Direct Debits taken day early

Z_O_L

Ballard wrote: »

I have given you a timeline of the process. To clarify - what happens is that the originators bank will debit your bank in bulk and send a file listing all of the direct debits that make up that amount. Your bank will then use that file to decide whether to debit you or request a refund.

It may be that your bank has processed the file late at night rather than in the early hours. Whether they have debited you value 14th or 15th and what they would do if that put you overdrawn are not known to me.

I can sort of see your frustration but you'll have to contact your bank for the answer that you are looking for. It would be good if you could then post their response.

Thank you, I think it will be a good idea to write to them as when I spoke to them about their bank charge policy before, they told me that my available balance can be negative but not my actual account balance. The direct debits were taken from my actual balance on the 14th. From what the bank have said if my account balance goes negative I will be automatically fined and my credit file will be marked. Obviously from my point of view, if I logged in at 10pm and found I was going to be £1 short on paying my direct debits, I could transfer money between my accounts and avoid charges and marks on my credit file. If I'd have logged in at 10pm and found that my direct debits had come out 2 hours early and put my account in negative by £1 then according to the person I spoke to at the bank I would have been automatically fined and then marked on my credit file. It might be that they meant only for card transactions and not direct debits, but they were specific about the actual balance. I will write to the bank and double check what the policy is. Can't hurt to know exactly what they would do, just in case.

Z_O_L

Ballard wrote: »

As I have said on two occasions, the money is taken from your bank on the day that the originator requests them. Your bank have no control on that. If they do not debit your account on that day then they are lending money to the originator.

The process is NOT that the originator requests the funds from your account. They take it from your bank. Your bank then either debit your account or asks the originator's bank to refund them.

Ok I think I understand. So the originators don't ask for anything, they just take it from my bank. So you're saying that all 4 of the originators requested the money at some point before 10pm on the 14th (even though they're all told the 15th) and the bank therefore took it on the 14th from me? So by that rule if I went overdrawn at 10pm on the 14th you're saying its not my banks fault and that they'd be fully within their rights to charge me for each transaction that caused me to go overdrawn and mark my credit file?

Z_O_L

molerat wrote: »

The "banking day" has ended and the money would not be credited until the next day, you should always have cleared funds in your account by the end of the banking day. Even paying in cash after 4pm may not be credited until the next day with many banks but, as posted somewhere above, as long as the money is credited by a certain time that day there should not be a problem. The same happens if you transfer money on a Saturday it will not be credited until Monday. I often have my TSB debit card transactions showing up on Saturday with a debit date of Monday. The safest way of working is to ensure the money is in the account by around 4pm the working day before the debit is due.

When I transfer between my 2 accounts with my bank at say 11pm using my online banking, the money appears to go in instantly. One account shows the transaction with a lowered bank balance and available balance. The other account also shows the transaction with an increased bank balance and available balance. Are you saying that the instant transfer that I do moving money between current accounts at the same bank are not instant after 4pm and the balances are all wrong? If I tried to draw that money out of an atm at midnight would it not work or cause problems?

King_Of_Fools

Hi Z_O_L,

Most banks say something like this:
http://www.nationwide.co.uk/support/payments-and-transfers/automatic-payment/direct-debit#xtab:do-you-have-enough-funds-to-cover-a-payment

If you haven't got enough money in your account to make the payment, we'll try to make the payment again on the same day at 2:30pm. This is to give you more time to get cleared funds into your account.

Z_O_L

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

THIS!!! I guarantee that the date against the d/d will be today and not yesterday.

Yes that's what I said in the op. The date against the dd is today but the question I was originally asking was why was it allowed to physically leave my account and reduce my balance yesterday.

Z_O_L

King_Of_Fools wrote: »

Hi Z_O_L,

Most banks say something like this:


If you haven't got enough money in your account to make the payment, we'll try to make the payment again on the same day at 2:30pm. This is to give you more time to get cleared funds into your account.

Hi King Of Fools,


Thank you, Nationwide look quite helpful, might consider them if I ever decide to change bank

Z_O_L

firsttimemover wrote: »

I found this out (in panic mode at first) for my Santander account when I got an email on a Sunday evening saying that my account was overdrawn (up until recently I've always held a healthy balance in there but for obvious reasons I've recently transferred it out but keeping the direct debits for cashback on the Lite account).

As long as you make the payments by 4pm the next day it's fine. I had a standing order going in first thing so was all good, but it did make me worry for a while, no other banks that I bank with (Lloyds and HSBC group mainly) operate in this way so it caused a bit of a shock and panic but no harm done! I've since added an overdraft to cover everything as one of my payments didn't go out until the second round of collections later in the day which again caused undue stress that it wasn't going to go out (it actually debited after 5pm when I was on the phone to them to try and sort it out!). It will never cost me anything as the money will always be in there by 4pm but will give me a bit of peace of mind that everything will get paid in the first round of collections first thing.

I know the advice is always to ensure the money is in there a few days before but I personally know that I will always check my account on this day (it is sort-my-accounts-out day!) and can always make a faster payment if anything did go wrong.

Hi thanks for the reply. Sounds like me, I find that I could check my bank account a few days before the direct debits, but there's always the chance something else will have been taken out the day before the direct debits. So I like to do check in the evening a few hours before they're due to come out. Was shocked when I logged in on a Wednesday evening to find the direct debits had already gone before I'd even checked it was safe for them to go! :rotfl:

Ballard

Z_O_L wrote: »

Ok I think I understand. So the originators don't ask for anything, they just take it from my bank. So you're saying that all 4 of the originators requested the money at some point before 10pm on the 14th (even though they're all told the 15th) and the bank therefore took it on the 14th from me? So by that rule if I went overdrawn at 10pm on the 14th you're saying its not my banks fault and that they'd be fully within their rights to charge me for each transaction that caused me to go overdrawn and mark my credit file?

Check with your bank as to whether they have debited you value 14th or 15th. The likelihood is that it's 15th in which case you've nothing to concern yourself about. If it is 14th and that's the day that the direct debit was processed by the originator then you need to complain to them as they've not kept to the agreement. Under the direct debit guarantee you should not lose out so you could ask your bank to go down that route if it comes to it.

I will emphasise that the money was probably taken on 15th despite the transaction appearing early.

gt94sss2

As others have said, the direct debits will have been taken on the 15th.

Some banks start processing the direct debits 'early' so on the evening of the 14th but that is after they consider that banking day closed.

This is due to the way those banks IT systems works - not the firms who the DDs were with.

With those banks you will probably also find that a direct debit due to go out on a Monday has been taken from your available balance on the Saturday or Sunday - but dated the Monday.

Some banks claim that this helps their customers budget/avoid going accidentally overdrawn but some customers don't like it.

Other banks like HSBC only start processing transactions dated the 15th on the 15th itself..

Z_O_L

Ballard wrote: »

Check with your bank as to whether they have debited you value 14th or 15th. The likelihood is that it's 15th in which case you've nothing to concern yourself about. If it is 14th and that's the day that the direct debit was processed by the originator then you need to complain to them as they've not kept to the agreement. Under the direct debit guarantee you should not lose out so you could ask your bank to go down that route if it comes to it.

I will emphasise that the money was probably taken on 15th despite the transaction appearing early.

Will they know when it was debited? I mean it says 15th so I assume if I phone them they'll say 15th. But from my online banking the available and bank balance both showed that the direct debits had gone. I suppose the question is, is it possible for both the available balance and bank balance at the top of my online banking page to show that the direct debits have left the account (with all the individual entries shown for the DD's), yet the money hasn't left?


Example:

Date 14 December 2016

Current Balance £10.00
Available Balance £10.00
.................................................................Credit.........Debit..........Balance
15 December 2016 DD Water.....................................£100...........£10.00
15 December 2016 DD Gas & Elec............................£150..........£110.00
15 December 2016 DD Council Tax...........................£200..........£260.00
14 December 2016 Opening Balance............................................£460.00


That's a rough example of how my account looked at 10pm on the 14th. It looks like the transactions are all for the 15th, but as you can see the actual date was the 14th and all 3 balances (available, current and the balance shown after the last transaction all showed that there was only £10.00 in the account.


I'll speak to the bank and see what they say