Citi bank has created a phantom O/D without my permission, what can i do?!?

cl_steele

sourcrates wrote: »

You do have a point actually, they should not of allowed such a large transaction to of occurred, putting you into such a large unauthorised overdraught.

Assuming you have complained about this, and they are yet to give you there final responce, I would think it may end up with that payment being reversed.

Your only option, should that not be the case, would be to go to the financial ombudsman, and see what there take on it would be.

Thank you!
I would have no issue with it if the facility was in place or it was a smaller sum they created but i'll be damned if theyre allowed to create such a huge debt... arent there rules against this even if it was a computer error?
But just to quickly add a little more info, as soon as i saw this the bank was run they said they would investigate, i ran back two days later they told me back office issue and theyd get back to me, a week of no contact so i rin aain this woman says pay and theyll play ball and discuss the issue and theyre now investigation [they already told me the issue?!?] and then since then its just been a back and forth of calls ending in we'll ring you when the investigation is complete or fund the account... they've promised multiple times to rin on a specific day with an answer and haven't they have the cheek to charge me interest and the personal banker simply refuses to answer its a joke...

cl_steele

Karonher wrote: »

As for the debit in question it was supposed to bounce off and was oin to be manually paid from another account.


Can't the £4000 be transferred from the account you were going to manually pay it from?

With some difficulty as its an overseas account its more the point of them creating an illegal debt and refusing to do anything helpful about it...

Its incredibly expensive to do that for all the bills and impossible in many cases due to it being overseas so many wont accept it unless it comes from a UK account which ive had to create another one now.

sourcrates

cl_steele wrote: »

Thank you!
I would have no issue with it if the facility was in place or it was a smaller sum they created but i'll be damned if theyre allowed to create such a huge debt... arent there rules against this even if it was a computer error?
But just to quickly add a little more info, as soon as i saw this the bank was run they said they would investigate, i ran back two days later they told me back office issue and theyd get back to me, a week of no contact so i rin aain this woman says pay and theyll play ball and discuss the issue and theyre now investigation [they already told me the issue?!?] and then since then its just been a back and forth of calls ending in we'll ring you when the investigation is complete or fund the account... they've promised multiple times to rin on a specific day with an answer and haven't they have the cheek to charge me interest and the personal banker simply refuses to answer its a joke...

I have thought about what you have said, and I have to say that I have softened my opinion somewhat. I have had DD's bounce before, not to the tune of 4K, more like £25, but the principle is the same.

Whilst you are not entirely blameless in the matter, the bank should take some of the stick here as well, a £4,000 unauthorised overdraught is just plain stupid I agree.
They say it was a glitch, in which case they should put you back in the position you were in before the glitch occurred.

This is the way the FOS would resolve the matter.

You should put in a written complaint, so there is a record of it, make it official.
They then have 8 weeks to investigate the matter, before issuing you with a final responce.

As I said before, if your not happy with the outcome, the FOS is your final option.

bearcat16

Is there something wrong with the "g" on your keyboard?!

Personally I don't believe the "glitch" line that the bank gave you. I think that banks sometimes refuse a direct debit if there is insufficient funds (and charge a fee) and sometimes they pay them and create an unauthorised overdraft. I've had both happen and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to which one they do.

DCFC79

cl_steele wrote: »

Remind me how I have blown it? im not the one who disabled an account due to faulty software and have still to finish their investigation to resolve this despite assuring me they would contact me numerous time in the past weeks...

I was just repeating what you said lol.

You haven't blown it, well you have but lenders don't see it anyway.
What matters is your credit history.

andyfromotley

Why cant you pay the money that you were going to use for this bill into your bank account? Problem solved.

sugarcube84

andyfromotley wrote: »

Why cant you pay the money that you were going to use for this bill into your bank account? Problem solved.

I get that you are angry that instead of the payment bouncing it has gone through and created a big overdraft. Effectively you have ended up paying it twice, once through your manual payment and again through the d/d. However I don't get why you think you shouldn't pay it back, you didn't cancel the d/d. I do agree the bank shouldn't have allowed it to go through and I would push for some compensation as a gesture of good will due to amount of time it has taken for you to try and get this resolved but I doubt that you will get them waive the full amount.


Can you either get the money transferred back from it's destination or moved from the account it was going to be paid from.

Candyapple

Can you not put a claim in under the Direct Debit Guarantee?
http://www.directdebit.co.uk/DirectDebitExplained/Pages/DirectDebitGuarantee.aspx

Lemonsqueezer78

Feel like we're not getting the complete story here. Firstly, the obvious question has been asked a couple of times now and the explanation doesn't make that much sense to me. It is not really any more complicated to move £4000 from an overseas account to the account the DD was taken from - than it is to pay a £4000 (sterling) bill from an overseas account.

Secondly, whether or not it really is that "outrageous" for your bank to pay a £4000 DD from an account with insufficient funds in it really depends on a number of factors, including the typical activity on that account (amounts usually paid in, amounts usually debited out etc).

If the account in question generally has a healthy sum credited to it and it is not unusual for large DD payments to be made from it - and/or the account is usually managed OK and the bank reasonably believes this might just be a one-off oversight by the Account holder that they will probably rectify quickly, then I don't think it is all that shocking that they may allow it, in the interest of actually helping the customer and ensuring they don't default on a regular payment to someone. It may well have been allowed to go through on a good faith basis (even if that was by way of algorithm somewhere in the clearing systems). Sorry, but I don't buy this glitch thing.

I believe many banks even cover in their account T&Cs that direct debits may still be paid at the banks discretion in situations like this.

What the OP should have done, if they wanted to ensure the DD was not collected so that they could pay separately (and that they did not incur a bounced payment charge from their bank) is to actually have cancelled the DD.

In summary, the OP should have managed this better and more pro-actively in my view and it is not that complex in this day and age to move funds from an overseas account to a sterling account. If there are fee's to do this, I'd say that they most the OP might expect is for his bank to pick up these overseas transfer fees as a goodwill gesture.

But in general, I'm sorry to say that something smells a bit fishy here to me.