Darlington BS massively overpays annual interest

clairec666

x44 said:

You have forgotten about the great TSB meltdown in 2018.

This was a full scale bank with daily payments in and out which where all paused, customers even being able supposedly to view other peoples accounts within their logon - if they could log on at all and it took several weeks to resolve.

By comparision this is "just" a minor problem.

It appears to have just affected one account. Nobody has lost any money, and I imagine very few people will have been affected by the block on account closures.
Rather than just correcting the interest payments, Darlington will have to investigate why the miscalculation happened, and prevent it happening again on other accounts.

x44

Ah - I see the post to which I was replying which, as I recall, denounced Darlington and its progress so far as unacceptable and outrageous has been removed....

happybagger

clairec666 said:

Rather than just correcting the interest payments, Darlington will have to investigate why the miscalculation happened, and prevent it happening again on other accounts.

I get that, but the second and third of these should follow the first, and can happen later. Bringing accounts back to the correct position should be the priority.

I am surprised they haven't been able to make the necessary amendment yet. One forumite seemed to have worked out what the extra amount came from on the day it happened.

Bobblehat

happybagger said:

clairec666 said:

Rather than just correcting the interest payments, Darlington will have to investigate why the miscalculation happened, and prevent it happening again on other accounts.

I get that, but the second and third of these should follow the first, and can happen later. Bringing accounts back to the correct position should be the priority.

I am surprised they haven't been able to make the necessary amendment yet. One forumite seemed to have worked out what the extra amount came from on the day it happened.

Maybe the problem is working out how to correct the extra interest that has been accumulating because of the overpayment?

Section62

happybagger said:

clairec666 said:

Rather than just correcting the interest payments, Darlington will have to investigate why the miscalculation happened, and prevent it happening again on other accounts.

I get that, but the second and third of these should follow the first, and can happen later. Bringing accounts back to the correct position should be the priority.
...

I'd say the opposite.  If you don't know why a problem happened and have confidence the error won't be triggered again then it is risky trying to apply fixes to account balances.

Thinking back to the VM online regular saver days, rather than fixing the underlying problem they tried reversing the second interest payment which in some cases put the savings account into a negative balance.  If your system hasn't been designed carefully then having a significant number of savings accounts in overdraft could have undesirable outcomes.

We don't know enough about how Darlington's system works behind the scenes to have a definite answer, but my feeling is it would be prudent for Darlington to have a good idea what went wrong and confidence it won't happen again, and do that first and second, before applying any corrective action third.

clairec666

happybagger said:

clairec666 said:

Rather than just correcting the interest payments, Darlington will have to investigate why the miscalculation happened, and prevent it happening again on other accounts.

I get that, but the second and third of these should follow the first, and can happen later. Bringing accounts back to the correct position should be the priority.

I am surprised they haven't been able to make the necessary amendment yet. One forumite seemed to have worked out what the extra amount came from on the day it happened.

I too am surprised they haven't been able to sort it already, but would rather it be solved properly than a quick fix.

TheBanker

clairec666 said:

happybagger said:

clairec666 said:

Rather than just correcting the interest payments, Darlington will have to investigate why the miscalculation happened, and prevent it happening again on other accounts.

I get that, but the second and third of these should follow the first, and can happen later. Bringing accounts back to the correct position should be the priority.

I am surprised they haven't been able to make the necessary amendment yet. One forumite seemed to have worked out what the extra amount came from on the day it happened.

I too am surprised they haven't been able to sort it already, but would rather it be solved properly than a quick fix.

I have no idea how Darlington's system works, but I've worked for other banks who've had errors with interest payments, and there are several issues. I'd want to take time to work through the solution in a test environment before changing live accounts, to make sure that:

1) Whatever I did wouldn't impact the BBSI return to HMRC - In the banks I've worked for this automated based on automated system interest credits. Manual reversals of credits might not result in the correct figures being used in the BSSI return later down the line.

2) If I was using manual transactions to correct the error, the system wouldn't treat them as either withdrawels (which could affect accounts where there is a restriction and the customer has already used, or intends to use the allowed withdrawels), and credits wouldn't be treated as part of the maximum £250 per month.

It is possible their IT Team are having to write new code to remove the erroneous credits and then apply new ones correcctly without impacting any of the above. It's not a simple as just calculating what the correct balance should be and removing the excess. 

dcs34

TheBanker said:

clairec666 said:

happybagger said:

clairec666 said:

Rather than just correcting the interest payments, Darlington will have to investigate why the miscalculation happened, and prevent it happening again on other accounts.

I get that, but the second and third of these should follow the first, and can happen later. Bringing accounts back to the correct position should be the priority.

I am surprised they haven't been able to make the necessary amendment yet. One forumite seemed to have worked out what the extra amount came from on the day it happened.

I too am surprised they haven't been able to sort it already, but would rather it be solved properly than a quick fix.

It is possible their IT Team are having to write new code to remove the erroneous credits and then apply new ones correcctly without impacting any of the above. It's not a simple as just calculating what the correct balance should be and removing the excess. 

And perhaps someone is trying to work out whether it's financially beneficial to apply these fixes versus just letting people have their interest a year early...

masonic

dcs34 said:

TheBanker said:

clairec666 said:

happybagger said:

clairec666 said:

Rather than just correcting the interest payments, Darlington will have to investigate why the miscalculation happened, and prevent it happening again on other accounts.

I get that, but the second and third of these should follow the first, and can happen later. Bringing accounts back to the correct position should be the priority.

I am surprised they haven't been able to make the necessary amendment yet. One forumite seemed to have worked out what the extra amount came from on the day it happened.

I too am surprised they haven't been able to sort it already, but would rather it be solved properly than a quick fix.

It is possible their IT Team are having to write new code to remove the erroneous credits and then apply new ones correcctly without impacting any of the above. It's not a simple as just calculating what the correct balance should be and removing the excess. 

And perhaps someone is trying to work out whether it's financially beneficial to apply these fixes versus just letting people have their interest a year early...

Initially I thought it would be rather trivial to do a new payment run with the correct time window, then reverse the earlier transactions. It seems I was wrong, so treating that payment as final settlement of the RS actually starts to look like a possible solution.

I think I can hazard a guess as to why it happened. Someone incorrectly entered 31st December 2026 instead of 2025 for when interest should be calculated to. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen an incorrect year in a date either side of the new year.

Emily_Joy

Caught in this too. I need funds to pay extra pension contributions to HMRC.  :'( Fingers crossed it will be resolved shortly.