First Direct Balance issues

Shakin_Steve

SamA19 wrote: »

Well I was certainly lucky with Barclays for a long time then.

Also - I have nothing showing in pending payments.
Perhaps someone can explain why I have made payments via PayPal (over 6 days ago) and the merchant has confirmed they have received the funds and they are still not showing. Having called First Direct they advised that they cannot see the payments and I should contact PayPal?

If PayPal haven't asked for the money yet, your bank will know nothing about it. PayPal may just settle accounts on certain days of the month, in which case it's them you need to take to task, not your bank.
I sent three cheques to young relatives over Christmas. One of them didn't bank it until last week so it was over a month till it went from my bank account. I knew it was coming though, so it was no surprise, and neither should your payment to PayPal when it happens.
Chill out, banks are not perfect but, on the whole, provide a pretty good service.

Zanderman

SamA19 wrote: »

Well I was certainly lucky with Barclays for a long time then.

Also - I have nothing showing in pending payments.
Perhaps someone can explain why I have made payments via PayPal (over 6 days ago) and the merchant has confirmed they have received the funds and they are still not showing. Having called First Direct they advised that they cannot see the payments and I should contact PayPal?

Paypal transcations can take some time to appear in your account - paypal will have paid for you, but have not yet taken the money from you. It's not unusual in my recent experience (with Coop bank and paypal).

Just be patient - and understand that only you know what you've committed to paying out, the bank doesn't know until it is paid out, and that is often delayed.

System

It won't be all down to the OP.

First Direct used to have issues showing an available balance or authorised / pending items online .

Most banks make one or the easily available, but FD only displayed my available balance, if went to make a outgoing payment.

Has their prehistoric internet banking been updated yet?

SamA19

I am aware of how cheques work and should I write a cheque I know it won't come out until the other person has paid it and cleared.

My issue has been the difference between payments being called and shown. Now some people can disagree and continue in what I consider to be quite a condescending tone (I thought the forum was friendly). However, I could shop in say Next and that payment would leave my account and show almost immediately, if not a few hours later. Now when I shop with Next it takes days to show and leave the account. Therein lies the confusion and problem and there's no denying this happens as I have banked with both. Let me clear and say I know how payments leaving your account and keeping tabs on what you spend work(!) but my issue is what I have just explained above and why there is such a discrepancy between the two banks.

SamA19

Thank you for recognising First Direct do have an issue with this ! The banking app is quite restrictive, certainly nothing compared with Barclays. Although their customer service is excellent and better than Barclays.

Vortigern

Heng_Leng wrote: »

First Direct used to have issues showing an available balance or authorised / pending items online .

Most banks make one or the easily available, but FD only displayed my available balance, if went to make a outgoing payment.

Has their prehistoric internet banking been updated yet?

No, it's still like that.

If I go to the "make a payment" screen, I see 2 balances. If the difference between them is exactly £1000* there are no pending transactions known to first direct.

*£1000 is the amount of authorised overdraft available on my account.

CL21

Hi,


Two things.


I am with First Direct and find the app nearly always shows amounts spent. What you need to do is go into Transactions, click on the little arrow to show account details and this will show you the current balance and available balance. The available balance is what you need to use to see how much money you have in your account as this includes transactions which haven't fully processed yet. I have been with First Direct for years and find this amount to be 99% reliable as to what is in my account. All apps take a bit of time to get used to so hopefully this will solve your problem :-)


Secondly in relation to Paypal, I noticed that Paypal had, without my noticing, changed my transactions to Pay after Delivery which means the money isn't requested from you for two weeks even though the supplier will have been paid. Check your paypal transaction to see if this is the case for you.


Hope this is of some help to you :-)


x

Ivan_Drago

I have the exact same issue.


With Halifax and Barc previously - if I bought something it would immediately show that I was 200 down in my available balance - the item would obviously not be listed.


However with FD you could have spent say 400 and your available would still be 400 for days. Which means when it finally catches up you could be -400 if you had spent the ''available'' in those days.


Its an abosulte pain,

JuicyJesus

When I was with FD I never had this issue, bar with things like contactless or offline debit cards which will never affect an available balance with any bank.

If you had online debit cards with Halifax/Barclays/whoever, then yes you will always get transactions deducted from your available balance.

Shakin_Steve

Speaking personally, I always know what's due to come out and spend accordingly. Other people do it their way, I suppose.