Statement in the post

Pincher

You can be travelling, and Wi-Fi and battery is not guaranteed. Plus, the Great Firewall of China means you don't necessarily get through to your bank.


I just set up minimum payment by DD, not full balance.


Typically, I pay the full balance early, unless it's a stoozing deal, so minimum is just what I want.

molerat

What card do you have. What they will do with the DD varies depending on the card. My MBNA statement reads

Please remember: your regular Direct Debit payment will always be taken, regardless of any additional payments you choose to make.

My view is it is best to have the DD set up and monitor your accounts. I have been paying all my bills by DD for at least the past 30 years and only had one problem and that was me paying an item after it was too late for the company to stop the DD.

Sncjw

Clarity card Halifax

Says on statement the money will taken from your bank on the 29th. Manual payments received 4 clear working days before the payment is due will reduce or stop the dd from debuting your account that months.

Also I have some items I want to take back to shop will they credit my account for this month ?

phona

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

I don't recall seeing many posts from people saying they "forgot to have funds available in the current account on DD day and so incurred two lots of charges".

Well it might be less common, but it's exactly what happened to me with my one and only late payment. Many years ago now I screwed up my CC payment when the DD found the current account a bit short. I got hit with late payment fee, unplanned overdraft fee and interest.
I don't have a strong opinion on whether DDs are good or bad, but I think it's pretty clear the moral is that one has to keep a pretty close eye on the finances and should never relax and expect everything to manage itself.

chattychappy

It may also be there are fewer comments on that situation because people are "relaxing" and don't even notice. They get hit with extra charges, but subsequent payments go through. Or the DD goes through and all the charges are on the current account side - so they accept them, or comments go onto another forum.

We certainly have alot of comments from people who, several months into a 0% promo deal, find that they lost the deal early on and want to claim back the interest/charges. They didn't notice because they are on DD and assumed everything was fine. One reason why this can happen is because the initial DD wasn't taken because it wasn't set up in time. The deal is lost at that point, without their knowing.

The golden rule is, as you suggest, to check your statements and stay on top. If you use DDs, understand how they work - ie that they must be set up in time, do not assume they will be taken unless it says so on your statement, understand how they interact with manual payments, remember to have the funds available for when the DD is taken and know that they expire if not used for a while (13 months, I think).

If your DD is for the full balance, but you are short of funds, then it might be cheaper to cancel the DD, pay the minimum manually and incur interest on the CC, rather then have an unauthorised overdraft on your current account or worse still, have it bounce together with the negative markers.

No_6

Phona should have used MS money, then would have known she would not have had the money.
DD's either min or full is my vote.

Sncjw

Il always have the amount in the current account I'm very careful with money

grumbler

Sncjw wrote: »

Also I have some items I want to take back to shop will they credit my account for this month ?

>> Does a credit card refund count towards paying your next bill?

phona

No_6 wrote: »

Phona should have used MS money, then would have known she would not have had the money.

Phona was so stoopid, if only she'd had your wisdom!
Software is good, but it's not a magic cure for everything. People make mistakes. Learning from them and not making them again is the trick, not playing about with computers.
Indeed, the same apples to DDs. There's no magic.

FWIW nothing prefixed with MS tends to run well on my Linux machine for some reason. I looked into GNU Cash a bit but it looked complicated for my needs so I just stuck with my spreadsheet.