Cancelled direct debit 2 April at 11:17AM in Reclaim Bank & Credit Card Charges 6 replies 173 views

Lala1977

Looking for a bit of advice.
Santander had cancelled a minimum payment direct debit for my credit card without me being aware. I only found out when I got a late payment fee. 
Santander are however denying they cancelled the direct debit but I know for definite I did not cancel this. I have not had a late payment for many many years and I am so annoyed at this being passed on to me. I have just realised I have lost 94 points on my credit score due to this.
How can I prove this wasn't my doing?
Thanks x

zx81

When was the time the DD was collected? It will be cancelled by your bank after 13 months 

Santander won't have cancelled it. At worst, they'll have failed to collect it.

Don't worry about your 94 points. You were the only person who knew you had them in the first place and one missed payment is nothing to lose sleep over.

Lala1977

It was a monthly direct debit. Last collected in November but I never noticed because I was paying more into it so didn't realise the direct debit hadn't collected it.
Why would a direct debit be cancelled after 13 months? 
I'm just annoyed as that will stay on my file now for ages 
Thanks zx81

zx81

Lala1977 said:

Why would a direct debit be cancelled after 13 months? 

Simply because that's how it works with inactive DDs. But that isn't the case here from what you say.

Speak to your bank to see if they cancelled it (if it is actually cancelled).

dunstonh

Santander had cancelled a minimum payment direct debit for my credit card without me being aware. I only found out when I got a late payment fee. 

A couple of things here.

1 - Your bank should be able to tell you when the direct debit mandate was cancelled and who instructed it to be. (assuming it is actually cancelled and doesn't appear in your active mandates list)
2 - Your credit card statement will tell you if they are going to collect the payment by direct debit. Does it say it on there?

Once you know if it was the bank or the card provider at fault, you can make an appropriate complaint to the right place.

MalMonroe

Lala1977 said:

Looking for a bit of advice.
Santander had cancelled a minimum payment direct debit for my credit card without me being aware. I only found out when I got a late payment fee. 
Santander are however denying they cancelled the direct debit but I know for definite I did not cancel this. I have not had a late payment for many many years and I am so annoyed at this being passed on to me. I have just realised I have lost 94 points on my credit score due to this.
How can I prove this wasn't my doing?
Thanks x

Hi, this is strange. If Santander has, indeed, made a mistake then you are covered by the Direct Debit guarantee -

https://www.directdebit.co.uk/DirectDebitExplained/pages/directdebitguarantee.aspx

And if you've been charged a fee it will be returned and the entry removed from your credit history. (as zx81 has said, nobody else sees your credit score). 

Also, as dunstonh says, if there's been a mistake, you can made a complaint.  

If you just keep an eye on your bank account - I have the app on my phone - you'll have more of an idea of what's going on. If one of my DDs was cancelled, I'd know before a late payment advice arrived. (I have to say though that I've only become this vigilant with my accounts since I emerged from a DRO a couple of years ago.) 

My credit card companies also usually send me a reminder when payments are going to be taken from my bank account. Is that something you could set up?

phillw

I'd complain to the credit card company and say it wasn't your fault that the DD wasn't paid, get them to cancel the fee etc.

I also would recommend arranging for all your DD to come out on the first of the month (or as close as possible) then every month tick off as they go out.

I had a DD fail recently, I made a manual payment the next day before their system had even realized it had failed.