Missing MBNA statement?

petertwisty

Has any MoneySaver been caught out by a missing MBNA statement recently?

Last month's never arrived in the post and my "non official" online statement showed £0.00 minimum payment due. No usual email reminder either. The next day I was clobbered with a £12 late fee and my 0% forfeited.

Two phone calls later got the 0% reinstated but this apparent computer glitch and my inadvertence has cost me £12. A good way of pressurizing customers into direct debits and a nice little earner? Or do we customers have to do our own accounting and not rely on postal statements?

jonnyb

You seem to have asked a rhetorical question.

Of course we consumers should do our own accounting and not rely on postal statements. If you blindly trust what they say, you will miss any mistakes they make.

Firstly, I have 2 MBNA cards, and online access to both, and can see official copies of statements, whether one turns up in the post or not.
Secondly, what's wrong with using direct debit ? It actually helps you to ensure you keep the 0% and avoid late fees. How is that being pressured ?Just set it to pay the minimum; you can manually pay anymore yourself if necessary.

Well done for avoiding my favourite hate words though.;)

petertwisty

I do take your point and thank you for your compliment. Your online version of MBNA statements are apparently different to mine which are clearly headed, "This is not an official statement". The Bank's officials appear to be relying on their copy of paper statements about which it is difficult to argue when they have not been received.

Notwithstanding, the lessons are to independently audit one's account in order to comply with the terms and conditions of one's agreement and to set up a minimum payment direct debit as a matter of course.

YorkshireBoy

petertwisty wrote: »

Your online version of MBNA statements are apparently different to mine which are clearly headed, "This is not an official statement".

Mine is headed the same. Also, like you said in your OP, although I'm carrying a balance my June online statement says "minimum payment due £0.00".

That's clearly wrong, and my postal statement will confirm the actual amount to be taken by DD in July.

MBNA do say though, in condition 8b, that even if you do not receive a statement, you are still responsible for making your payment on time.

petertwisty

It might have done so with mine, albeit that bills do sometimes get lost in the post. It will be interesting to see if you actually receive a postal statement in July. I wonder if this glitch is leading to their cancellation?

But you are quite right, the terms and conditions leave the ball completely in the customers' court and it must be quite profitable to the Bank when we are lulled by glitches in their system into tripping up and dropping it.

YorkshireBoy

This 'glitch' appears to have manifested itself in May, at least on my Virgin account.

On checking back through my online statements I see that an accurate minimum payment figure was present on all online 'unofficial' statements up to and including April.

May and June's figure has been £0.00 but I received a May postal statement, and June's minimum payment DD was collected as normal so I don't think the issues are linked. My June postal statement is due any day now.

MrsBartolozzi

I had a problem with MBNA last year where AOL users' payments were not going through properly and I too was clobbered with late fees and loss of 0%. I just phoned them up and explained (sounded really sad and sorry, sniff ) and they reinstated the 0% and I didn't have to pay the fees.
It's worth a try phoning them and explaining, say sorry and you might get lucky. Nothing ventured...

HTH
MrsB.
Oh and now my account is clear they don't ever send statements (just loan applications lol).

jonnyb

petertwisty wrote: »

I do take your point and thank you for your compliment. Your online version of MBNA statements are apparently different to mine which are clearly headed, "This is not an official statement". The Bank's officials appear to be relying on their copy of paper statements about which it is difficult to argue when they have not been received.

Notwithstanding, the lessons are to independently audit one's account in order to comply with the terms and conditions of one's agreement and to set up a minimum payment direct debit as a matter of course.

Peter, I have checked my online mbna statements, and mine also say that they are not "official." One account has June, one has May. My June statement lists the min payment an 0.00, but does give a due by date. The paper copy that turned up last week shows a min payment of £25. Looks like I have the same glitch that you and YB mentioned.

[Deleted User]

Hi, I found this forum as I've been having some statement issues with MBNA and thought I'd share my experiences.

I used my MBNA card to buy a car as they were doing a low % offer at the time. One month I thought "I should be due a paper statement by now", went online and discovered that a statement apparently had been produced, but never received and my due by date had changed by 2 days - brought forward. I'd missed the due date by one day, was charged for so doing and my promo interest % reverted to their "usual rate". Customer Service was having none of it and basically said "tough". Thankfully I was able to pay the balance off quickly as otherwise this would have been financially very damaging.

When the offer of paperless statements came I was quick to sign up as I check my e-mail every day and thought I can't possibly miss a statement now. I signed up using my hotmail account and put a secondary hotmail down as my "alternate" e-mail, as a back up. This month I thought "I should be due an e-statement by now", went online and discovered that I'd missed, not one, but two statements !! (It's been a busy spell - buying and selling a house etc). I'd been slapped with a charge for each missed due date but of more concern to me is the impact on my credit file.

I fully appreciate that it's my responsibility to ensure that I pay my bills on time but when you've multiple cards with multiple banks it's sometimes difficult to keep track and you do tend to rely on statements to prompt you into action.

Anyway, lesson learnt. Was just interested in whether anyone else had been having problems with their new paperless offering not arriving ? (PS: Yes, I do check my junk folder :-))

Cheers, AL.

Treder

MBNA encourages its customers to switch to paperless statements (which as we all know if good for the environment - of course it saves them money too). They are supposed to send email reminders when payments are due. They have never sent me any email reminders and I have just found out I have been charged overdue payment fees and interest. I have now set up a direct debit for the full amount to be taken out each month. I have also asked for charges to be refunded. I am really annoyed. If they don't refund them I will cut up my card. Their loss. I also asked them not to quote my credit card number in their reply - something which they ignored. Even more annoyed. I think it is wrong that they claim to email reminders when they don't and then charge me for "forgetting" - hello MBNA? Aren't they forgetting something like the reminder email they promised? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

WeaverOfRaveloe

Hi,

I have had a Sony Card since the early 2000s. I think it used to be RBS owned then taken over by MBNA about 4 years ago. Since I have had the card, I have not missed one single payment and probably only ever made one late payment.

I recall that for months I used to receive a monthly email notifying me that my statement was available online. A few days later I would then get my paper statement. For the record I should point out I have been in Australia for a couple of years and use the UK based card for UK purchases, say for instance to buy presents for family or for use when back in the UK. It got to the point where I found it pointless and wasteful to receive a paper statement in my Aussie post box, so I followed their link to go paperless.

Last week it suddenly dawned on me that I probably had a credit card bill to pay off, yet I'd not received any email reminder for several months. I logged in to the online service and to my disappointment I did have an outstanding balance, now accompanied with a 12GBP late fee. Having not received an email reminder, I was pretty hacked off. I called them up and was told that they could not refund the late fee unless they found that they were at fault for not sending the email reminder. I was told they would therefore get onto the tech guys to investigate, but because I'm in Australia it could take up to 5 days (why that makes a difference I don't know). Naturally they asked me the usual questions like, "could it have gone into another folder?" and so on. I reassured them I am a frequent checker and competent user of email and I've looked everywhere and found nothing. In fact, all I did find was my last email reminder which I archived, sent back in January 09.

I have little confidence that they will find themselves at fault, I am expecting a call today (will it come?) telling me that they definitely sent it. I am ready to ask them where my June reminder is though, because even if I had received my May reminder and binned it without realising (highly unlikely), I definitely haven't received the June one.

I think it is poor form to push paperless billing, but then have an unreliable email reminder service. It is 2009, the days of "the email getting lost" are long behind us (if indeed they ever existed). I think they should follow-up their email reminder service with SMS reminders too.

If this story rings similar to your experience I recommend you get onto them, if not in an attempt to get your 12GBP back, at least so they might eventually realise their system isn't doing its job properly.