Barclays personal reserve

WhyOhWhy_4

People are getting there knickers in a twist because of change when in fact nothing has changed. This personal reserve has always been on Barclays accounts except it's called an anticipatory limit if you went into your A limit you were charged £30 if you went further into your A limit you are charged another £30 with a maximum of 3 charges a month. When exceed your A limit and a direct debit is returned then you are charged £35 maximum of 3 charges a month. Now with the new FSA rulings Barclays have dropped this charge to £8. I don't see the fuss nothing has changed except the name and the charges have dropped! The Personal Reserve is meant for use in an emergency and it is not compulsery. Any changes to T&C's of a bank account people have to be informed according to rules set by the FSA which is why the letters have gone out. Obviously people who never go overdrawn and always have money in there accounts have taken offence to this but not all people are lucky like that and they might have to take advantage of the Personal Reserve if they need a payment made in an emergency.

jarviser

The terms and conditions do not say what will be charged if you opt-out and then overdraw, or draw a transaction over your overdraft limit. I assume you will simply not be allowed to overdraw. It does say you will be charged £8 per transaction (so if you have a busy account 3 or more transactions will cost more than £22. I have never overdrawn since the 1970's when one cheque went astray, I went less than £100 over, but the Barclays bank manager had me in his office for a lecture! (Those were the days) So why have they offered me £1000 reserve if I never use it?
I will not use it so it's irrelevant whether to opt-out or not, but I am surprised Martin has not advised one way or the other. It's his favourite subject after all!

WhyOhWhy_4

It does state it very clearly in the letter. If you opt out of the Personal Reserve you have a £15 buffer if a transaction takes you over that buffer it will be declined and a charge of £8 will be levied against your account, much better than the £35 you get charged now (if you are unlucky enough to go overdrawn!).

BigDawgRob

I would also appreciate Martin taking a look at this and providing some advice.

There's two main reasons why I'm not sure about this..

1. Should the courts rule against the banks in the OFT case, will Barclays claim 'Reserve' fees are not included? I'm assuming that if the banks fail, I will be able to back claim for any charges..
So if I go over my account two or three times a year (most likely for me) and the courts say £15 is a fair fee. Will Barclays claim the £22 charge is not covered by the ruling, so I can't claim my £7 back?

2. If I opt out will Barclays discriminate against me as a customer? To date Barclays have honoured transactions to save me the hassle to returning them (and charged me £30 for doing so). If I opt-out are they likely to be more likely to return these as I'm not playing their game?

To be honest, I feel that Barclays have set this up as a way of avoiding of the OFT court ruling. Why can't they wait for the outcome then re-design their accounts as a result...

maplewood2

I am very angry at Barclays approach to Opt In all accounts and make the account holder have to Opt Out if they dont want it. If they want to change their services and make additional facilities available to users who might fall into the overdraft trap thats fine, offer them. But dont simply include all users unless they opt out. Itsd not the first time Barcalys have tried this stunt - they tried to get premier account holders 'upgraded' to a fee based acccount by upgrading the accounts and then making you have to opt out back to the standard premier account. There must be a case of mis selling or inappropriate actions here - if not then the law should be checked for loopholes.
When i go to buy petrol do i expect to automatically be given and charged for a mars bar unless i opt out of it?

emmagrey

:rolleyes: i was very angry when i got this letter. i sent off my opt out form this morning. :rolleyes:

the way they package the letter as if they are doing their customers a favour. ooh a personal reserve. improving our services. load of rubbish, they are introducing this reserve to make money :rolleyes:

and those who rarely ever go into their overdraft-nevermind over it, and are generally in credit, arent the customers barclays is targeting. because those are the customers they'll make little to no money from.

they are targeting the vulnerable financially stretched customers, in a time of financial hardship. the ones who occasionally or frequently go over their overdraft. because thats when they start to profit.

disgusting :mad:

as already said, those in the circle of dept who have been refused a larger overdraft so that charges are rare, because they arent in credit are been offered a 'reserve' -which is going to put those in trouble in even more trouble. for a high fee. rather than a low interest/free overdraft?. yeah makes perfect sense. i wonder why.

its going to be temping for vulnerable customers to dip into their reserve every now and again-then come to rely on it (as happens with overdrafts)-thats what barclays is hoping for. to make as much money as they can. just like with their bank charges.

truely appalling. shame on barclays. im leaving them soon, im absolutely sick of them

PoorPaul

I'm still undecided about this - I only use my Barclays current account to pay a couple of bills, but keep it as I've had it for 20 years or so (useful when applying for other accounts).

Mods/Admins - Any chance of Martin giving us his opinion on this ? Time is running out to 'opt out' !

youngandreckless

Well I am glad I read this post, I got the total wrong end of the stick. Before I start let me just say that I am a money imbecile. This has got me into a lot of debt in the past (hence the name) and I was destined to be debt ridden through ignorance and a love of what I can't afford (free money mentality ahem). Luckily I found these forums and changed my ways.
Due to the fact I am not particularly savvy with cash, I went back to basics - no overdraft, credit card (if used) paid off each month etc etc.
This month I went over by £7 and received a letter to say I was supposed to be charged £30 but they'd refunded me due to the fact I was never in the minus. I was relieved as it was my fault I went over.
Then today I checked my balance and I was in the minus again as a new insurance direct debit was taken twice (they are being called tomorrow!) Well, no need to worry I have my new personal reserve (missed the 18/8 bit) but phoned anyway to check the score. As I was on hold for hours I was getting cross, thought I'd check this thread for a new current account (I'm only with Barclays due to the whole woolwich change over) and then saw this post. thank God! I had totally misunderstood what this was all about, classic case of not reading it properly and assuming one thing when it wasn't the case.
So I now have a £100 overdraft which will cost next to nothing if there is another balls up as I would do what I did this time - transfer cash over to get out of minus numbers.
Thanks to you lot who have taken the time to explain all this, I make no apologies for my number blindness as I do everything I can to keep out of trouble now (hey we can't all be good with figures), but due to your explanations you have probably saved me at least £22!
Thanks again and sorry for the ramble, I suppose I am Barclays dream customer ; ).... or at least would have been!

owitemisermusa

Hi, I've thought about it and it doesn't seem so bad. It seems better than getting charged an 'unauthorised overdraft fee'. I thought of it as a buffer, in a sense IF you ever exceed your o/d limit you get charged a flat fee rather than have payments returned and charged for every returned transaction.

Have I missed something?

Catherine_Gray

This is a sneaky, underhand way for Barclays to still commit daylight robbery on their customers no matter what the High Court decides on charges.

This is gift-wrapped as a favour, but what it actually means is that Barclays will still be rolling in it even if the OFT rules that bank charges are excessive and illegal. This is because by introducing this personal reserve, they can argue that they gave all their customers the option to opt out of this 'service' and that it's a FEE for a service rather than a PENALTY.

As soon as the High Court rules bank charges are illegal, all people who have opted out of the Personal Reserve will be better off. People who have opted in will be just as badly off as they were before.

I strongly advise everyone to opt out, the personal reserve is a very clever way of them still imposing unauthorised overdraft fees, just under a different name.

As soon as I got my letter I wrote back, and emailed back, and rang them. They can easily claim they didn't receive your slip in the post, so I would recommend this.

Barclays are absolute cowboys! If I didn't owe them so much I would be leaving immediately.