Single bank charge of £100!

moontree

My partner recently went over her overdraft limit, which is her own fault, but HSBC have charged her £100 for it!

It seems that when some sort of transaction takes place that there aren't enough funds to cover, such as a direct debit, they consider that an "informal request" to have the overdraft extended and if the "request" is approved, they charge £100 for the "service". (There's not an appropriately shocked-looking smiley to convey my feelings about this!)

I've never heard of bank charges being more than about £35 before. Obviously if you have several rejected transactions they can quickly snowball, but this is something different.

I just thought everyone should be made aware of this shocking practice.

noh

HSBC charge £25 for an "informal overdraft request"
http://www.hsbc.co.uk/1/PA_1_5_S5/content/uk/pdfs/en/bank_account_cards_travel_pricelist_jan08.pdf;jsessionid=0000kY4_rvvIj_vb-JFd1Sqm6Xb:12ntf1n0a
If your partner was charged £100 for a single event then it was a mistake.

It looks more likely that she incurred four £25 charges for debits on different days that took her further into unauthorised overdraft.

Nigel

YorkshireBoy

They don't charge £100 per transgression...they charge £25 per 'paid item' or 'unpaid item' review. In other words, she made 4 separate informal overdraft requests in order to amass £100 in charges.

May I respectfully request she makes herself familiar with her account T&C's.

ShelfStacker_3

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

May I respectfully request she makes herself familiar with her account T&C's.

Can this be made a sticky or something please, mods? Something along the lines of "Take the 20 minutes to read and understand the terms and conditions of everything, before they come back and bite you on the a*se"

HSBC charge you £25 if the amount of the item itself is over £25 and/or you havet gone overdrawn unauthorised previously in that month. That's 4 seperate transactions your partner made, and to be frank she REALLY should have noticed something was up.

If you really think it's unfair, get her to call HSBC and politely beg them to waive the fees, but beware that they're well within their rights to say no. Like I and YorkshireBoy say, she agreed to these terms and conditions when she opened the account.

gt94sss2

Its also worth noting that HSBC give their customers at least 2 weeks notice before they debit any money from their account in fees - many other banks just take the money immediately..

Regards
Sunil

thecotswolds

I thought. the Banking Code stated all banks (who subscribe to the code) must give 14 days notice of charges to be debited. This probably covers nearly every UK bank.

gt94sss2

thecotswolds wrote: »

I thought. the Banking Code stated all banks (who subscribe to the code) must give 14 days notice of charges to be debited. This probably covers nearly every UK bank.

Yes, but different banks have differing definitions of what 'a charge' is - for instance Natwest will apply a fee for a bounced direct debit immediately to their accounts..

Regards
Sunil

noh

thecotswolds wrote: »

I thought. the Banking Code stated all banks (who subscribe to the code) must give 14 days notice of charges to be debited. This probably covers nearly every UK bank.

The banking code http://www.bankingcode.org.uk/pdfdocs/BANKING%20CODE.pdf
states


5.5

Before we take interest or charges for standard
account services from your current or savings
account, we will give you at least 14 days’ notice of
how much we will take.

Informal overdraft requests, payment review fees etc are not standard account services. Many banks, as Sunil says, debit these fees immediately.

Nigel

chuckley

maybe she was charged more per day she was overdrawn?

Fedz

Halifax deduct charges at the end of the month *after* the infraction

Now that's plenty, plenty notice

moontree

The letter she got from the bank referred to one charge of £100, but it's quite possible it was made up of four separate £25 charges, and they didn't break it down. That didn't occur to me before (and I'm not familiar with the T&Cs because it's not my account). Thanks for the info, everyone.

As I acknowledged above, yes it is her own fault for not keeping an eye on her bank balance and also she could have read the T&Cs... but judgemental comments don't help me in this situation.