Fixed daily and monthly overdraft fees to be banned - MSE News

Kentish_Dave

I have to agree with the posts above. If you cannot afford to live on your income then paying for debt doesn’t help, and I don’t understand why people are arguing otherwise.

It’s like saying that you should drink seawater if you are dangerously dehydrated.

If you look at SOAs you’ll also see that pretty much everyone, even those in dire straits, could save for a rainy day, but instead spends some money on luxuries.

robertodare

Hi,

the situation is similar for some credit card companies that charge you £ 12 each time you hit the spending limit.
With today's technology this is totally unacceptable and a con, they should just decline the transaction like a debit card gets declined if there are not enough funds to spend..

Instead they charge a fee, even if I would have been happy to have the transaction declined and simply use another card.
The fact that their app or websites don't track transactions in real time (when they should) means I can't possibly know when I am about with certainty when I am about to hit my limit. Even their system alerts, have in the past arrived after I had already hit the limit.
If my debit card can track transactions in real time, why can't the credit card?
There is no excuse, technically or philosophically.
Maybe 30 years go when merchants were doing manual transactions, but not today.when we all do way too many transactions daily in order to be able to keep track of it.

I am intending to report this to the financial ombudsman .. unless someone has already done it and there is a case already in progress?
Does anyone know ..?

If MSE is interested in taking this issue on, please contact me ..

Thanks

Paul_Herring

The fact that their app or websites don't track transactions in real time (when they should) means I can't possibly know when I am about with certainty when I am about to hit my limit.

Because the companies putting the transactions onto the card tend not to tell the card company immediately.

For example, numerous petrol stations I use on Sundays typically don't appear on my card until the Monday or Tuesday afterwards. (And yes - some do actually appear on the Sunday.)

So in order to fix that problem, not only do the card companies have to get involved, the companies where you make your purchases also need to get involved. And also any middlemen (largely MasterCard, Visa and Amex, though I suspect they aren't a bottleneck in this particular process.)

So good luck annoying your local corner-shop or public house with more legislation they need to follow in order that you get immediate feedback on your credit card balance, rather than, say, you keeping track yourself of how much balance you have left on your already, clearly, over-burdened card account.

Jacob73

Does anyone know if I can reclaim overdraft charges even though I haven't exceeded my overdraft limit ?

eskbanker

Jacob73 wrote: »

Does anyone know if I can reclaim overdraft charges even though I haven't exceeded my overdraft limit ?

On what grounds would you contend you'd be entitled to reclaim anything?

The changes discussed in the article this thread's about aren't being made in response to any illegality or breaches of regulations, but if you feel that something hasn't been done correctly you could always read https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/bank-charges/

Jacob73

On the basis of perpetual debt. The latest news is about unfair and excessive charges on exceeding overdraft limits, default charges and unpaid direct debits. Debt on debt. I have avoided this with the use of other credit but places me in hardship that I am unable to get out of because of interest charges.

eskbanker

Jacob73 wrote: »

The latest news is about unfair and excessive charges on exceeding overdraft limits, default charges and unpaid direct debits.

Not really - the latest news (as in the overdraft reforms that are the subject of this thread) is about the way overdraft charges are structured and presented, plus the fact that banks can charge more for unarranged ones.

The old article about reclaiming charges stems from the end of that particular frenzy ten years ago, as covered in its reference to the supreme court verdict in 2009 that made any such claims much harder to achieve.

I'd suggest that it would probably be more productive to post on the debt-free wannabe board for ideas about how to get out of debt, including the potential to engage with debt charities, rather than focusing your attention on your bank - there's nothing to stop you from trying to claim but IMHO you'd need to construct a more cohesive justification than you've done thus far to make a case that your bank has actually done anything wrong.

Ergates

robertodare wrote: »

The fact that their app or websites don't track transactions in real time (when they should) means I can't possibly know when I am about with certainty when I am about to hit my limit.

They "should"? Why? I mean, yes it's helpful when they do, but are they obliged to?

robertodare wrote: »

If my debit card can track transactions in real time, why can't the credit card?

Because debit cards and credit cards operate in a *totally* different way.
Because most banks don't operate their own credit card schemes - they use either Mastercard or Visa - whereas they generally do operate their own current accounts (to which debit cards are linked)
Because they're dependant on the merchant submitting the payment request in real time - which often doesn't happen.
Because it's not generally easy/possible to definitively link a CC authorisation request to the posted transaction making it hard to avoid displaying duplicate transactions in the app/website.

Stuart_W

So overdraft fees will finally be scrapped.

Never personally understood why borrowing £100 from my bank using my debit card could cost me £20 plus interest, but using my credit card to withdraw the same amount would cost £2 plus interest. Always seemed a bit mad to me.

If charges need to more closely represent actual costs to the bank, how about a 25p fee for every cash withdrawal. That'll soon change things.

Paul_Herring

If charges need to more closely represent actual costs to the bank, how about a 25p fee for every cash withdrawal. That'll soon change things.

For most parts of the country, that's already happening. For those still using cash, that is.