Credit cards direct debit payments

chattychappy

But you can pay off the debt at any time....

thenudeone

Anthorn wrote: »

I'm not too sure about the legalities of this: You should be able to make a payment off any debt any time you want

The legalities are very clear:
You can always make a payment of any amount up to the full balance at any time, without any penalty.

Anthorn wrote: »

if the lender stops you doing that they are forcing you to pay interest you would not otherwise have had to pay. Or to put another way they are preventing you from paying off the debt quicker.

They aren't stopping you or preventing you.

You don't have to pay by direct debit. You can pay by several other means, and you can do this at any time, and multiple times during a month if you want, but if you decide to pay by direct debit you need to understand how that will be affected by previous payments. As I've already said, different people will have different view on how they'd want their bank to react in this situation, and neither view is obviously more reasonable than the other.

With 24 hour online banking, you could see instantly that the direct debit wasn't for as much as you expected, and then immediately make an extra payment online for the difference, so there's no real "loss".