HBOS predicting my moves. Just not right

Alfie67

I am with Bank of Scotland, now Halifax also. I have money coming off in a few days which I am aware of and shall be putting cash in to cover this tomorrow. The bank however are aware it will be coming off in a few days time and will not allow me the money now. Cant get to grips with this at all. I have many items pending over the month and always have cash in for the day they will be taken out. Why can they do this? How do they know that I will or wont have the money in on the day its taken out. HELP! The 5 year old teller I got at the call centre was no good whatsoever and was probably first in condescending class.
Eunice

JanCee

I'm not quite sure I fully understand your problem without all the details but I will try and help. Some transactions are "earmarked" at the time of authorisation. For instance, if you do switch transactions the money is kept to cover the debit even though it may not reach your account for 3 days. I don't know whether this is what you mean by money coming off but it sounds like it may be something similar. This is all done automatically and the bank staff would not be able to anything about it.

Walletwatch

Not sure I understand you fully, but if you're saying you've used your debit card for a transaction, then the amount gets blocked immediately, and automatically, till the time the money is given out to the merchant. Till such time, you have that amount sitting in your balance, but you don't have it available for withdrawal. Nothing any manager (leave alone a teller) can do about it.

If I've got your query wrong, do give an example so I can understand it better.

realaledrinker

Happened to me today. I have £1500 in my current a/c but the ATM said insufficent funds to cover a £50 cash withdrawal! Reason was I put some money in my ISA over the weekend using my debit card & it has yet to hit the bank account.

lipidicman

But that is good - if not the debit payment would take you overdrawn when it hit. I think the OP was suggesting he was going to make a deposit to cover the debit payment. But the bank can't know that.

IMO the debit system is a bit flaky (ie a payment can be delayed for months - then hit your account and send you overdrawn. It is very easy to forget one payment and be caught out. So? Use a credit card! As long as you are not near your limit, you cant get caught out

deemy2004

realaledrinker wrote:

Happened to me today. I have £1500 in my current a/c but the ATM said insufficent funds to cover a £50 cash withdrawal! Reason was I put some money in my ISA over the weekend using my debit card & it has yet to hit the bank account.

I think you need to understand is that once a debit card gets authorised the payment is locked until it is transferred.. yeh in a perfect world it would be transferred instantly, but in the real world it takes a few days. But once the debit card has been authorised the money on account is no longer effectively yours to draw against.

As abive you could use a credit card for purchases, though again if your hitting the limit the same thing could occur !