MBNA take money twice, then slap a fee on me

Takecareofthepennies

This is a good one. Will try to keep it short. Any comments welcome.

I paid my full MBNA statement balance of £1,300+ by debit card on their website on 10th July. Normally pay full amount by direct debit every month; this tends to be taken on the 28th. Despite the credit showing on my account as per 10/7, MBNA requested the sum again by d/d on 30/7. I promptly had my bank return the money under the d/d guarantee and advised MBNA by telephone of their mistake.

Lo and behold, my August statement now shows a £12 returned payment fee. I rang MBNA again this morning and they said their system needs upto 10 working days to take payments into account when requesting d/ds. When I pointed out that July 30 - July 10 = 15 working days, they still refused to take the charge off, now saying that I would need to advise them if I wanted a d/d not taken (!).

I reluctantly took an hour out of my busy day now to complain in writing, mentioning the words "compensation" and "Financial Ombudsman". Can't wait to see where this goes!

RTNI

This is the way that some of the CC companies work with DD's, regardless of any other payments you make by chq, BACs, or debit card, the direct debit will come out on the due date of the bill.

It will be interesting to see what happens, but the bank is correct in saying that you need to tell them to cancel the DD, or as you have found out, the payment will still be taken. I suspect that they will refund it a good will gesture.

RT.

jamalfatty

This comes up quite often on here, basically MBNA arent at fault and have simply done what you've instructed them to do with the DD each month, i.e. clear the full balance as printed on your statement on the payment due date.
I wouldnt bother threatening them with talk of compensation and financial ombudsman as it's your fault, just phone up, ask to speak to a manager, politely explain situation and if you dont havent incurred any default fee's recently/at all they will probably refund it.

MarkyMarkD

Ditto to what RTNI and jamal say.

You instructed them to take the full payment by DD.

They generate the DD run on the day they issue the statements. Subsequent payments make no difference at all.

Therefore they correctly attempted to collect the payment by DD.

If you make additional payments, you need to check with your credit card company whether they'll take the DD as well or not. Most DO take it as well for the reasons I've explained above.

Takecareofthepennies

Thanks folks.

I did not want to bore you with too many details initially, but I only made that debit card payment because I asked them to close my account and they advised me I needed to clear the balance first (understandably!) and a debit card payment would be the quickest and easiest way - so they were aware ...

I already sent the letter off anyway, so we'll see where this goes.

Dylanwing

It won't surprise some of the other posters here that I totally agree with OP. You cleared the balance in full TWENTY days before the direct debit was due, and yet they still could not adjust the DD. And if any Company took £1,300+ off me that I did not owe, I'd want it back pretty quickly. Obviously just a misunderstanding, and common sense says just refund the fee. But as common sense is totally absent from these Companies, they will spend a lot more than £12 dealing with your complaint.

BTW, was 20 days not enough time for them to close the account?

jay78

Dylanwing wrote: »

It won't surprise some of the other posters here that I totally agree with OP. You cleared the balance in full TWENTY days before the direct debit was due, and yet they still could not adjust the DD. And if any Company took £1,300+ off me that I did not owe, I'd want it back pretty quickly. Obviously just a misunderstanding, and common sense says just refund the fee. But as common sense is totally absent from these Companies, they will spend a lot more than £12 dealing with your complaint.

BTW, was 20 days not enough time for them to close the account?

Well the rest of us have learned a lesson from this. If I know I'm finishing off an accout (what ever it is) I make sure I clear the debt then cancel the direct debt, informing the company.

MarkyMarkD

If the DD is set up to collect full payment, just leave the DD to clear the account. Don't mess around paying by another means.

If the DD is set up to collect minimum payment, pay off the remainder by other means so that the balance is NIL once the DD has collected.

The only liability which will remain after that is a little bit of interest if you aren't on 0% in any case.

Dylanwing

Jay78 and Marky.. - !!!!!! Read the original post. OP did contact the Company and did try and pay it off. Should he be charged because their call centre staff are not up to speed?

jamalfatty

Dylanwing wrote: »

Jay78 and Marky.. - !!!!!! Read the original post. OP did contact the Company and did try and pay it off. Should he be charged because their call centre staff are not up to speed?

Think it's yourself who should read original post, he paid online.

Dylanwing

I did not want to bore you with too many details initially, but I only made that debit card payment because I asked them to close my account and they advised me I needed to clear the balance first (understandably!) and a debit card payment would be the quickest and easiest way - so they were aware ...

Err, have I misread this?

Well the rest of us have learned a lesson from this. If I know I'm finishing off an accout (what ever it is) I make sure I clear the debt then cancel the direct debt, informing the company.

We all have 20/20 hindsight! I still think that the charge is unfair, and in dealing with the complaint, it will cost more than they have taken.