Tesco bank failed to take DD; threatening my credit record

Thrugelmir

Batesy1976 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Direct debits have to be set-up a minimum of 10 days before the collection date. As direct debit runs are a batch process.  Company's will be creating these batches well in advance. While it's possible to delete an individual collection prior to the run date. It's not possible to add. 

Chalk it up to experience. 

They're not setting up a DD though, there was already one in place.

They could very easily have left the existing instruction in place. In fact, every company I've ever changed a DD on has made me aware the existing DD would be taken if there wasn't time, and in cases where there wasn't, that's exactly what has happened.

The instruction was changed, i..e. the amount to be collected.  DD runs cannot be manually amended. 

ratechaser

Thrugelmir said:

Batesy1976 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Direct debits have to be set-up a minimum of 10 days before the collection date. As direct debit runs are a batch process.  Company's will be creating these batches well in advance. While it's possible to delete an individual collection prior to the run date. It's not possible to add. 

Chalk it up to experience. 

They're not setting up a DD though, there was already one in place.

They could very easily have left the existing instruction in place. In fact, every company I've ever changed a DD on has made me aware the existing DD would be taken if there wasn't time, and in cases where there wasn't, that's exactly what has happened.

The instruction was changed, i..e. the amount to be collected.  DD runs cannot be manually amended. 

It's not the responsibility of the OP to understand the intricacies/mechanics of the DD system. If they have acted in good faith, and Tesco's own website did not clearly instruct them to make a separate payment, then they should not be affected by it. 

Comments along the lines of 'but a payment was missed and therefore the marker is factually accurate' is the sort of thing I get from internal auditors at work - it's far too narrow a statement and lacking context. 

Batesy1976

Thrugelmir said:

Batesy1976 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Direct debits have to be set-up a minimum of 10 days before the collection date. As direct debit runs are a batch process.  Company's will be creating these batches well in advance. While it's possible to delete an individual collection prior to the run date. It's not possible to add. 

Chalk it up to experience. 

They're not setting up a DD though, there was already one in place.

They could very easily have left the existing instruction in place. In fact, every company I've ever changed a DD on has made me aware the existing DD would be taken if there wasn't time, and in cases where there wasn't, that's exactly what has happened.

The instruction was changed, i..e. the amount to be collected.  DD runs cannot be manually amended. 

And as I've said, every time I've had that happen the company has had no problem taking the existing amount if there was not enough time to change it.

GinOClock

Sounds like Tesco has a very poor system of maintaining direct debits. If a customer makes a change to a direct debit that is too close for its systems to process, it should advise the customer that payment will be taken normally as per the statement and suspend action on changing the direct debit until that payment is taken. Only after this point should it then cancel and reinstate the direct debit at the new amount. Good practice involves setting up systems in such a way that minimises risk of inadvertent customer error. 

kaMelo

Batesy1976 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Batesy1976 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Direct debits have to be set-up a minimum of 10 days before the collection date. As direct debit runs are a batch process.  Company's will be creating these batches well in advance. While it's possible to delete an individual collection prior to the run date. It's not possible to add. 

Chalk it up to experience. 

They're not setting up a DD though, there was already one in place.

They could very easily have left the existing instruction in place. In fact, every company I've ever changed a DD on has made me aware the existing DD would be taken if there wasn't time, and in cases where there wasn't, that's exactly what has happened.

The instruction was changed, i..e. the amount to be collected.  DD runs cannot be manually amended. 

And as I've said, every time I've had that happen the company has had no problem taking the existing amount if there was not enough time to change it.

Because they have not had time to change it then of course they will as it hasn't changed. It's all about timelines as to whether changes occur in time or not, whether an institution retains the current DD for a final payment as well as the modified one or cancels it immediately upon receipt of a new mandate. 
The usual process will cancel an existing DD upon receipt of an updated DD. The updated DD will only apply to the next statement.  Now there are some who will do other things, Barclaycard for example did update the DD and applied it to the current statement as there was enough time but this is the only time I've ever had this happen. There will be those who keep a current DD even though they have a new DD mandate in place but again not all will do this.

If you assume that altering a DD will cancel the current one and put in place a new one that will cover future statements only, meaning you will need to cover current statements with manual payments, then you will not get caught out.
It should be made clear to you this will happen when modifying a DD but in my experience it's not always the case.

Batesy1976

kaMelo said:

Batesy1976 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Batesy1976 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Direct debits have to be set-up a minimum of 10 days before the collection date. As direct debit runs are a batch process.  Company's will be creating these batches well in advance. While it's possible to delete an individual collection prior to the run date. It's not possible to add. 

Chalk it up to experience. 

They're not setting up a DD though, there was already one in place.

They could very easily have left the existing instruction in place. In fact, every company I've ever changed a DD on has made me aware the existing DD would be taken if there wasn't time, and in cases where there wasn't, that's exactly what has happened.

The instruction was changed, i..e. the amount to be collected.  DD runs cannot be manually amended. 

And as I've said, every time I've had that happen the company has had no problem taking the existing amount if there was not enough time to change it.

Because they have not had time to change it then of course they will as it hasn't changed. It's all about timelines as to whether changes occur in time or not, whether an institution retains the current DD for a final payment as well as the modified one or cancels it immediately upon receipt of a new mandate. 
The usual process will cancel an existing DD upon receipt of an updated DD. The updated DD will only apply to the next statement.  Now there are some who will do other things, Barclaycard for example did update the DD and applied it to the current statement as there was enough time but this is the only time I've ever had this happen. There will be those who keep a current DD even though they have a new DD mandate in place but again not all will do this.

If you assume that altering a DD will cancel the current one and put in place a new one that will cover future statements only, meaning you will need to cover current statements with manual payments, then you will not get caught out.
It should be made clear to you this will happen when modifying a DD but in my experience it's not always the case.

I'm not assuming the change will be applied to the current statement.  And I've never had that happen.  I'm saying that if it has not been able to be changed before the next payment is due, the existing arrangement stays in place until it can be changed.

I'm not saying no other provider does it the way Tesco does, I'm sure some do, I've just yet to experience it and I have been in this situation a few times.  And I don't think it's at all reasonable to do it this way, even if they have T&C's that allow it. It's very anti-consumer, it doesn't make much sense to do it like this and it's clearly very possible to NOT do it this way.  The only reason to do it this way seems to be to catch people out.  OK fine, I guess, but I wouldn't expect the FOS to side with Tesco in this situation given they're happy to ignore the law and/or T&C's and look at fairness and this doesn't strike me as very fair.

kaMelo

Batesy1976 said:

kaMelo said:

Batesy1976 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Batesy1976 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Direct debits have to be set-up a minimum of 10 days before the collection date. As direct debit runs are a batch process.  Company's will be creating these batches well in advance. While it's possible to delete an individual collection prior to the run date. It's not possible to add. 

Chalk it up to experience. 

They're not setting up a DD though, there was already one in place.

They could very easily have left the existing instruction in place. In fact, every company I've ever changed a DD on has made me aware the existing DD would be taken if there wasn't time, and in cases where there wasn't, that's exactly what has happened.

The instruction was changed, i..e. the amount to be collected.  DD runs cannot be manually amended. 

And as I've said, every time I've had that happen the company has had no problem taking the existing amount if there was not enough time to change it.

Because they have not had time to change it then of course they will as it hasn't changed. It's all about timelines as to whether changes occur in time or not, whether an institution retains the current DD for a final payment as well as the modified one or cancels it immediately upon receipt of a new mandate. 
The usual process will cancel an existing DD upon receipt of an updated DD. The updated DD will only apply to the next statement.  Now there are some who will do other things, Barclaycard for example did update the DD and applied it to the current statement as there was enough time but this is the only time I've ever had this happen. There will be those who keep a current DD even though they have a new DD mandate in place but again not all will do this.

If you assume that altering a DD will cancel the current one and put in place a new one that will cover future statements only, meaning you will need to cover current statements with manual payments, then you will not get caught out.
It should be made clear to you this will happen when modifying a DD but in my experience it's not always the case.

I'm not assuming the change will be applied to the current statement.  And I've never had that happen.  I'm saying that if it has not been able to be changed before the next payment is due, the existing arrangement stays in place until it can be changed.

I'm not saying no other provider does it the way Tesco does, I'm sure some do, I've just yet to experience it and I have been in this situation a few times.  And I don't think it's at all reasonable to do it this way, even if they have T&C's that allow it. It's very anti-consumer, it doesn't make much sense to do it like this and it's clearly very possible to NOT do it this way.  The only reason to do it this way seems to be to catch people out.  OK fine, I guess, but I wouldn't expect the FOS to side with Tesco in this situation given they're happy to ignore the law and/or T&C's and look at fairness and this doesn't strike me as very fair.

I don't disagree with anything you've said but the fact is the timeline matters. It changes how things were dealt with depending on the timeline and it's not always the financial institution who choses this.
We as customers assume, not unreasonably, that we're merely modifying an existing DD. The reality is that's not the case most of the time, a new one is created. This has regulatory requirements regarding notification of when it will happen and how much it will be. I'm sure it could be handled better by some companies, it should always be made clear a manual payment will be required if it is but, it's wrong to just assume a company is "trying to catch people out" because they can.

Fingerbobs

phillw said:

Sainsbury's calculated a due date for good friday but DD won't go out until Tuesday. I already placed a call where they told me they are trying to figure out how to make sure that customers aren't impacted by it.

I don't hold a Sainsbury's card, but I've often had due dates that fall on Bank Holidays on other cards, and it's never been a problem. Typically, the Direct Debit payment appears on the account on the working day following the due date, but is dated as though the transaction occurred on the due date.

Shakin_Steve

So....if a direct debit is for a different amount every month, i.e. a mobile phone bill, how do they manage to change the amount in the, say, ten days between billing and collection?

Shakin_Steve

Also, Barclaycard seem to be able to change the amount collected by dd if you make a payment after the statement is issued but before the dd is due.