Occasional standing order payments missing

ChumpusRex

Bit of a strange one this.

I'm currently in a dispute with a service provider, to whom I pay a regular subscription by monthly standing order. The payment has been the same for the last 3 years, and the SO has been left running for that time, to continue until further notice.

However, the service provider, have recently been chasing me for arrears on the account. They claim that the May 2015, August 2015 and March 2016 payments were not received.

However, I've checked my bank statements and the SO went out as fine. I've asked the service provider to re-check, and they are adamant that the account is in arrears.

I don't understand what would cause three random SO payments to go missing, when the rest made it. I'm also not too clear as to how to go about sorting this problem out beyond this.

Any advice?

xylophone

Ask your bank to trace the payments.

In the meantime, write to the service provider (send signed for) and advise that your bank statement shows that payments of £x in favour of (sort code/AC) left your account with Anybank on (XYZ) dates - ask them to check their records and tell them that you have asked your bank to trace the payments.

agrinnall

Sounds like a problem with their bank applying the transactions to the correct account with the correct details to identify your account with the service provider. If you're able to show that the money left your account with correct sortcode, account number and reference then that's you in the clear (although I accept getting them to admit that may not be so easy).

stclair

Does your service provider issue statements every 28 days?

If the standing orders being sent monthly as the year goes on your account will fall into arrears.

As they will expect 13 payments in a year rather than 12.

Just a thought .....

polymaff

What date in the month is the SO set for?

antrobus

ChumpusRex wrote: »

...I don't understand what would cause three random SO payments to go missing, when the rest made it. ....

Because the processing of SO payments is largely manual. Some poor sod in the accounts dept will have the job of going through the bank statements, identifying the incoming SOs, and then posting them to the correct account. People have been known to have bogged this up.

Ballard

antrobus wrote: »

Because the processing of SO payments is largely manual. Some poor sod in the accounts dept will have the job of going through the bank statements, identifying the incoming SOs, and then posting them to the correct account. People have been known to have bogged this up.

I doubt that high street banks process standing orders manually nowadays. Surely they get processed either by BACS or FP.

ChumpusRex

polymaff wrote: »

What date in the month is the SO set for?

The payment is due on the 1st day of each calendar month. This is the day that the SO is scheduled for.

masonic

Ballard wrote: »

I doubt that high street banks process standing orders manually nowadays. Surely they get processed either by BACS or FP.

I believe antrobus was referring to the receiving company, who would have to reconcile the payment with the customer's subscription account.

polymaff

ChumpusRex wrote: »

The payment is due on the 1st day of each calendar month. This is the day that the SO is scheduled for.

Thanks. You've probably have guessed that I was looking for a regular issue on MSE - SOs that are set up, monthly, for the 29th, 30th or 31st.

agrinnall

antrobus wrote: »

Because the processing of SO payments is largely manual. Some poor sod in the accounts dept will have the job of going through the bank statements, identifying the incoming SOs, and then posting them to the correct account. People have been known to have bogged this up.

While this is possible I would expect any reasonable sized organisation to have an automated reconciliation process, with only the payments that can't be reconciled looked at manually. If the service provider in this case does do them all manually then surely they'd know that is by far the most likely source of the problem.

Ballard wrote: »

I doubt that high street banks process standing orders manually nowadays. Surely they get processed either by BACS or FP.

I believe that all SOs are sent as FPs now, primarily (if not solely) in the early hours of the morning.