Sainsbury’s credit card - paid full statement balance in advance but they still took money by DD

sausage_time

My opinion is that this is unexpected and unreasonable.  If it happened to me I would raise a complaint.

cymruchris

I wouldn’t be happy with it either. I did have a Sainsbury’s card at one point and always found it quirky in how it worked and what it offered. It was also very late to the party in going Apple Pay, and one that gave a very low limit and didn’t want to raise it after a year of spend and paying in full every month - so I quit it some time ago. Maybe the op should have a look at other options and take their business elsewhere  

Richard019

I wouldn't complain. What is stated in the OP is correct, so there's not really anything they're going to do. If there's been any detriment then it might be worth asking if they'll do anything to help a good customer following an innocent mistake. That's more likely to get a sympathetic response and be picked up quickly and get you something. A complaint is likely to take longer, and unless they just offer something to close it because they've got a lot to deal with is more likely to be rejected as since it will be a reportable event they'll have to follow the Ts&Cs/processes rather than having as much discretion, and they haven't actually done anything wrong.

Sainsbury's haven't taken for the meal in the way it looks, it's the fact the DD has changed amount that's throwing the perception. Their mechanics are set to ignore any transactions after the statement date, and just use the overall balance at the processing date, which is why it says on statements additional payments won't affect the DD. As normally the only people looking to make extra payments would be people with either minimum payment or fixed amount DDs it would only be necessary for a statement to lay it out to those customers not to pay too much extra as the DD will still be taken. Someone with a full balance DD paying early would be incredibly rare that I don't think it would be a requirement to lay it out explicitly that the DD would be reduced to the new balance at the date including new transactions, as they are saying previous payments are irrelevent, and the only change would be to reduce the DD, which is to the customer's advantage over the stated amount they would take.

If the OP hadn't paid anything early but had spent the £126 they would have just taken the £3,000 as advised on the statement.

If the OP had paid £100 early but then spent the £126, they would have taken the £3,000 as advised on the statement and left the £26 on the card. They said they'd take £3,000, they said other payments wouldn't affect it, they took £3,000

If the OP had paid £200 early and not spent anything they would have reduced the DD to £2,800 because if they took the £3,000 on the statement there would have been a positive balance on the card which generally* can't happen with credit cards. They'd therefore reduce it to the balance at the time. They have previously advised they would ignore any additional payments made, but have to take a lower amount to avoid the positive balance. This is the smallest change they can make to the DD they have advised you they will take.

If the OP had paid £200 early but then spent the £126, they would have taken £2,926

The only difference between that last example and what has happened is that the early payment was the full amount, so it looks like the adjusted DD has been just to bill for the new purchases, rather than to adjust for the overall balance on the card

*generally a credit card can't have a positive balance, there are (or maybe were) some cards that do. Obvious exceptions though are if you buy a big ticket item like a TV on your card, pay off the bill, then have to return the TV as it's faulty. In that case the card will accept a positive balance to process the refund.

The previous poster who had it happen with a DD and a BT I would asume was a timing issue. DDs have to be processed in advance. If the DD request to the bank had to be processed before the BT payment had cleared, but the BT completed before the DD actually went through then they'd both clear and leave the positive balance