Nationwide Flex Direct

lindabea

flaneurs_lobster said:

lindabea said:

Whilst we're having this discussion about fairness of banks, can you please give me an explanation for another question regarding banking practiices  Why is it when I do a debit transaction (ie purchase) on my credit cards, it appears immediately on my account, yet a refund will take 5-7 days to appear on my account. I don't understand what extra processes are applicable to a refund that are not required for a debit.  Without wanting to be accused of being cynical, I would say that it may have something to do with the bank taking advantage to gain credit interest.    

@eskbanker will answer I'm sure, but I don't think you can blame banks for the tardiness of retailers processing returns. 

The delay in processing refunds has nothing to do with the tardiness of retailers.  The 5-7 days needed to process refunds is what has been quoted to me by my bank as the required time the bank needs to process the refund. Obviously, the 5-7 days are after the retailer has issued the refund; so if there is any delay by the retailer, the time is of no relevance.  When I asked the bank why it takes so long when debit trans are immediate, they said that it's down to VISA and they have no control over it. They suggested I speak to VISA.

So I'm none the wiser why it takes so long and I'm sure that if I speak to VISA they would blame my bank.   .     

username

I'd think the 5-7 working days for the refund to appear on your account is just a worst case scenario.

What store have you purchased from that takes such a long time for a refund?
Who are your bankers for this card you're doing the refund to?
Is this a debit or credit card you are spending on?

When you buy something on your card it does not debit out of the account immediately, it is just reserved from your available balance before the transaction clears through (the shop submits their card payments overnight/at close of business) and appears as a purchase on your statement.

Some banks take slightly longer for this to happen, but generally I have found any in-person refunds are processed next working day and appear on my bank/credit card statement as such, my bankers are HSBC.
The only exception I have seen is the Metro Bank, where all debits/credits are dated 2-3 days later on the statement.

The other thing that can delay the refund is if the shop doesn't submit or do the end of day process on their terminal, once upon a time a very long time ago I worked in a shop where one day the person locking up forgot to do said process to submit the card banking on the machine, the transactions just took an extra day to debit the customers' accounts.

lindabea

username said:

I'd think the 5-7 working days for the refund to appear on your account is just a worst case scenario.

What store have you purchased from that takes such a long time for a refund?
Who are your bankers for this card you're doing the refund to?
Is this a debit or credit card you are spending on?

When you buy something on your card it does not debit out of the account immediately, it is just reserved from your available balance before the transaction clears through (the shop submits their card payments overnight/at close of business) and appears as a purchase on your statement.

Some banks take slightly longer for this to happen, but generally I have found any in-person refunds are processed next working day and appear on my bank/credit card statement as such, my bankers are HSBC.
The only exception I have seen is the Metro Bank, where all debits/credits are dated 2-3 days later on the statement.

The other thing that can delay the refund is if the shop doesn't submit or do the end of day process on their terminal, once upon a time a very long time ago I worked in a shop where one day the person locking up forgot to do said process to submit the card banking on the machine, the transactions just took an extra day to debit the customers' accounts.

The refund I'm expecting is not from a store.  My car broke down last Thurs and called out my breakdown service.  When the mechanic arrived, he said I needed a new battery which would cost £100.08.  But when he keyed in the amount on his hand held terminal, I saw him key in 10008 (no option for decimal point on the terminal) which correctly made it 100.08.  It's an annoying system where the last 2 digits are assumed as decimal digits.   However, what I had not seen, was that he inadvertently must have keyed in an extra 0 at the end which made the figure roll across to £1000.80.  He apologised when we realised afterwards, and said that he's not authorised to make refunds and someone from the office will call me first thing on Fri morning which they did and processed the refund for £900.72.  They also immediately sent me the receipt of the refund.  I then called my CREDIT Card comapany which is Sainsburys Bank, and they confirmed that it will take 5-7 working days for the refund to appear on my credit card account.





     

lindabea

As a separate example from my own experience when banks process refunds, about 3 years ago, I checked into a hotel and they held £100 on my credit card.  They didn't actually process the payment but debited my account thereby reducing my credit limit.  I was banking with Metro Bank at the time, and I'm not kidding you, it took 28 days for the transaction to be cancelled out. I don't think it was a refund as such but it stayed showing as pending for 28 days despite the hotel assuring me that they cancelled the payment. 

As another example, although not directly with me but with friends of mine, holding security payments when paying for petrol at the pump, also take a long time to be cancelled out.  .    .    

username

lindabea said:

username said:

I'd think the 5-7 working days for the refund to appear on your account is just a worst case scenario.

What store have you purchased from that takes such a long time for a refund?
Who are your bankers for this card you're doing the refund to?
Is this a debit or credit card you are spending on?

When you buy something on your card it does not debit out of the account immediately, it is just reserved from your available balance before the transaction clears through (the shop submits their card payments overnight/at close of business) and appears as a purchase on your statement.

Some banks take slightly longer for this to happen, but generally I have found any in-person refunds are processed next working day and appear on my bank/credit card statement as such, my bankers are HSBC.
The only exception I have seen is the Metro Bank, where all debits/credits are dated 2-3 days later on the statement.

The other thing that can delay the refund is if the shop doesn't submit or do the end of day process on their terminal, once upon a time a very long time ago I worked in a shop where one day the person locking up forgot to do said process to submit the card banking on the machine, the transactions just took an extra day to debit the customers' accounts.

The refund I'm expecting is not from a store.  My car broke down last Thurs and called out my breakdown service.  When the mechanic arrived, he said I needed a new battery which would cost £100.08.  But when he keyed in the amount on his hand held terminal, I saw him key in 10008 (no option for decimal point on the terminal) which correctly made it 100.08.  It's an annoying system where the last 2 digits are assumed as decimal digits.   However, what I had not seen, was that he inadvertently must have keyed in an extra 0 at the end which made the figure roll across to £1000.80.  He apologised when we realised afterwards, and said that he's not authorised to make refunds and someone from the office will call me first thing on Fri morning which they did and processed the refund for £900.72.  They also immediately sent me the receipt of the refund.  I then called my CREDIT Card comapany which is Sainsburys Bank, and they confirmed that it will take 5-7 working days for the refund to appear on my credit card account.





     

Thanks for the explanation and the scenario.

When has your card been debited the £1000.80 transaction?
The day after? A few days later? I mean as in when it is actually dated on your statement. It could give you a very rough guideline on the "realistic" time of when to expect the refund to land in your credit card statement, if we logically assume that the debit transaction for your card will take as long as a credit transaction from the mechanic to process, discounting the it "will take 5-7 working days" from the bank directly. Again, I suspect the real reason why the 5-7 days is quoted as gospel by the bank is to manage the clients' expectations.

The same process applies, even if it is not in an actual store. Card transactions do not debit or credit the same day, the system is not built for that. The fastest I have seen it is next working day (as in be an entry on my account, with the relevant amount processed and debited, not pending).

Other variances (like the lag in the Metro Bank setup, I presume it is something to do with the platform they run on, as opposed to deliberately wanting to sit on people's money) can delay it. 

The mechanic has shown the proof of the refund, and there's no way to speed this up, so it's unfortunately going to be a case of just waiting for it to be processed on. 

Re the point for pay at the pump I have seen this whereby the £99 pre-authorisation has stuck around for a few days, before being replaced with the correct amount, this was on my American Express card.

lindabea

Thank you for taking the time to explain. All I know so far is that the debit trans for 1000.80 was taken on Thurs pm and appeared on my credit card account on Fri. The refund was processed on Fri at 9:16 and has not shown up on .my account. According to Sainsbury's bank. the refund won't appear on my account for at least 5_7days. 
 

eskbanker

lindabea said:

Thank you for saying that I am not wrong in my comments, but speaking from my own experiences and other people's experiences when dealing with such matters, I don't think there is anything cynical in my comments.  Whilst I accept that I am taking the least favourable interpretation, I can equally say that you are taking the most favourable interpretaion and giving the institutions the benefit of doubt.. Misplaced or not, my comments are marred by my own experiences.

Looks like the thread has moved on while I was away for a couple of days, but just to pick up on this, I'm not taking the most favourable interpretation and am simply making the factual observation that there are multiple explanations and neither I nor you know the actual reason, regardless of your own experiences!

Having said that, these two expressions are clearly exactly equivalent, even though you were hoping for a loophole in the shorter version:

"Money paid in from other Nationwide accounts held by you or anyone else..."

"Money paid in from other Nationwide accounts..."

blue.peter said:

eskbanker said:

Money paid in from other Nationwide accounts held by you or anyone else or Visa credits (for example, refunds you receive back into your account) won’t count towards the £1,000.

"Nationwide accounts" isn't, as far as I can see, a defined term. Virgin Money is, of course, now owned by Nationwide, and therefore part of the wider Nationwide group. I wonder if the term is now intended to include Virgin accounts? That would seem rather harsh. Whilst Nationwide itself doesn't offer business accounts, Virgin does. The potential exists for a Nationwide Flex Direct customer to be employed by a business that banks with Virgin. In that case, that person's salary would be excluded from the £1,000 p.m., whilst another person's salary would be included.

I haven't checked but believe that the wording will have preceded the Virgin acquisition by some distance and imagine (but don't know!) that they won't have felt the need to spell out that it'll mean accounts branded as Nationwide - they are still operating under different banking licences and meaningful integration will be way off in the future, especially given Virgin's failure to complete it properly for Clydesdale and Yorkshire over the last however many years....

Ch1ll1Phlakes

lindabea said:

Thank you for saying that I am not wrong in my comments, but speaking from my own experiences and other people's experiences when dealing with such matters, I don't think there is anything cynical in my comments.  Whilst I accept that I am taking the least favourable interpretation, I can equally say that you are taking the most favourable interpretaion and giving the institutions the benefit of doubt.. Misplaced or not, my comments are marred by my own experiences.

Whilst we're having this discussion about fairness of banks, can you please give me an explanation for another question regarding banking practiices  Why is it when I do a debit transaction (ie purchase) on my credit cards, it appears immediately on my account, yet a refund will take 5-7 days to appear on my account. I don't understand what extra processes are applicable to a refund that are not required for a debit.  Without wanting to be accused of being cynical, I would say that it may have something to do with the bank taking advantage to gain credit interest.    

Hi. One thing to note is that it is usually 5-7 working days for refunds. I believe you may be partially right about companies holding on to funds to gain credit interest but it also often is down to a merchant needing their system to check a returned item actually has been returned. I know this is not the case for you but often is common when something has been sold and it is not just a refund for an overcharge.

Furthermore, transaction processing times have improved over the past few decades such as when the Faster Payments System in the UK was introduced in 2008. However not all providers are signed up to this and some payments (and/or refunds) still use the BACS system which can take up to three working days. CHAPs as another payment system is fast but expensive so unlikely that a business is going to use it for a refund.

I know that's a bit long winded but often the steps below are how a credit card refund occurs.

1. The merchant has to tell the credit card processing company to reverse the charge.
2. The processing company then informs the credit card company.
3. The credit card company informs the bank.
4. The bank issues funds to the credit card company.

It's not absurd to expect each of these steps to take 1 business day, meaning at the bare minimum a refund could take 4 days. Again any small delays in this system will cause a refund to take a little longer. Often purchases on a card might appear immediately but often have a processing time of few days as well. I know from my own credit card that it often takes up to 1-2 days for a charge to appear at times and often 1-2 days for the charge to clear. Hope this helps, as it's my first post on the forum.

Ch1ll1Phlakes

blue.peter said:

eskbanker said:

Money paid in from other Nationwide accounts held by you or anyone else or Visa credits (for example, refunds you receive back into your account) won’t count towards the £1,000.

"Nationwide accounts" isn't, as far as I can see, a defined term. Virgin Money is, of course, now owned by Nationwide, and therefore part of the wider Nationwide group. I wonder if the term is now intended to include Virgin accounts? That would seem rather harsh. Whilst Nationwide itself doesn't offer business accounts, Virgin does. The potential exists for a Nationwide Flex Direct customer to be employed by a business that banks with Virgin. In that case, that person's salary would be excluded from the £1,000 p.m., whilst another person's salary would be included.

As much as Virgin Money is now owned by the Nationwide Group, Virgin Money itself is still being run under it's own banking license at the moment as far as I know. This is why you get £85000 FSCS protection at each Virgin Money and Nationwide currently as highlighted in the MSE article about the Virgin Money takeover (sorry I can't provide a link as a forum newbie). 

A transfer from a Virgin Money account should count to the £1000. Someone's salary payment from a Virgin Money business account would also count, as again, Virgin Money is still under it's own license and FSCS protection.

Rob5342

I read something about this but I can't remember where now. When you pay for something it shows mmediately in your bank account but can take a while to go through and for the funds to be available to the retailer. The reverse is true too where it shows up for them immediately when they make a refund bit can take a while for the money to be available to you. That can make the difference seem bigger than it really ia.

Having said that with Monzo I've had some quick refunds. I had a problem being overcharged in a pub, they refunded the money and it showed up on my watch while i was still at the bar. I can imagine that the old fashioned banks could take much longer though.