I Was Robbed By Building society

jedmc571

Hello,

I need some advice, I have recently changed my mortgage to A&L from Chelsea.
I had to pay £1400 to complete the transfer, this was done on the 29th of August, this completed any outstanding debt.
The conveyancers informed us everything was now complete,
A few days later on the 3rd of September after checking my acounts I realised Chelsea had taken another direct debit of £878.03 despite the debt being cleared, and so we contacted our conveyancers who told us that Chelsea must return the money legally within 7 days ? and wait to see if they do.
Today 11 days later it's still not done, my wife phoned on my behalf as I've been away, and they've said it will now be completed on Tuesday night via BACS
This all seems very wrong to me, and as you'll agree I'm less than happy :mad: they shouldn't have taken it anyway, and they're saying I should have cancelled my direct debit, when questioned about reclaiming any fees for being put overdrawn, she said she wasn't sure ?

My question is, am I entitled to claim anything as they've messed up, and who would I contact

Regards

Jed

Badger_Lady

They're all horribly slow to update their systems - you're right, they shouldn't have taken it, but it was probably more related to uselessness than sneakiness.

I've learned this before from other organisations - once you've cancelled the credit with them, go to the bank and cancel your direct debit separately, because they won't get round to doing it for you.

lil_lisa

Before going through the small claims court it would probably be worth putting an indemnity claim in with the comapny themselves. If they've agreed to return the money they've already admitted it was their error so it should be straightforward.

dunstonh

This all seems very wrong to me, and as you'll agree I'm less than happy :mad: they shouldn't have taken it anyway, and they're saying I should have cancelled my direct debit, when questioned about reclaiming any fees for being put overdrawn, she said she wasn't sure ?

They are technically correct. The request for direct debit would have been in place before you repaid the mortgage. So, it was always going to leave your bank account. You should have cancelled the direct debit at the first opportunity after redemption.

My question is, am I entitled to claim anything as they've messed up, and who would I contact

They shouldnt have taken the money but you should have cancelled the direct debit. Your bank could have done an indemnity claim if you asked them to. So, who is liable for your costs?

so we contacted our conveyancers who told us that Chelsea must return the money legally within 7 days ? and wait to see if they do.

That is incorrect. The building society wouldnt know the funds have cleared in that period so cannot possibly refund you and get the money back in that time. If you work out the working days involved here, then tuesday next week does seem about right.

regularsaver1

You could have done a direct debit indemnity with your bank and got the money back quicker. They are right about cancelling the direct debit, but it was quite short notice inbetween

homer_j_3

as regular saver says. A simple call to your bank to say a direct debit had been collected in error as the loan had been cleared. It would have been in your bank within 48hours.

The DD indemnity scheme is there for this exact purpose