Is 50p DD possible these days?

newbie8

Apologies if this has been asked before.

I've not been switching accounts and keeping up with finances etc. for a while. But slowly getting back to it now.
Years ago, I know it was possible to setup DD's to charities for less than 50p. But is that possible these days? I've searched and most are £2. I've found Woodlands trust allow 1p DD. But will this increase? 

Already make separate charity payments (kids, work, club etc.) but want to setup DD on an account where I purely use it for switching  

Sandtree

In principle DDs can be for 1p but the charity has to pay fees on the DDs and many send news letters etc to all regular donners and so have set a minimum donation amount to ensure they arent losing money. 

JohnSwift10

A few years ago when I needed 4 DDs, between my wife and I we had 6 credit cards so I set up DDs to pay them from the banks that needed DDs to switch to and used to buy small items like a Mars bar once a week with each credit card. It worked for me.

newbie8

JohnSwift10 said:

A few years ago when I needed 4 DDs, between my wife and I we had 6 credit cards so I set up DDs to pay them from the banks that needed DDs to switch to and used to buy small items like a Mars bar once a week with each credit card. It worked for me.

It would work but I don’t hve enough cc to setup that many DD’s up. I’m mainly trying to switch accounts for my parents as well. And really struggling without affecting their normal day-to-day account. I might setup a Woodland Trust DD and see how it goes. Possibly just cancel the DD if they increase it too high. 

SaverRate

Homeserve plumbing plus cover take a 75p direct debit for me?

cx6

Only my feelings, but try not to set up a DD to a charity for less than the cost to the charity of processing it.

WillPS

I thought DDs were relatively cheap to collect, hence the big drive in the 00s from utility and telecoms companies to get people paying with DD rather than credit/debit cards.

p00hsticks

WillPS said:

I thought DDs were relatively cheap to collect, hence the big drive in the 00s from utility and telecoms companies to get people paying with DD rather than credit/debit cards.

I'm not sure that the DD charges themselves are particularly cheaper than that for processing a credit or debit card payment. The incentive of DD's for companies is that provides for a more stable cashflow, as it gives them the ability to request and get the money the moment it becomes due (providing the payment doesn't bounce), rather than billing the customer and then waiting for them to get round to making the credit/debit card payment, which could be several weeks later.....

HeinzVarieties

p00hsticks said:

WillPS said:

I thought DDs were relatively cheap to collect, hence the big drive in the 00s from utility and telecoms companies to get people paying with DD rather than credit/debit cards.

I'm not sure that the DD charges themselves are particularly cheaper than that for processing a credit or debit card payment. The incentive of DD's for companies is that provides for a more stable cashflow, as it gives them the ability to request and get the money the moment it becomes due (providing the payment doesn't bounce), rather than billing the customer and then waiting for them to get round to making the credit/debit card payment, which could be several weeks later.....

To be fair they could do that with CPAs and historically CPAs were a lot harder to cancel than DD's were.  I can't help but think it's more about the money than the ease of collection.

Ballard

JohnSwift10 said:

A few years ago when I needed 4 DDs, between my wife and I we had 6 credit cards so I set up DDs to pay them from the banks that needed DDs to switch to and used to buy small items like a Mars bar once a week with each credit card. It worked for me.

I did more or less the same thing but not quite as well as you. One month I only spend a few pence on one of the cards and the bank wrote the amount off rather than collect it. Them not collecting their 20p (or whatever it was) cost my a few pounds. 

RN61

I just tried to set up a monthly direct debit of 1p with The Woodland Trust and went all the way through the process, then it failed with error message

"Payment Failure... We're sorry, there was a problem with your payment. Please try again or contact Supporter Services on 0330 333 3300." 

So guess there is a higher limit.