DD - cancel then reinstate problems

thefuzzbox

Hi, Would appreciate some advice:

• In May, I cancelled (online) my Nationwide mortgage payment DD on my First Direct current a/c and moved it to Halifax (for £100 bribe)
• A month later, I asked Nationwide to move it back to First Direct, but the funds never come out, and despite Nationwide telling me the DD is set up, First Direct say they've never received a new instruction from Nationwide.
• Been going on 3 months now, despite repeat calls to both companies - am mitigating risk of default each month through making manual payments via a Flexaccount.
• Nationwide blame FD, and FD blame Nationwide.
• Nationwide tell me First Direct must be at fault because everything DD wise looks ok their end - but they inform me attempted collections are being refused due to "Instruction Cancelled".
• First Direct tell me Nationwide must be at fault as they haven't received through any new instruction.
• Is it my fault for not explicitly requesting FD to reinstate my originally cancelled DD? Or am I correct in assuming a new instruction to Nationwide to collect from FD should happen seamlessly?

Thanks

Hazzanet

thefuzzbox wrote: »

[*]A month later, I asked Nationwide to move it back to First Direct, but the funds never come out, and despite Nationwide telling me the DD is set up, First Direct say they've never received a new instruction from Nationwide.

Okay, so the instruction would have been marked as "Cancelled by Payer" at First Direct. When you asked Nationwide to start collecting from First Direct again, they should have sent what BACS people know as an "0N" transaction to the First Direct account to setup the instruction again there.
[/quote]

thefuzzbox wrote: »

[*]Been going on 3 months now, despite repeat calls to both companies - am mitigating risk of default each month through making manual payments via a Flexaccount.
[*]Nationwide blame FD, and FD blame Nationwide.
[*]Nationwide tell me First Direct must be at fault because everything DD wise looks ok their end - but they inform me attempted collections are being refused due to "Instruction Cancelled".

If this is the case, then the "0N" hasn't been sent by Nationwide; if I heard this where I work, I would know that it's the company being paid that's at fault.

thefuzzbox wrote: »

[*]First Direct tell me Nationwide must be at fault as they haven't received through any new instruction.

First Direct appear to be talking sense in my opinion.

thefuzzbox wrote: »

[*]Is it my fault for not explicitly requesting FD to reinstate my originally cancelled DD? Or am I correct in assuming a new instruction to Nationwide to collect from FD should happen seamlessly?

No this is a simple thing to do, and it sounds to me like Nationwide are making a royal balls up of it. I suggest that you raise a complaint with Nationwide and ask them to confirm when they sent the last 0N transaction to FD and see if that prompts them to look further than their noses.

Archi_Bald

I would raise formal written complaints with both, FD and Nationwide. It can't be down to you to figure out the intricacies of how they exchange DD data - it's for them to sort it to your satisfaction.

thefuzzbox

Thank you both - given me some key information there.


I had actually raised a formal complaint via secure messaging on both their sites yesterday. To be fair, both companies called me today.


Nationwide reinterated (politely and rather eloquently), that they'd reviewed it, and again, could come to no other conclusion than FD were at fault. Amusingly, the gentleman asked me whether I was now OK to have the complaint marked as resolved. I provided a negative response.


FD (even more politely) reasserted they saw it as Nationwide's fault. They did however, reinstate my DD to hopefully result in next months payment going through OK.


Bizarrely, in my complaint, I offered each side my authorisation (to overcome what they described as data protection issues) to speak with each other to hopefully come to a conclusion. After initially sticking by the same reason for refusing to call each other, I've managed to get both sides to agree to dialling into a conference call I am going to host tomorrow afternoon - as it seemed to be the only route left to actually get them to speak to each other. The info you have supplied re: the 0N will be key information along with the agreement that it's not for me to resolve the intracicies (sp) of their systems. I will let you know how I get on.


All I really want is for one of the two companies to admit they've screwed up, and to say Sorry for the multiple calls and inept advice they have provided.(at one point, after seeing another month pass without the debit being taken I was advised by Nationwide to just give it a few days, these things normally work themselves out)


Sounds like that company should be Nationwide, and I can then similarly pass on my apologies to First Direct for wasting their time.


Will post tomorrow and let you know the outcome.

Archi_Bald

You seem to be well on top of getting this sorted for good - - and getting a payment from either or both of them to at least cover your time and expenses.

I am not so certain that Hazzanet is correct that Nationwide should have sent a "re-instate DD" message. That would pre-req that they keep a record of the DD you cancelled, and know that it is that self-same DD that you want to re-instate. Also, it would pre-req that we, as consumers, have a means to tell a company that we want to re-instate a DD. Given that we do not have such a means, all a company can do is process any DD instruction they get as a new one - - which it might well be.

So I am guessing but my money would be on FD having messed up (there's another thread right now on MSE about FD and DDs - - where they don't come out smelling of roses because left hand doesn't seem to know what right hand does). The fact that they reinstated your DD now tells me that they probably knew they should have done so in the first place.

Anyway, whether this should have been processed as a "0N" or not, it cannot be down to the consumer to know what the two DD parties need to do in order to execute the consumer's instructions. You asked Nationwide to get money from your FD account, and they never did. FD were asked to pay Nationwide, and they never did.

Good luck for your call tomorrow - don't let them off the hook about paying for your costs etc!

Hazzanet

Archi_Bald wrote: »

I am not so certain that Hazzanet is correct that Nationwide should have sent a "re-instate DD" message. That would pre-req that they keep a record of the DD you cancelled, and know that it is that self-same DD that you want to re-instate. Also, it would pre-req that we, as consumers, have a means to tell a company that we want to re-instate a DD. Given that we do not have such a means, all a company can do is process any DD instruction they get as a new one - - which it might well be.

The 0N is the message to "set up a new DD"; I say reinstate above because to reinstate, they have to set it up from scratch again, and after all the OP is trying to start the DD again between two parties who already, once, had the instruction in place. I think we may be getting bogged down with semantics.

Archi_Bald wrote: »

Anyway, whether this should have been processed as a "0N" or not, it cannot be down to the consumer to know what the two DD parties need to do in order to execute the consumer's instructions. You asked Nationwide to get money from your FD account, and they never did. FD were asked to pay Nationwide, and they never did.

Agreed, it's not down to the consumer to understand the internal workings of the DD scheme, however knowing some of the system may assist the party at fault to see where they have gone wrong. I firmly believe that the issue is in Nationwide's court.

thefuzzbox

Just by way of an update, both Nationwide and First Direct did dial in to the conf line at the allotted time.

The conversation took a predictable path although was coloured with lots of mention of mandate request times, and different systems I'd never heard of. I did go down the 0N route but was met with relative silence.

They've now provided each other with direct lines in order to discuss when they've got their respective tech and other teams to take a look, so I'm hopeful I'll get an explanation at some point in the near future.

All good fun, eh.