Late Direct Debits & Invisible Contactless Payments

Andrew_Ryan_89

A little bit of a rant here. I organise my direct debits so they all come out of my bank account on the same day I get paid, that way I know how much I have for the rest of the month. However, they all NEVER, go out at the same time. Sometimes that come out one day later than usual, sometimes two and if the day falls on a Friday sometimes it won't come out until the Tuesday. It just seems so random.

Another issue is with contactless payments not coming off your available balance or your pending payments. Does anyone have this issue? Luckily I got it refunded but I was charged £30 for going into an unauthorised overdraft. I checked my balance and both the current and available said I had money to spend. The next morning 2-3 payments come out (which were all contactless) and make me go overdrawn.

These never appeared on any pending transactions nor were they considered in my available balance the day previous. Anyone else experience this?

societys_child

DD's are taken by the company involved, not the banks fault if taken early or late.
Contactless don't show up in your account until the merchant puts the transaction through. As the bank don't even know about the transaction until this happens they can't apply it to your account.

It's you're responsibility to manage your account correctly and remember what you've spent, if you have problems with this, don't make contactless payments.

amfan

If you know the date the DD's are due to come out is going to happen on the weekend, then you allow for the extra couple of days this will cause in the payments being taken. An extra couple of days shouldn't really effect how you view how much money you have for the rest of the month. I highly doubt you spend all your income in those couple of days, and you most likely know the amount you get paid and the amount the DD's total, so a quick sum would tell you in the interim what you'll have once they finally all come out.

As for contactless not showing immediately, well it's really up to you to keep a tally of what you pay out, and if you're getting close to the limit of your balance not to go willy nilly on contactless spending.

pinkdalek

Society is correct, ultimately you are responsible for your account. contactless payments are processed and the bank does not know how much you have used until they leave your account.

As a solution why not open a second account, leave what money in the first account you need for the direct debits, that way you are not getting stressed about the different dates, and then the money left in the 2nd account is yours to spend. Just make a mental note of what you use on contactless. Or don't use it.

eskbanker

It's not just a contactless issue, any offline-authorised debit (or credit) card transaction won't be known to the bank until processed by the retailer, and therefore can't be shown as pending or unavailable....

molerat

Very good of your bank to refund charges that were 100% your fault.

System

Ask your bank to downgrade you to an online debit card (some issuers offer online contactless) and it will solve most of the debit card issues.

TheShape

This is a good reason to have an account paying a decent rate of in credit interest. Keeping your account 'topped-up' not only maximises your interest, it keeps you away from your overdraft.

mwarby

Heng_Leng wrote: »

Ask your bank to downgrade you to an online debit card (some issuers offer online contactless) and it will solve most of the debit card issues.

I fear most front line bank staff will either not know of offline/online cards (online internet shopping right ?.....). Even if they do some banks will only offer them on children's accounts or basic(bad credit) accounts

Something like mondo/revolut or similar fintech company offering a debit card maybe better(as these are prepaid, and no credit, so are online cards)

mwarby

pinkdalek wrote: »

As a solution why not open a second account, leave what money in the first account you need for the direct debits, that way you are not getting stressed about the different dates, and then the money left in the 2nd account is yours to spend. Just make a mental note of what you use on contactless. Or don't use it.

Agreed best thing I ever did was move to 2 bank accounts, one account for salary, standing orders and direct debits(must be fixed amount, for credit cards I pay manually from second account) , what's left goes into account 2 which I spend on(via standing order).

pappa_golf

the problem with payments not showing for several days has been happening with paypal/ebay recently

buy small items then about a week later money goes from account , but not marked as an oustanding payment in this time