Halifax take Direct Debits at the start of the day!

mozzer251

I received a letter informing me that I was going to be charged as I had gone over my OD limit. On the day in question I checked my account at the ATM, saw that I would be £5 light and paid that in. My statement shows that at no time was I overdrawn. I rang Halifax who are adamant that as they pay DDs between 0000 and 0500 I had gone overdrawn. The Halifax rep told me that 'it was what I had signed up to'

Sadly I keep every terms and conditions booklet they send me and in the latest one it advises to check the day before that there is enough funds in your account the day before. Jolly good, except this is the first one (dated 10/07) that says this and my charge was for 28th September.

Anybody else caught out by this?? Should I try and get this charge back???

dunstonh

I'm not sure what your complaint is.

Automated payments go through first thing in the morning. Your responsibility is to get the money in the day before. Not the same day. Had an automated credit gone (such as wages) you would not have been charged. However, counter credits are not automated payments.

Its possible that the direct debit was bounced RTDPR on the 28th and was represented on the 10th. Timescale would certainly fit. Some banks dont show the bounced entry on the statement. Others show it going out and a contra credit going back in.

saxmund

I thought all banks did this. I got caught out once, many years ago - I think I complained and got the charge waived, on the basis I'd made a mistake and wouldn't do it again. A complaint in writing might just have the same effect.

"On the day in question I checked my account at the ATM, saw that I would be £5 light " so you agree you were overdrawn at that point then? The only reason your bank statement doesn't show you being overdrawn is that they normally do the balance on a daily basis.

gt94sss2

All the big banks insist that you have funds in your account the day before an automated payment is due to go out to avoid charges - even if you don't 'appear' overdrawn.

The one exception to this is HSBC who will not charge you if you are 'in credit' at the end of a day, even if you have technically been overdrawn at some point that day as part of their 'Fairer Fees' policy which among other things, also says:

• You will not have to pay fees for being overdrawn by £10 or less.
• You will not have to pay more in fees than you are overdrawn by in your charging month, so a £15 overdraft will not cost you £50.
• You will not have to pay a fee for an informal overdraft request if your account is credited with covering funds by the end of the same day.

I believe Lloyds has announced it will be introducing a similar policy re: being 'overdrawn' as long as its in credit at the end of the day.

Regards
Sunil

far

I'm pretty sure Co-Operative/Smile have the same policy too - something along the lines of if a deposit is made by 3.30pm the same day, no fees will be charged. The Abbey National do too.

mozzer251

dunstonh wrote: »

I'm not sure what your complaint is.

Automated payments go through first thing in the morning. Your responsibility is to get the money in the day before. Not the same day. Had an automated credit gone (such as wages) you would not have been charged. However, counter credits are not automated payments.

Hi,

Your information is correct but was not always the case.....

It transpires that until the 1st July if there was not enough in an account at 3am then another attempt was made at 5pm. It was not until the October T&Cs booklet that any mention was made of the change and what you say is now the case. Also the statements still show credits first followed by debits which has not been changed yet.
Halifax were very helpful when I went back to them 30 minutes ago.

obsessed_saver

Yup, I noticed this a couple weeks ago when I had a standing order on the same day as my pay-day every month (24th of the month). Just so happened the 24th of Sept is on a Monday, and for some reason BoS took out the standing order on Friday night (21st), so I had a negative balance over Saturday and Sunday. Everything got balanced out again Monday, the 24th morning, but it was strange seeing a negative amount when the standing order was not supposed to leave my account until the 24th! I haven't received any letter telling me of any charges yet, hopefully I won't be receiving one!

I've changed my standing orders to the 25th of the month now.

YorkshireBoy

Al_Mac wrote: »

Wrong I'm afraid. I ran my Barclays account for years, logging in every morning and topping the account back up to 0p.

You probably had an agreed overdraft on your account, which was covering the outgoing payments?

oldagetraveller

far wrote: »

I'm pretty sure Co-Operative/Smile have the same policy too - something along the lines of if a deposit is made by 3.30pm the same day, no fees will be charged. The Abbey National do too.

I think they might do because some months ago my smile account was showing overdrawn, I thought I'd transferred funds the previous day but obviously hadn't, 'phoned up and the CS rep advised to transfer the funds before 3.30 (I think) that day to cover the o/d and there would be no problem.
Whether this is policy or not I didn't ask but it could also depend on how the account is or has been run?