Bank Charges Without Notice

sonneti

Danske Bank has applied £103 in fees to my account without giving me any notice, do I have any options to reduce these fees or have them cancelled?

I went overdrawn £27 for one day this month + £47 overdrawn for 8 days last month.

After paying rent I've £150 to live on for 5 weeks

dunstonh

Did you give them any notice you were going to spend their money without permission?

do I have any options to reduce these fees or have them cancelled?

Do the charges match their published tariff?

[Deleted User]

sonneti wrote: »

Danske Bank has applied £103 in fees to my account without giving me any notice, do I have any options to reduce these fees or have them cancelled?

The published tariff is in itself notice that you will be charged if you go overdrawn and how much the charge will be. In addition, how have they charged you "without notice"? The charge appears on your current statement but will surely only be actually charged during the subsequent month?

You can ring the Bank and ask them politely if they can waive the charges, but you're only likely to get such a "goodwill" refund if this is an isolated incident.

You can also ask the bank to consider refunds on the basis of financial hardship. However, this means the Bank examining your account looking for evidence that you are struggling to pay essential bills and that you don't have "luxuries" like subscription television or mobile 'phone contract.

sonneti

dunstonh wrote: »

Did you give them any notice you were going to spend their money without permission?

No I didn't because I didn't think it was possible. Anytime up until now if I ever tried to spend money I didn't have with the bank it would have been declined.

sonneti

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

The published tariff is in itself notice that you will be charged if you go overdrawn and how much the charge will be. In addition, how have they charged you "without notice"? The charge appears on your current statement but will surely only be actually charged during the subsequent month?

They didn't email me or send a letter, the charges were applied to my account today and came out immediately.

National_Debtline

Hello there,

As far as I understand it, it is a requirement that you are provided with at least 14 days notice of the fees being applied. Accordance to the terms & conditions I've found online you are charged the fees the following month. Please see page six (I hope I've found the correct info):

http://www.danskebank.co.uk/SiteCollectionDocuments/feesAndCharges.pdf

Hope you find this information useful. If you feel that there has been wrongdoing on their part, you should go through their internal complaints procedure and then on to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Best wishes,

David @ National Debtline.

[Deleted User]

sonneti wrote: »

They didn't email me or send a letter, the charges were applied to my account today and came out immediately.

If this is the case then you should query this with the Bank. It won't stop the charges, but if they haven't given you formal notice of this on your regular statement then they have acted against their own terms and conditions.

Do note that the best you can hope for is that the Bank delay applying the charges for at least another 14 days…

sonneti wrote: »

No I didn't because I didn't think it was possible.

There are several ways you can spend money you don't have. For example, if you use a debit card when you have money in the account the payment will be approved but will not come out of your account for a few days. If there is then insufficient money in the account at that later time (due to your mismanagement) then you go overdrawn and incur charges.

You really need to familiarise yourself with the operation of a bank account, as it sounds as if you regularly skirt becoming overdrawn.

dunstonh

They didn't email me or send a letter, the charges were applied to my account today and came out immediately.

If they came out today and not when the charging event occurred then they were not applied immediately. The most common method used by banks is to tell you the charges that are to be taken out in the future with your monthly statement.

No I didn't because I didn't think it was possible. Anytime up until now if I ever tried to spend money I didn't have with the bank it would have been declined.

That is not the way to run a bank account. Your balance is not checked every time you make a purchase. If it is below the floor limit or an offline transaction then your balance isnt checked. Or if you have certain transactions that are in pipeline or not yet due to come off, they wont be included in your available balance.

You need to know your own running balance. Not play pot luck.

If it is your first time making this mistake, the banks will usually refund as a goodwill gesture. If its a common mistake by you then they usually will not.

National_Debtline

If it is your first time making this mistake, the banks will usually refund as a goodwill gesture. If its a common mistake by you then they usually will not.

I would agree with this absolutely. I've heard of lots of different banks refunding charges if it's a first time.

David.

P.s. Sorry for the typo in my previous post!

-taff

If you were overdrawn last onth, the current charges will reflect that rather than the current months overdraft.
HAve you thrown any bank letters away by mistake?

And yes, you can ask them to waive the fees, they can only say no.

[Deleted User]

-taff wrote: »

And yes, you can ask them to waive the fees, they can only say no.

As I said earlier;
"You can ring the Bank and ask them politely if they can waive the charges, but you're only likely to get such a "goodwill" refund if this is an isolated incident."