Barclays cuts fees for overdrafts to £8 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Shazzaw]

Re: Barclays cuts fees for overdrafts to £8 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Continued from above post!)


Barclays' move may make them 'legally unchallengable', according to CAG's legal adviser, Doreen Saunders, a law lecturer at Farnborough College of Technology.
However charging £22 for five days is still 'morally wrong' when its peers charge over a monthly period, she said.
A post on CAG's website states Barclays' move is a 'blatant attempt to evade the possibility of the charges being found unlawful in a court of law' and shows readers how to make an individual complaint to the FSA.

How Barclays compares
Barclays new charging structure compares favourably with other providers however. For example, Abbey charges an unauthorised penalty fee of £25 per month along with a 'paid referral fee' of £5 for payments under £10. NatWest and RBS each charge a penalty fee of £28 per month followed by a referral fee of £30 per payment.
As Barclays has cut the meagre interest on its current account at the same time as announcing the overdraft fee reduction, Kevin Mountford from price comparison site Moneysupermarket.com said: 'This move of Barclays to reduce overdraft charges with the one hand and credit interest with the other is a direct result of the work the OFT has been doing and something we have been warning about: if overdraft charges are to fall as the OFT wants, consumers will pay somewhere else.'

[Froggy]

Re: Barclays cuts fees for overdrafts to £8 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is really a little nonsensical to be honest. The reserve payment is something like a charge for having an overdraft facility, which I am sure many businesses are aware of, ie paying for having an overdraft(albeit yearly).
To correct Argentarius, some banks do allow payments against items going out on the same day and will pay them providing a payment is made before a cut off point. Lloyds are known to, RBS are known to and NatWest are known to do this. Barclays wording will be important.
I don't agree that this is charges by stealth.
Another minor point I need to pick up with you argentarius is that during the test case the Banks' did indeed give statistics of people charged as a percentage of the whole in their defence. The question is whether that figure and quotes previously made could produce a figure that would show the worst case scenario.
On the face of it, the charges appear to be lower.

[argentarius]

Re: Barclays cuts fees for overdrafts to £8 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Amethyst The reserve won't work as you say. You don't have to phone up and ask for the reserve each time you want it; it's a facility you either have or don't have on your account and it is used automatically on each occasion.

A customer could choose to operate it as you say, but they'd have to do so by declining the reserve facility when it is first set up, and then phoning to request it each time they want it, and then phoning to switch it off again when they no longer require it. That would be possible but IMHO it would be a faff and I don't see many people finding that a beneficial way to run things. But it's still a possible way to use it and therefore an additional benefit, compared to other banks, I suppose.

Barclays' move may make them 'legally unchallengable', according to CAG's legal adviser, Doreen Saunders, a law lecturer at Farnborough College of Technology.
However charging £22 for five days is still 'morally wrong' when its peers charge over a monthly period, she said.
A post on CAG's website states Barclays' move is a 'blatant attempt to evade the possibility of the charges being found unlawful in a court of law' and shows readers how to make an individual complaint to the FSA.

This CAG comment is so illogical it is untrue.

It's simply stupid to criticise a bank for changing its terms and conditions from ones which CAG considers unlawful to ones which are lawful.

And arguments about what is "morally wrong" are equally misguided. Just because one bank charges on a monthly basis, and another on a 5-day basis, doesn't make either method immoral. It present customers with a real choice between alternative charging systems - better than when banks used the same methodology.

Froggy I am aware that some banks do not require funds in the account by close of previous business day. That's why I said

I doubt IMHO that the banks which currently require funds by close of business on the previous banking day will change this because of faster payments.

There's a difference between providing information on percentage of customers charged at all, and percentage of customers who are constantly in excess of their agreed overdraft. I think the latter information is far too commercially sensitive to be made public. But I also don't believe it's such a huge proportion of Barclays' customers.

[LuggerBugs]

Re: Barclays cuts fees for overdrafts to £8 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Flippiin heck!!! I agree with Arge. :tinysmile_aha_t:

[Amethyst]

Re: Barclays cuts fees for overdrafts to £8 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

pmsl ..... and love the new avatar kind of suits you

I agree with Argie too

Amethyst The reserve won't work as you say. You don't have to phone up and ask for the reserve each time you want it; it's a facility you either have or don't have on your account and it is used automatically on each occasion.

A customer could choose to operate it as you say, but they'd have to do so by declining the reserve facility when it is first set up, and then phoning to request it each time they want it, and then phoning to switch it off again when they no longer require it. That would be possible but IMHO it would be a faff and I don't see many people finding that a beneficial way to run things. But it's still a possible way to use it and therefore an additional benefit, compared to other banks, I suppose.

I agree its a faff, and I do think that thats the only way lower income and people who struggle to manage finances will find the reserve beneficial as opposed to an increased burden. I have no idea if thats possible or if its a one off in or out deal. I dont think phoning to switch it off I was thinking more call to activatre it when first ones going to bounce, then it turns off after 5 days (unless u havent paid back in in which case it carrys on till you do). Then the next time u need it you call up again.

[LuggerBugs]

Re: Barclays cuts fees for overdrafts to £8 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

pmsl ..... and love the new avatar kind of suits you

Cheeky mare. :tung:

[Froggy]

Re: Barclays cuts fees for overdrafts to £8 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

agentarius you have misread my post as faster payments could encompass SAME DAY paying in. I will repeat that bit. SAME DAY not close of business PREVIOUS DAY which was my point anyway.(your own quote is previous day end of business, mine was not).

[argentarius]

Re: Barclays cuts fees for overdrafts to £8 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

I haven't misread your post, or misunderstood your comment.

You originally asked what would happen if a faster payment "immediately" cleared an unauthorised overdraft.

There are two answers, and they depend on what the bank's Ts & Cs say about when credit must be in the account to meet the payment.

Either money has to be there by close of business previous working day, as applies to quite a few banks, in which case a faster payment won't clear the unauthorised overdraft in time if it is made on the same day that the unauthorised transaction goes through.

Or money has to be there by close of business same working day, as applies to a number of banks which have been named in this thread. In which case a faster payment will obviously clear the unauthorised payment in time and there would be no charge.

I don't see your confusion. Barclays either operate in one way or the other. I honestly don't know which, but as they haven't been named as operating in the latter way, I suspect they operate in the former.

And for customers whose banks operate in the former way, faster payments doesn't help. People who are therefore likely to be in this position often shouldn't bank with such a bank.

But equally, as others have pointed out, many of those going into unauthorised overdraft don't have funds available elsewhere to match their unauthorised payments, so it's academic which way their bank operates as they won't be able to "faster payment" money in to get themselves out of trouble.

Hope that clears up what I was trying to say.

[EXC]

Re: Barclays cuts fees for overdrafts to £8 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is some of the Barclays bumph on the reserve I got in the post (I'd completely forgot that I had some accounts with them) including the 'opt-out' form and some Q&As.

[EXC]

Re: Barclays cuts fees for overdrafts to £8 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

The rest..

[LuggerBugs]

Re: Barclays cuts fees for overdrafts to £8 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Where? :tinysmile_hmm_t2:

[argentarius]

Re: Barclays cuts fees for overdrafts to £8 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm glad you asked that, LB - I thought it was just me! I can't see any attachments either.

Having read Amethyst's post on Database Errors, I can now see why it's happened too. Doubtless they'll reappear in due course.

[Amethyst]

Re: Barclays cuts fees for overdrafts to £8 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorryyyyyyyyyyyyy.

[EXC]

Re: Barclays cuts fees for overdrafts to £8 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/c...8487-20607208/


When the banks were told by the Office of Fair Trading to stop hitting customers with "fines" for going over their overdraft limit, it was inevitable that they would look for some other way to rip them off.

Barclays has found it. The bank has invented something they call a "personal reserve", which kicks in when people go over their limit.

It will cost £22 every time the reserve is used and another £22 for every five days the customer fails to pay it off. The result will be even bigger charges.
Watchdogs have been quick to spot this con and are complaining to the Financial Standards Authority, hoping it will force a re-think.


Barclays made a £7billion profit last year and the other banks accumulated similar amounts. They all do it by providing an increasingly poor service while forcing customers to pay ever greater charges.

Sadly, in the modern world we have to use banks. Wouldn't it be wonderful, though, if we could take our money away from the whole damned lot of them? As that's not possible, we must keep fighting against every new attempt to rip us off.

[Amethyst]

Re: Barclays cuts fees for overdrafts to £8 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just say No to Personal Reserve (IMO)