MBNA take money twice, then slap a fee on me

jamalfatty

Dylanwing wrote: »

Err, have I misread this?


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.

Nope, when you mentioned OP I didnt bother rereading rest of thread, its not till further down they mention phoning them.
Maybe they should have told them, maybe the OP should have asked how it would affect the DD rather than assuming. Or maybe the person he spoke to might not have noticed there was a DD on account. Obviously not brilliant customer service but people are advised when a DD is setup how manual payments will affect it so was OP responsibility to know this or find out if they didnt know.

Like I said, if they phone and speak to a manager they will more than likely get it refunded

YorkshireBoy

jamalfatty wrote: »

...people are advised when a DD is setup how manual payments will affect it so was OP responsibility to know this or find out if they didnt know.

MBNA send a letter once the DD has been set up. Amongst other things, it clearly states...

Important: Confirmation of the set-up of your Direct Debit Instruction.

...<snip>...

If you make manual payments to your account once the Direct Debit has been activated, these will not reduce the amount that we will collect by Direct Debit, unless you advise us at least seven working days prior to the Direct Debit being collected.

To cancel the Direct Debit please contact your bank or building society and advise us of your request.

jay78

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?

Well for !!!!!! I did read the original post!!!:mad:

All I said was I learned a lesson from the OP experience, no need to be hostile.

Dylanwing

In reality, how many of us actually plough through the T&C's that closely? My thinking on this is that OP spoke to them, explained the situation, paid off the balance in good faith, then got charged £12. In terms of strict legality, MBNA may be right, but they are hardly blameless, and ultimately, it will just be cheaper for them to accept it as a genuine error all round, pay back the £12 and get the complaint resolved quickly.

Tootsie_Roll

Dylanwing wrote: »

In reality, how many of us actually plough through the T&C's that closely?

Comments like this just make me laugh - it's MBNA's fault for taking the payment but not your fault not reading the T's & C's properly - do you take responsibility for anything or is it always someone else's fault ?

Takecareofthepennies

Ladies & Gentlemen - thank you for your comments. I appreciate your input. Please do not get agitated over this matter for lack of detail in my OP.

Tootsie - T & Cs are one thing, the question whether they are reasonable is another. If T & Cs request I stand on my head when making a payment, would I have to comply? In a day and age where financial transactions are performed instantly at the push of a button, if their system registers my payment 20 days ahead of the DD being requested but they still proceed, should T & Cs serve to cover that? I believe MBNA should make amendments to their system. Surely I cannot be the only one who has ever experienced this sort of problem.

I will update this once I hear from them.

Dylanwing

Tootsie - I will defend myself here. In some transactions you get about 6 clearly written T&C's that are easy to read. Get a Bank credit card and you get pages of incomprehensible jargon that is hard to read and virtually impossible for about 75% of the population to understand. In this case, the staff at the Company were clearly unaware of this particular T&C, so if they don't know it, how is a customer meant to be aware of it?

When I worked in an area dealing with complaints, I was given 2 basic principles, and these have served me well over the years.
1 - It costs the Company £25 to process a complaint letter, and if your initial reply is unsatisfactory, a second complaint costs £50.
2 - Always imagine yourself in the position of the complainant, how would you feel in their position?
BTW, it certainly does not mean giving in to every trivial moan, but look through this Forum, and see how much time, money and grief the Banks could save themselves and their customers if they applied these principles sensibly.

Tootsie_Roll

Takecareofthepennies wrote: »

Ladies & Gentlemen - thank you for your comments. I appreciate your input. Please do not get agitated over this matter for lack of detail in my OP.

Tootsie - T & Cs are one thing, the question whether they are reasonable is another. If T & Cs request I stand on my head when making a payment, would I have to comply? In a day and age where financial transactions are performed instantly at the push of a button, if their system registers my payment 20 days ahead of the DD being requested but they still proceed, should T & Cs serve to cover that? I believe MBNA should make amendments to their system. Surely I cannot be the only one who has ever experienced this sort of problem.

I will update this once I hear from them.

I wasn't having a go at you at all, sorry if it came across that way. I agree it is actually a very easy mistake to make and I have done it myself and I worked for a couple of banks over a number of years. If this is your 'first offence' they are more than likely to return the charge to you.

Good luck,

Tootsie_Roll

Dylanwing wrote: »

Tootsie - I will defend myself here. In some transactions you get about 6 clearly written T&C's that are easy to read. Get a Bank credit card and you get pages of incomprehensible jargon that is hard to read and virtually impossible for about 75% of the population to understand. In this case, the staff at the Company were clearly unaware of this particular T&C, so if they don't know it, how is a customer meant to be aware of it?

When I worked in an area dealing with complaints, I was given 2 basic principles, and these have served me well over the years.
1 - It costs the Company £25 to process a complaint letter, and if your initial reply is unsatisfactory, a second complaint costs £50.
2 - Always imagine yourself in the position of the complainant, how would you feel in their position?
BTW, it certainly does not mean giving in to every trivial moan, but look through this Forum, and see how much time, money and grief the Banks could save themselves and their customers if they applied these principles sensibly.

I suggest you don't read anything thoroughly at all. In this case it is very clearly written on the statement that x amount will be taken by DD on y date. Now I have had exactly the same thing happen to me and once I read the statement again realised that it was my error. I think from looking at other posts of yours that you prefer to complain about anything rather than take any form of responsibility such as this post here http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=522681

For your information I used to be the final point of contact for a bank's complaints prior to the Ombudsman getting involved, I would review each case and issue the deadlock letter if appropriate.

jamalfatty

Takecareofthepennies wrote: »

Tootsie - T & Cs are one thing, the question whether they are reasonable is another. If T & Cs request I stand on my head when making a payment, would I have to comply?

T&C's are there for a reason, if you choose to ignore them then thats your fault and you can hardly blame the bank no matter how dimly you view the way there processes work, if you think they are unreasonable or they ask you to stand on your head etc then you have obviously read them to know this so why are you signing the agreement in first place??!