Standing Order Question

wibblewibble

Hi,

A question for the bank experts please regarding standing orders.

Since 1992 I have had a regular monthly standing order which was payable to Avco Trust Ltd - the final full payment was made 1st December 2007 leaving a balance less than the usual monthly amount. I have therefore cancelled the standing order today with the aim of sending the final payment by cheque, to my surprise I find that Avco Trust Ltd no longer seem to exist!

As far as I can tell they were bought out by 2 different American banks during the repayment period and ceased trading under the name Avco Trust many years ago.

What concerns me is exactly who has been receiving it? I have never been contacted about them ceasing trading, nor indeed have I had any contact whatsoever with them or anyone else concerning this matter since 1992.

I also thought that a standing order could only be paid to the specified payee in this case Avco Trust Ltd, if they ceased trading under that name why then has the bank been paying the standing order all these years?

The sum involved totals almost £11,000.

Should the bank have realised that someone else was getting this money and informed me?

Should they even have honoured the standing order if the named payee was not the account receiving it?

No money has ever been returned to me so someone has been taking my money - I just don't know who!

gt94sss2

If Avco Trust Limited has been sold to another company or changed its trading name then those companies will have inherited their bank accounts as well.

The simplest way to pay your last payment - is to set up a 1 off electronic transfer to the bank account that your standing order was going too for the correct amount, remembering to quote your account/reference number.

That way you don't need to work out who owns it now or what trading name they are using and at what postal address they accept payments.

As long as the receiving bank account remained open, payments will continue to be accepted and your bank doesn't care who is receiving the money - it has no need too

Regards
Sunil

Biggles

Contact Citibank, who bought Avco Trust some years ago.

Mary_Hartnell

Citibank, the massively over reaching American bank.

I had a problem like this over a house structure insurance policy but in my case, I got a statement showing a new name direct debiting my account.

Checking the news showed that "my" insurance company had flogged off my policy to another insurance company.

The "new" insurance company was in my opinion "dodgy" with a bad customer relations reputation; so I went into my bank and demanded my money back. The bank did not like doing it but I insisted that a DD was always recallable.

After a few months with a policy taken out with an alternative company; I had the satisfaction of schadenfreude when the original policy went to money heaven as its now owner went down the tubes.

This was a fair few years ago so I bet the banks now get you to sign up to some sort of variable DD authority for amounts variable at their discretion?
(Ie they have the authority to set up the DD not you)

You don't tell us if the "repayment" is secured on something. Obviously if it is you risk shooting yourself in the foot. Similarly if you don't sort it out you risk getting something nasty on your credit record.

My first step would be to check if AVCO still exists as a UK registered company. If it does send a "full and final" cheque and covering letter to its registered office.

It is this buying and selling of long term contracts that is making a mess of the banks at the moment. (I've just been listening to a bank spokes person saying if you are a mortgagor, approaching a problem with refinancing your mortgage, step one is talk to your bank. Are we still sure who has the beneficial interest in our mortgage payments and what their attitude will be in a falling market ? Foreclose PDQ while there is still some equity in the loan?)

jonesMUFCforever

Mary I think you are confusing direct debits and standing orders.
S/O - you tell the bank to send amount x from your account.
D/D - you give authorisation to a company to claim money from your account.

Mary_Hartnell

ejones999 wrote: »

Mary I think you are confusing direct debits and standing orders.
S/O - you tell the bank to send amount x from your account.
D/D - you give authorisation to a company to claim money from your account.

My brain might be getting rotted by too much aluminium in the diet, but if it was a standing order (ie I push not the supplier pulls) the monthly payment would not have been paid to a "new" supplier ?

(I did have a situation back in 1974 when I cancelled an endowment policy, because mortgage finance had dried up (sounds familiar?) and I could only get the amount I needed on a repayment deal; I wrote to my bank (Barclays) but come the new year they still pushed out the annual standing order payment; got that back PDQ as well).

Working from memory, I've got this idea that there are two types of Direct Debit, or am I confusing this with a supplier's authority to randomly charge one's credit card ?

olly300

Mary_Hartnell wrote: »

Working from memory, I've got this idea that there are two types of Direct Debit, or am I confusing this with a supplier's authority to randomly charge one's credit card ?

There are:
1. Variable Direct Debits - where you sign an agreement that authorises a company to take a variable amount from your bank account only after 10 days of sending you a bill for that period
2. Fixed Direct Debits - where you sign an agreement that authorises a company to take a fix amount from your bank account every period

Both of these are protected by the Direct Debit Guarantee

Charging credit cards is different and lots of people have difficulty stopping them.