Direct Debit notification via text message

Hazzanet

mauriphonic wrote: »

The advance notice communication that you are required to be sent for a Direct Debit, has to contain a full copy of the Direct Debit guarantee, and the sponsoring bank behind the Service User Number that was issued to the company collecting Direct Debits from you also has to approve that notice, therefore there's no way that they could use a text alone. Its possible that an email, or a letter is also on its way to you.

This is where I love the DD Rules for their slight ambiguity.

Section 3.1 covers the DDI and states:

The Direct Debit Guarantee must be provided to the payer with the DDI, advance notice or other correspondence issued in respect of the application.

I think this can be taken two ways: The DD Guarantee must be issued to the payer:

(a) With the DDI AND (Advance Notice OR other correspondence)
or
(b) With the DDI OR Advance Notice OR other correspondence.

Then, section 4.1 says:

4.1 Contents of advance notice
The advance notice must be clear and provide the payer with the following details.
• Total amount of Direct Debit to be applied to the payer’s account. If this is an amalgamation of more than one collection (where permitted) the amount of each collection forming part of
the Direct Debit must also be shown
• Direct Debit due date (include date, month and year)
• Frequency of Direct Debit collection, where an advance notice is not issued for each collection or where an advance schedule of specific dates is not issued
• Direct Debit reference
• Advance notice period (mandatory for initial advance notification but optional for subsequent notifications)
• Service user name and contact telephone number.
• Service User Number (optional)
If the collection details are altered in any way a new advance notice must be sent to the payer.

As you can see, the DD Guarantee is not included in that list.

From a personal point of view, I don't see why the DD Guarantee is provided at multiple stages within the process. I'd rather it be given once at the outset and the way I interpret the rules I think that would be acceptable.

That said, for my SUNs, we provide the Guarantee at sign-up and on the Advance Notice to be doubly sure.

The sponsoring bank needs to sign off the Advance Notice, but I suspect the mortgage lender is a sponsoring bank within the DD Scheme and could probably slip this through unnoticed?

timbstoke

They've said they're sending the full blurb seperately, so this is presumably a "Don't forget you've bought a house!" heads up that a large amount will be leaving your account that you haven't had to pay before. Nothing wrong with a belt and braces approach to make sure you're fully aware.

Also, you completed on the 19th. I believe you must have at least 10 working days notice of the first payment. Chances are they have a process to text all new customers around the 20th of the month to make sure they give enough notice (that process has failed for you because there are only 7 working days between 22/12/14 and 02/01/15, but you see the reasoning).