DD reversal (in error?) causing late payment - no marker yet

sixtyfoothigh

Will try and keep this short as I’m in tears with frustration right now.

4 years ago I took a loan with AA (bank of Ireland) only two payments remain. Never missed never late. In fact I’ve never had a late payment for anything ever!

This months was due 25th May and as per their t and cs that meant it came out on 28th May due to bank holiday. I use my HSBC account for most bills and have another account I use for spending and saving. I have an overdraft of up to £1000. I admit I hadn’t paid attention and 28th May got a text at 8.40am saying “some of todays DD might get reversed if no sufficient funds by 3.30pm”. 8.42am logged in and looked at todays and tomorrow pending and transferred enough to cover it all so that I’d be well within my arranged overdraft at end of day. I’ve done this before and not had an issue.

30th I log in to check pending for 1st and see if any other transfer needed. Notice DD for loan had reversed.

Rang AA and they said it wasn’t showing as reversed on their system. I asked if I could pay by card then and there and was told no, but could make bank transfer. So I did. They guy told me to ring HSBC to find out what happened.

I then had the weirdest conversation. Firstly by chat in the HSBC app. They said my bank transfer was at 8.42pm so missed the 3.30pm cut off. I said it wasn’t. She sent me “evidence” to prove it. I said “look at what you just sent me it was clearly in 8.42am”. She then said… well even with that transfer  you were over your overdraft limit. I said I wasn’t. She sent me her calculations. I corrected her maths. She said “well im saying you were over the limit and you didn’t have the funds” and cut off the chat before I could reply.

I then rang customer service who admitted I had done the transfer when I said and that it had been enough to cover the transaction, but said “the merchant (bank of Ireland) reversed the DD because they don’t accept DD if the customer is in their overdraft. The reversal was nothing to do with HSBC”. I asked where I as a consumer would have been informed of this. She put my on hold for ages and then just came back and said she couldn’t give me more info. I asked for this is writing and was told “No I won’t put that in writing” and cut me off. I went back to the chat and put it in writing there was had been said and that any complaint I had was with bank of Ireland and the agent agreed that was the case.

Checked with AA today and they can now see the reversal. They’ve put a ton of notes on my account about what’s happened and said that it was NOT the bank of Ireland that did the reversal it was definitely HSBC. She said she was going to make her back office team aware of the case. I’ve got to check back next week to confirm they’ve logged the bank transfer against my account as apparently it can take a few days.

Sorry this is so long, but I do have a question:

1) my loan T&Cs seem to say that if you miss a payment they will contact you and demand payment and it’s only if you fail to respond by date given that they’ll add a late payment marker. If they do add one outside that condition can I object?
2) regardless of these t&cs, if I get any penalties regarding this has anyone got any advice. It feels like something has gone wrong with a bank system that’s resulted in this payment being late! The way agents at HSBC have acted (refusing to confirm things in writing, cutting off chats) I’m convinced they’ve made a !!!!!! up here and don’t want to admit it. Is there a rule about direct debits and arranged overdrafts that I should have been aware of?

Sorry again for wall of text.

sixty x

born_again

Raise a complaint with HSBC.
No way will the receiver bank know that you are in the O/D with your bank, or even care. But AA staff will have no idea on B of I internal procedures. So they are as bad in making stuff up to not admit any errors.

Brie

Yes - raise a complaint with HSBC.  Set it out nice and clearly (like your post but short bullet points) to state at X time I did this, at Y time I did....  Include in this who you called and when and add "if you check your recording you will see I was cut off without your employee resolving the situation satisfactorily."

Follow through with any added penalties and state that your have been "financially inconvenienced" by their actions and poor customer service.  

If they say sorry, tell them that's insufficient.  I would be expecting the full amount of any penalties, an apology and something as a "good will gesture".  

sixtyfoothigh

Just a quick update. Thank you to those who replied. I did write a complaint to HSBC - they were *not* easy to find a way to formally complain to. I took advice and set it out in very clear bullet points. They wrote back and said "we don't think we've done anything wrong but have £100 as a good will gesture" and then they didn't really respond to my points. It had quite a long deadline if I wanted to escalate it and since a friend who worked in banking said personal loans didn't really report late payments for things that were literally a couple of days late, I thought I'd wait and see. It's now been two months and no late payment marker.
Taught me a lesson about managing my finances better though!