Direct debit to qualify for Santander 123 Current Account INTEREST?

innovate

Whilst any 2 DDs will suffice for the 123, you gain most from using DDs that qualify for cashback.

bengal-stripe

Hoogieflip wrote: »

Santander tell me that I have to set them up with the organisation I want to pay, but the organisations I want to to send money to from my 123 account are other banks; they insist that Santander must set up the Direct Debits.

Are you confusing Direct Debit and Standing Order?

It looks to me, the other banks are talking about Standing Orders. With a SO you "send" money, with a DD, the money gets "pulled" by the beneficiary.

Rodders289

I set up 2 Direct Debits over 1 month ago but due to one of them being my council tax the date of payment was deferred to the following month. I though nothing of this as 2 direct debits have been set up. Wrong, only the other direct debit has been paid and I have lost 2 months interest on £20,000. If I look at my direct debits on my Santander 123 account only one is showing as it has been paid, so although I have set up the second direct debit Santander does not know about it yet till the 28th of this month when it finally gets paid.

eskbanker

Rodders289 wrote: »

If I look at my direct debits on my Santander 123 account only one is showing as it has been paid, so although I have set up the second direct debit Santander does not know about it yet till the 28th of this month when it finally gets paid.

If two DDs have been set up then they'll both show, even if they haven't yet paid out. If one isn't showing at all in online banking then it looks like it hasn't been set up properly yet....

innovate

There is nothing in the T&Cs that says the DDs must be paying monthly. So if you are certain you had the DDs set up within your account month, you should ask them to explain.

badger09

Rodders289 wrote: »

I set up 2 Direct Debits over 1 month ago but due to one of them being my council tax the date of payment was deferred to the following month. I though nothing of this as 2 direct debits have been set up. Wrong, only the other direct debit has been paid and I have lost 2 months interest on £20,000. If I look at my direct debits on my Santander 123 account only one is showing as it has been paid, so although I have set up the second direct debit Santander does not know about it yet till the 28th of this month when it finally gets paid.

Did you also meet the minimum monthly funding requirement of £500?

Rodders289

Thanks for the replies. I have 2 direct debits set up and did meet the necessary transactions etc. The direct debit that is not showing is East Dunbartonshire council tax. I contacted them who confirmed that I had a direct debit set up and had been set up since 26th Feb 2014 and it was due to come off on the 28th of April. They also said that as council tax only runs for 10 months I have not paid any for Feb or March. The last payment being Jan 2014.


I contacted Santander and they confirm that I only have one direct debit showing on that account, ie my Virgin Media and that East Dunbartonshire have not set up the direct debit to them.


Have I just been unlucky that I changed my direct debits on the 2 months that do not get paid?


I have emailed East Dunbartonshire council expressing my unhappiness with this setup asking to be compensated as I have a second 123 account with the exact same amount and I have made £97 in interest in the last 2 months.

Archi_Bald

Sounds as if your payee(s) only notifies Santander of the DD once they actually want to collect it. They will probably not re-imburse you for lost interest because they never promised to register the DD with the bank within a given timescale, nor had you asked them to.

Probably one to put down to experience - - if you cannot see a DD on your Santander account, then Santander don't know that you have given somebody a DD authority.

If you still cannot see the required 2nd DD, it would be prudent to set up a Tesco one asap. They usually show within 3-4 working days on the Santander accounts.

Milarky

Another good reason to ditch 10 monthly payment method of council tax and switch to 12 monthly payment instead.

Re. ArchiBald's response: does it not somewhat depend on whether the Council contacted the payer following registration to confirm it (and possibly give them dates)? I don't know precisely what councils are supposed to do but would assume that acknowledging a method of payment has been 'set up' might be one of those steps and as such the payer could be entitled to rely on an assurance of that sort and (possibly) could go back to Santander with this as ammunition.

If you could make a case that a) you thought you had complied because the council confirmed receipt of a valid instruction b) 123 T&Cs - being notoriously scrappy - don't stipulate how you ensure that two DDs are set up actually are before they are taken (although WE have worked out that you just need to keep checking the 'direct debits' tab at the top of the online banking screen until they appear there) and c) they have actually enjoyed the benefit of your 'hard earned' 20 grand for two months, so could hardly expect to get to this for nothing whatsoever, then you could ask for what Santander staff have called an 'exceptions payment' (£50?) but this really hinges on being able to show that Santander have done sometime 'wrong' or -at a stretch- of having 'inadequate processes' in place to allow you to begin earning the interest.

I think the 'inadequacy' of the 123 information (overall) is possibly the way to go because banks tend to feel vulnerable about suggestions of this kind that they aren't being clear. [In my case, I didn't get interest in the first month (although I hadn't topped the balance above £3000 in any case until a first payment was confirmed) as I had hoped because my second direct debit only appeared a day after the statement came out, and the date of the statement was one day earlier than it 'should' have been if it followed the month earlier. So I argued that I could have earned the interest in the month had the statement date not varied against me since my DD would then have fallen into that month.]

innovate

Milarky wrote: »

b) 123 T&Cs - being notoriously scrappy - don't stipulate how you ensure that two DDs are set up actually are before they are taken (although WE have worked out that you just need to keep checking the 'direct debits' tab ).......

I think the 'inadequacy' of the 123 information (overall) is possibly the way to go

I think you have the wrong expectations. T&Cs aren't user guides to online banking, so you wouldn't expect T&Cs to tell you how to check whether you have DDs set up. It is also not Santander-specific that you can see in your online banking whether and which DDs you have set up - all current accounts show this information online.

To describe the 123 T&Cs as notoriously scrappy is a bit far-fetched. Have you actually ever read them? They are one of the clearest current account T&Cs I have come across (and I have come across just about all of them since I have accounts with all but Barclays, and I do read those T&Cs at least once).