MBNA Direct Debit Con

ecke78

I've just got off the phone with MBNA after quite a heated conversation. I'd transfered a balance to the card and recentely had completely paid it off. I'd set up a direct debit of £150 a month, and once the balance was zero I'd expected them to stop taking payments. However next month they still took £150 making my MBNA account £150 in credit. I ended up spending £150 on my card to bring the balance down to zero, and then phoned MBNA to cancel the monthly direct debit. I used the phone back option where they phone you back to save you waiting in a queue but never received a call back from them, so in the end cancelled my direct debit with my bank using my online banking. Big mistake!!

Next month MBNA attempted to take another £150 off me even though my account with them was £0, and I owed them nothing. As this direct debit bounced with the bank, they then charged me £12 for the privellage of them trying to take money that they weren't owed.

I phoned up today to speak to them, calmly explained the situation and said I didn't see why they had charged me when I never actually owed them any money in the first place. The woman explained it didn't matter and that as the direct debit had bounced then I would have to pay the £12. I refused, at which point she basically told me that if I didn't pay then interest would carry on being applied to it and my credit rating would end up being ruined! I asked to speak to a manager and she refused, so I felt I had no other option than pay what had now become a ransom. I paid and then asked to shut my account down as I would no longer be doing any business with them if thats how they treated their customers.

Luckily once I'd been transferred to another man who would deal with shutting my account down, I explained the situation again, and he could do nothing but apologise, and actually told me the woman had been speaking a load of rubbish and instantly recredited my account with the £12, and has told me he will contact me again once the money is in my account so we can transfer it back into my bank account.

I just wanted to post this as a warning to anyone else who might think about cancelling a direct debit with MBNA.

YorkshireBoy

ecke78 wrote: »

...once the balance was zero I'd expected them to stop taking payments.

As I recently posted, words like 'expected', 'thought', and 'assumed' don't go hand in hand with credit arrangements (or any other arrangements for that matter).

However next month they still took £150 making my MBNA account £150 in credit.

They only did what they informed you they'd do on the "Important: confirmation of your direct debit instruction" letter they sent you.

This clearly states that you must notify them (from memory) 7 working days ahead of the DD collection date if you wish to cancel or change the arrangement.

You didn't do this, so they collected the payment.

I ended up spending £150 on my card to bring the balance down to zero

Why didn't you just ask them to return the £150 to you (via cheque or BACS transfer)?

...and then phoned MBNA to cancel the monthly direct debit. Next month MBNA attempted to take another £150 off me...

You do have a genuine reason for complaint here.

sicker

direct debits, I personally would not touch them because of the above situation. I make all my payments by my banks on line banking and set them up usually as standing orders to pay them monthly in plenty of time. They can easily changed on line at any time.

John

iceicebaby

I always cancel a direct debit with the company and also with the bank so that it cant be taken if the company "forgets" to cancel it

Call_Centre_Guru

This is a bit confusing because when you pay by Direct Debit they will only take out either the full balance in your account (if you elected to pay the full amount every month) or just the minimum payment. This would show on your statement sent to you ahead of payment being debited from your account. However if you set up a standing order for a set amount this would be sent by your bank every month until you tell it to stop, the credit card company don't call it off like a DD the bank just sends it because its based on your instructions.
Under the terms of the DD guarentee you can request the money back from your bank immediatly if you believe the payment was taken incorrectly.
Either way as Iceicebaby says if you need to cancel a DD instruction you should inform both the Bank and the CC Company