed online with smile, then used the funds to make a payment out.
The result is that the balance shows an overdraft when in reality you have never been overdrawn.

If, for example you transfer £6k in from Lloyds Vantage so you can sweep £1k out through to 6 different current accounts (to remain eligible for the best deals), then back to smile, then transfer the £6k back to Lloyds, all in the same day, your statement will show you were £12k overdrawn

Since you may be asked to produce bank statements to support a mortgage application (I have been), I complained to Co-op, but it was rejected. I'm now pondering whether to take it further.

Also - the dates on which transactions appear sometimes changes between the recent items and the statement.