Tesco Credit Card Direct Debit Warning

*Scarlett

YB I think I binned the letter as I thought it was confirming DD details and they were correct. I can't difinitively say if they were giving me a date for DD.

The letter definitely did not say to make any other payment - it was just confirmation of bank details and the DD was set up - recieved it several weeks ago.

I am normally very careful about these things.

I'll have to ring them tomorrow as they clearly don't work weekends.

planteria

*Scarlett wrote: »

YB I think I binned the letter as I thought it was confirming DD details and they were correct. I can't difinitively say if they were giving me a date for DD.

The letter definitely did not say to make any other payment - it was just confirmation of bank details and the DD was set up - recieved it several weeks ago..

it will have confirmed the correct DD details. it won't have given you the date for your DD. until it's on your statement, you have to pay manually.

planteria

Gromitt wrote: »

I assume he means the same as what I've done in the past: Receive statement for £592.72 for example, and then manually pay £591.73 before the statement generation date. Tesco then write-off the 99p as it'll cost them more than that to send out the statement and process the payment.

So you save £11.88 each year.

thank you. yes, i have seen this described on another forum in the past. i currently have Tesco card with a BT so can't do it. but it's an interesting idea. to bag £12 you must be able to do it every month. but i'm surprised the 99p isn't just carried across with the next month's spending.

vacheron

Hi brakepad.

I narrowly avoided a similar issue with my my Tesco CC.

When I filled in the original online application I also filled in my DD instructions, however when I logged in online to check my payments about 3-4 weeks later I noticed my first statement payment date had passed but no DD was showing as present on My account.

Fortunately the first statement only covered the first 4 days of my card and so the balance was £0.00, but had I made a purchase in those 4 days I could have found myself in the same situation.

I used the Tesco banking site to set up the DD (again) and this time got a confirmation through the post within 2 days.

PS Ignore the 4th poster with nothing useful to contribute to the discussion. I was clearly able to understand that you made your warning in paragraph 1 and then elaborated from paragraph 2 exactly as you stated you would.
Seems like everyone else it that poster was smart enough to work that out too.

PanGalactic

(Hello, first time poster here, please be gentle!)

Sorry to revive an old thread but this has just happened to me too.

Whilst I did read the bit about continuing to make payments until blah blah blah, I naively assumed it would go through since I saw Tesco Bank appearing on my bank account's list of direct debits, as well as on the "manage direct debit" page on the Tesco site it clearly said the next payment would be taken on 12th November and it still says that today on the 13th November!

I'll give them a call later during one of their less busy times and fully expect they will give me a refund of the £12 and tell me everything is going to be ok.

However, my question here is, will this affect credit history or not?

Thanks!

PG

bellabooski

brakepad wrote: »

I'll get straight to the point and then fill in the details:
If you have a Tesco Clubcard Credit Card, have received a statement, and plan to set up a Direct Debit to pay the minimum or a fixed amount, I strongly suggest that for this first month after setting up the DD you also make a manual payment for the minimum amount to avoid a late payment fee.

I am in this situation, and have a new Tesco 0% card. I also have several other 0% credit cards in operation, each with a DD set up for the minimum amount, and reminders to pay off the balance etc.

After receiving my first statement dated 21st July 2013, I set up a DD on 27th July for the minimum amount, which was due on 10th August. There was a warning online that a DD could take up to 10 working days to set up, but this was within the timeframe of the due date.

My Tesco online account immediately showed (and still does show) that a DD has been requested for the minimum amount, with a 'Next payment' date of 10th August.
A few days later my current account also showed DD to Tesco in place.

Today (15th August) I checked my Tesco account to find that no payment had been taken, and a £12 late fee charged.

On phoning Tesco, I was told that their system does not allow DDs to be set up after the statement date, which is why the payment had not been taken. This is verging on being underhand, as there is nothing on the statement to suggest that this is the case, and Direct Debit is listed as the first payment method in the 'How and when to pay' section of the statement.

The first person I spoke to was polite and helpful, and offered to refund the £12 as a 'goodwill gesture'. There was however no acknowledgement that Tesco were in the wrong in any way.
After speaking to someone more senior, I got some acknowledgement that this was a known behaviour of their system, that the documentation was inaccurate, and that I was not the first person to be affected.

Personally I think that this is a ridiculous state of affairs, whereby DD is listed as a payment method on a statement, but cannot be used until the following month. It is especially nasty as there is no warning that this is the case AND both my bank & the Tesco website indicated that the payment had indeed been set up.

You don't get any warning that the DD is going to fail, as it's not taken until the due date, so there is no way to respond to it not going through other than a preemptive payment.

I've not had this issue on any other credit card, and it must be fairly common chain of events to receive a statement and then set up a DD to pay it.

To reiterate, Tesco were fairly helpful and have refunded the fee, and assure me that the 0% deal will not be affected. I am concerned that my credit history may reflect this missed payment, hence I'm putting up this warning to others.

I'd be interested to know if anyone else has experienced this with this or any other card.

I got caught out with this one too but at least when I called about the '£12 late payment charge' Tesco refunded it immediately.:)

TBeckett100

i had an issue like this. I am quite sure when I applied online I gave them my bank details. 2 months later I get a call saying I am two months behind. I paid instantly but always felt i had set up the DD. Anyway, they didn't put a late payment marker on.

PanGalactic

Thanks for the info, that's good to know.

I'm about to make the call now!