This year's bank charges cause overdraft

lsm1066

Hi all

Since January of this year, I've paid out £350 in bank charges. As you can all imagine, money is tight so I have to budget very carefully (and don't always get it right - who does?) Anyway, I got a bit close and so ended up overdrawn. Because I didn't have an overdraft facitily, the bank charged me £50 for the privilege.

So here's the good bit. They continue to pay things that put me overdrawn and charge me £50 for doing it each time. If they bounced the payment, I'd only have to find the money plus the fee for bouncing the DD, which is less than the fee for the unauthorised overdraft.

But it gets better. You see, I've applied for an overdraft facility but they won't give me one. When I phoned and asked yesterday, they said it was because of a problem with my credit card. That's true, I did have a problem paying back my credit card bill. My cards got cancelled and I had to pay £50 a week to a nice man called Eric who came to my house. But that was all paid off 2 years ago. Turns out, when the debt was cleared the bank never updated my credit record! This is now being done. But I will have to wait until it's updated before I can re-apply for the overdraft, and nobody can tell me how long that is.

Oh yes, and the overdraft amount? £349.27 (less than this year's bank charges)

So the moral of this story is, when you've paid of a debt, make sure you ask your creditor to issue a satisfaction certificate, or at least to update your credit history. Because I now can't ask for an overdraft facility again for 3 months!