NatWest £38 charge BT came in too early

esuhl

I'd persue Natwest under the DD guarantee, as borgbaiter suggests. You could argue that the DD was unauthorised (on the date it was taken), and therefore Natwest should NOT have paid BT, and so should not have charged you the £38.

If that fails, I would approach the Banking Ombudsman and make a formal complaint about Natwest.

Good luck!

natweststaffmember

Borgbaiter you would be correct IF they had actually paid the DD. However, they didn't and the DD guarantee does not cover bank charges as a result of not paying out.
The Direct Debit Provider has not received 1p of your money. Under the DD if they had then NatWest would refund it. Because they haven't they will not refund a charge. The charge itself is levied by the bank for NOT paying it. They will not refund on the basis of the DD guarantee.

borgbaiter

hi

i feel as this is not spelt out in the dd guarentee it is prima facia misleading and it would be well worth a complaint to the ombudsman on these grounds.

The charges are a direct result of the attempted incorrect direct debit.

its like a garage offering a guarantee on your engine but adding a fee if they have to replace the engine. or in this case someone says the engine needs replacing but not till next month and they bring it in early. its not reasonable.



Borgbaiter

Kavanne

Have you called Natwest? They will probably tell you to contact BT and ask them to refund the charge as they asked for the DD too early so it's BT's mistake.

mrposhman

I would chase it up with BT. They should record the majority of their calls so call them up and ask for the transcript of the call where the mistake was admitted. Also, if BT changed the DD to your natwest account did you call them over the phone or was this arranged by Natwest? Again, if its over the phone it should be recorded.

From experience, if you threaten BT with the regulator they usually pay up. I managed to get a refund for a period of time that my phone wan't working (which they wouldn't refund me) as well as the cost of phone calls to them (its an 0800 but not free off the mobile, was especially annoyed because they said I should have called from a neighbours despite the fact that I had transferred the line to a house I had just moved in to). I also managed to get the costs of an international call that I incurred on my mobile (less what it would have cost on the landline) as I was completing the purchase of my holiday home in Orlando at the time and needed to phone them. I was getting nowhere on the phone so wrote them a letter and threatened the regulator, I got a reply in a week giving me a full refund of everything I asked for!!

Bosie

Well, here's the update, sent a strong worded email to BT their complaints dept.
They phoned this morning and admitted it was an error on their part (BT) So they paid the £38 and an extra fiver, they paid it off the bill.
We still went into Natwest and they said they wouldn't have removed the charge, expecting that. We cancelled the DD on Saturday, but guess what it came in again today for more money:eek:
I don't understand how the DD became ''live'' again? Yes it is a Step Account, we asked the adviser if there would be anymore charges?
he said: If it had been the full current account, another £28 would of been charged
They charged £38 and yet the account had about £11 in it? Then a few days later the account was topped up, so then NatWest took the £38 out.

Hope you can all understand this!!! I'm getting confused now, we have totally cancelled BT's Direct Debit and would rather pay the £1.50 charge for non DD.
I also thought banks had to give notice of charges.

Found this about maintenance fees it's a fee of £28 but it seems the Step Account is exempt from this charge! NatWeststaffmember - hope I'm right with this.
** Note that the Maintenance Charge, Guaranteed Card Payment
Fee, Paid Referral Fee and Default Notice Fee do not apply to
Step Accounts.

natweststaffmember

Bosie, this is 100% correct, ask the bank tomorrow to look at the history of the DD because you cancelled it at the branch. Ask them to clarify who reinstated it as you had not. Ask whether there is indeed more than one DD on the account. If you cancelled it over the phone then state this to the bank and that it is indeed BANK ERROR(that means they need to refund it). Maintenance Charge is EXEMPT from step accounts as YOU have stated.....unfortunately a common mistake for some reason that some branch staff make.

Bosie

Thanks again natweststaffmember for your help, the DD was cancelled over the phone, yet was very much a live again on Tuesday! There were funds in (thankfully) and hopefully we are straight now, the adviser said it was definitely cancelled. That is a relief about the maintenance fee not applying to the Step account.
Thanks again
Bo x

natweststaffmember

Did the bank refund as it was a Bank Error?

Sol00

Why is there not a maintenance fee on the step account? What difference does it make what type of account it is?