direct debit indemnity claim back

agrinnall

Were any of these DDs to pay for a space under a bridge?

Ergates

colsten wrote: »

Be under no illusion - this matter will not be sorted by tomorrow.

Whilst you might get a quick refund from the bank, they will not close the matter until they have recovered the money from the payees. If the payees disagree, your account may well be debited again. Ref what you have read in the link I posted for you "If you receive a refund you are not entitled to, you must pay it back when the organisation asks you to"

You might also face action from the payees.

Yup. When the bank pays back the payer (their customer) they raise a claim against the payee. The payee then has 14 days to dispute the claim. If they can provide evidence that the payer agreed to the payment, then the claim will be rejected and the bank will reclaim the money back from the payer. If they believe this was a deliberate on the customer's side (as opposed to an honest mistake) then they may treat it as attempted fraud.

BrownTrout

School holiday time
.......

GraceCourt

dranzer01 wrote: »

I have read that banks are obliged to give you your/THE money bank under the protection which should be immediately?

The relevant "promise" is paragraph three of the Guarantee, which states:
"If an error is made in the payment of your Direct Debit, by the organisation or your bank or building society, you are entitled to a full and immediate refund of the amount paid from your bank or building society."

The major qualification, however, is:
"If you receive a refund you are not entitled to, you must pay it back when the organisation asks you to."

However, the reality is that many banks dream up their own interpretation of the Guarantee and ignore parts of it altogether. For example, the Lloyds Banking Group disregards "full and immediate refund" in favour of their own internal policies and procedures. I have today initiated a switch of bank current account away from the Bank of Scotland because, having been alerted by an e-mail today that I'm overdrawn due to the debit of a mortgage payment of over £1,300, I rang them immediately to tell them that the mortgage was redeemed in full a week ago, but because the principal sum was paid direct to the building society by our solicitors and not via the current account, BoS refused to recall the payment, which breaches the DD Guarantee - the error has been admitted by the building society (hey, mistakes happen, and I'm very laid back about the original error - the building society was profusely apologetic and will refund ASAP).

BUT... BoS - unbelievably - are sticking to the excuse that because I didn't cancel the Direct Debit (NB - not a standing order, which is a completely different method of payment), even though the building society made an error, the DD Guarantee doesn't apply - but it does. Even their complaints handlers believe the same thing, and the recall was still refused.

So I'm waiting for the Bank's "final response", which means I don't have to wait eight weeks before referring my complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service for determination, a step for which the complained-about financial institution has to pay the FOS a fee, which used to be £400 but might have increased. They pay that fee whether or not the complaint is upheld.

colsten

GraceCourt wrote: »

So I'm waiting for the Bank's "final response", which means I don't have to wait eight weeks before referring my complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service for determination, a step for which the complained-about financial institution has to pay the FOS a fee, which used to be £400 but might have increased. They pay that fee whether or not the complaint is upheld.

You are doing the right thing in planning to take this to the FOS if BoS won't give you a satisfactory answer. But taken it to the FOS doesn't automatically mean that the bank has to pay - they only pay if the case will actually be investigated by an actual Ombudsman. Most complaints get turn round by their Admin folk. All complaints going to the FOS do, however, look bad on the statistics for the bank.

agrinnall

GraceCourt wrote: »

...even though the building society made an error...

Why didn't you just ask the Building Society to return the money that they had taken in error, rather than involving BoS who were entirely blameless in the original issue?

GraceCourt

agrinnall wrote: »

Why didn't you just ask the Building Society to return the money that they had taken in error, rather than involving BoS who were entirely blameless in the original issue?

Because the DD Guarantee is supposed to provide a quick and simple mechanism for an "immediate" refund back to the originating account, and as the sum involved was over £1,300 - thus driving the account into overdraft - getting the money back into the account before close of business today avoided the risk of unnecessarily complicating the original simple mistake with overdraft fees,interest, etc.

In fact, the building society made a FastPay payment of the disputed sum back into the account within a couple of hours of contacting them. But the issue here is not a simple human mistake, it's the fact that none of the BoS staff to whom I spoke had an adequate understanding of the (very simple) terms of the DD Guarantee, not even the Complaints staff who are sending me the "final response" letter, even when paragraph three was read out to them verbatim from the BACS web site!

The Guarantee is just about the most important piece of consumer protection that a bank needs to know inside out, and BoS failed... imagine that this happened to someone of lesser financial means and knowledge, and who didn't have the advocacy skills to put it right?

That's a massive worry, and BoS needs to address it urgently, hence the complaint to the FOS.

Mrsn

As I understand it the direct debit guarantee is for mistakes where the money has been taken in error. For instance my council tax came out yesterday and it was 3 times the agreed amount on council tax bill therefore it was stopped via the bank under the guarantee as I could prove this was the case. I can’t see how the bank will refund you for a direct debit of £330 that has been paid for nearly 2 years without you noticing.... that’s not intended to be harsh but it’s not what the indemnity scheme is designed for. We have a tight household budget and our bank accounts are checked daily to ensure everything has been paid without a hitch (direct debits are great but mistakes do happen!) perhaps it might be worth keeping a closer eye on your bank account?

dranzer01

so if someone uses your sort code and account number, and yes, people do not check their accounts regularly, quite possibly if large sums do go through it.... you are saying that money shouldnt be returned?

how a person can get your sort code and account number... well it is the 21st century as well as it being 2019; that in itself isnt difficult with people out there. So it baffles me with some of the responses here.

Flobberchops

If the DDs were set up wholly without OP's knowledge or permission, then it should be escalated to the bank's fraud team rather than treated as a dispute. Although I expect the fraud team would ask exactly the same question: how did this go unnoticed for so long? Even if you're wealthy enough for a few hundred quid each month to go missing without noticing (and if so, congratulations), do you not receive bank statements?