FFS... Last thing I need!! (LONG)

[StoneLaughter]

Earlier on this year I had a 3 month period where I couldn't pay off 3 of my major debts; credit card, personal loan and one other which is unimportant.

My Wife and I have been getting back on top of things since she went back full time; one of the things I did was to arrange a £200 fixed payment to my credit card to bring the balance back inside the credit limit of £7500.

Mid december they wrote to me and said "they are restructuring my account" when what they actually meant was I had cleared my arrears... the balance was still outside the credit limit but I had caught up with the payments. Then late december they wrote to me again and said that they were changing the Direct Debit "from the fixed payment agreed of £200 to only take the minimum payment" as I had cleared the arrears. I was amenable; after all I could still make additional payments up to the £200 as required to keep bringing the balance down.

Having had that letter about the 20th Dec, and my payment being due at the end of dec, I went online on about the 25th to see what they had assessed the minimum payment as. It said ZERO. So on 30th Dec I made a manual payment of £200 as previously agreed with them.

4th Jan, my "Bills" account is overdrawn; and to my horror the credit card people have taken an additional payment on 31st Dec of £350 by direct debit!!!!!!!

So - my Bills account, which is very carefully budgeted to have enough in it to pay the monthly bills, is now £83 overdrawn against a limit of zero, and accruing "overlimit" charges of £5 per day while it's over the limit. Then three more D/Ds come out and get charged at £25 a pop for an "Item review fee".

I call the bank last night and they repeatedly refuse to refund the money under the D/D guarantee, and say that it will be faster to get the C/C company to refund it. So this morning I call the C/C company and they say "oh it'll be faster to get the bank to do it - ask them to do a "Direct Debit Indemnity" and they are not permitted to refuse; they MUST do it.

I call the bank again - pretty cheesed off this time with getting the run-around. They agree to do the indemnity but state that it will take 7-10 WORKING DAYS to go through. I call the bank again tonight, and ask what's going to happen if any other D/Ds attempt to go through - they say "they will be refused". OK, says I - can I have a temporary overdraft to cover the problem period until this money comes back from the C/C company? No. OK - will you waive charges for this problem period? No. I have no additional funds to cover this difficult period - what can you do to help me? Nothing. In the end I had to borrow £300 from my other current account to bring the bills back into the black - and apparently the D/D Indemnity will only take 48 hours to come through after all. But somehow, until I get the c/c company to court, I have to cover the charges that will need to be paid on my bills account!!

So - I now have to wait a minimum of 48 hours to see if the D/D indemnity has come through and then call alliance and leicester to talk to a manager urgently if it hasn't. Once I have spoken to a manager, I need to carefully monitor the charges situation myself until MBNA pay the charges back IN FULL. I also probably need to repeatedly write to alliance and leicester and placate them while I'm waiting for MBNA to pay up.

I am SOOOOO not happy.

So - I need the site's help in a slightly different way to normal. I know what to do RE: the letters and everything, and I'll post my first attempts here prior to sending them for Curly et al to look over...

But if MBNA refuse I will be issuing an immediate LBA for 7 days before action and taking them immediately to Court (might need help wording it to avoid the FSA Waiver - this is NOT to be a standard bank charges claim). Where I really need the help is that I want the Press involved; this is JUST the sort of idiotic lack of customer service that the financial industry should be REALLY shying away from - and yet they are continuing to do it. I want the press involved in as HUGE a way as possible, making the banks and c/c company look really stupid.

Could the site help me do this by calling in contacts etc?

[natweststaffmember]

Re: FFS... Last thing I need!! (LONG)

Direct Debit Guarantee scheme states immediate refund and so it is IRRELEVANT how long it takes the bank to get the money back.
------------------------------- merged -------------------------------
The Direct Debit Guarantee:
If the amounts to be paid or the payment dates change, the organisation collecting the payment will notify you normally 10 working days in advance of your account being debited or as otherwise agreed
If an error is made by the organisation or your bank or building society, you are guaranteed a full and immediate refund from your branch of the amount paid
You can cancel a Direct Debit at any time by contacting your bank or building society. We also recommend you notify the organisation concerned.


BBA Association - Direct Debit Guarantee

[Curlyben]

Re: FFS... Last thing I need!! (LONG)

Sounds like typical high handed a-holes.

So time to get the kicking boots on then

[natweststaffmember]

Re: FFS... Last thing I need!! (LONG)

Might be worth a further complaint re additional fees as a result of their poor advice re DD Guarantee scheme (wrong timescales, wrong advice,and ultimately a credit check that was avoidable as well)

[natweststaffmember]

Re: FFS... Last thing I need!! (LONG)

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.u...-guarantee.htm
THis might help as well

[StoneLaughter]

OK - letter to bank - it's being sent anyway but let me know what you think...

Dear Sirs

RE: the direct debit guarantee

I write to relate the circumstances surrounding your recent failure to honour the Direct Debit Guarantee; indeed to relate your staff’s complete lack of knowledge surrounding it and contempt for customers with some lay knowledge of banking processes.

I had last year made an arrangement with my Credit Card Provider (MBNA) for a fixed Direct Debit of £200 to be taken monthly. After a period of this working satisfactorily, MBNA wrote to me near the end of December and notified me that they would now not be taking the fixed payment of £200 but would be taking the “minimum payment” as per my credit card agreement – which would normally amount to far less. Some days later I accessed my credit card account online to determine the minimum payment; the account stated that this was zero. I therefore resolved to make a payment of £200 – I had intended to make up the minimum payment to this figure anyway. On the 4th of January I accessed my Alliance and Leicester accounts for another reason and found that my bill paying account (account number ending in 888) was overdrawn to a large degree. On investigating the cause I found that MBNA had taken a direct debit of £350. This clearly breached the terms of my direct debit agreement with them – they had notified me some days before that they would be taking far less than this.

I telephoned your customer service helpline to invoke the Direct Debit Guarantee – which I will remind you states the following:

If an error is made by the organisation or your bank or building society, you are guaranteed a full and immediate refund from your branch of the amount paid.

Please note the highlighted portions; if an error is made, regardless by whom, I am guaranteed a full and immediate refund by you. I repeatedly advised your agents of this (I spoke to a few) and they repeatedly refused point blank to give me my rights under this guarantee. Instead, they referred me to MBNA – giving various excuses why this was the best/quickest way to get my money back. In the end I accepted that Alliance and Leicester were not willing to honour the Direct Debit Guarantee, and I telephoned MBNA at the next opportunity. They used the exact same reason, the speed that would be achieved, to refer me straight back to you – but this time they told me to ask for a direct debit indemnity. I did so, and despite the fact that I had to insist several times, I finally got this done. I was advised at the time that this would take 7-10 working days to arrive in my account. I later did a little research and found out that the direct debit indemnity process is the one that a bank would use to recover an incorrect direct debit having given the customer his full and immediate refund!!!

The consequences of this matter are that my “bills” account, which is carefully budgeted to have the right amount of money in it to cover my monthly bills, (and was JUST beginning to rise from the mire of my 2008 financial crisis) was hugely overdrawn against a limit of zero; thus attracting large charges and (I discovered after having to severely pressure one of your employees to tell me) the risk of having all of my upcoming bill payments refused without further notice to myself. I therefore requested that your agent assisted me by one or more of the following methods (which I believe in the circumstances were perfectly reasonable requests):

@ I requested a temporary overdraft facility be placed on the account to cover the period while my money was being recovered from MBNA;
@ I requested that charges be waived for the period as this situation was clearly one I had absolutely no control over;
@ and I requested that upcoming direct debits be allowed to leave the account and the resultant balance ignored as you were fully aware of the situation and how it was being resolved.

Not only did your agent flatly refuse ALL of these requests, she gave no indication that there was any reason why she should make any effort whatever on my behalf; she gave no indication that she had any understanding whatever of my distress or the reasons for it; and she made absolutely no effort to consult higher authority to see if there was a way I could be helped.

This is customer service at its quintessential worst; it is the Financial Industry’s calling card (and I was previously given to understand that Alliance and Leicester were to be lauded for their excellent approach to customer service).
In the end a solution of sorts was found; I would temporarily transfer £300 from my already stretched main current account to cover the eventuality of any further direct debits being taken; and I would recover some of this (leaving some behind to cover charges) when the direct debit was refunded “within 48 hours”. I am now struggling for the money I need to cover my basic daily requirements such as vehicle fuel and food for myself and my family; and my main current account (which was previously looking a lot rosier this month) is back in the doldrums.

What I require from You
I have every intention of taking this matter to the Financial Ombudsman’s Service if I do not receive a satisfactory resolution to my complaint from you. I believe that in upheld cases of refusal to honour the direct debit guarantee the orders by the FOS for compensation to the customer are for considerable amounts. I will bear this in mind when I assess your offer to resolve my complaint.
I require the following:

@ The IMMEDIATE return of any charges I have already incurred as a result of this debacle.
@ The return of any daily “over limit” charges resulting from this situation, immediately following their application.
@ Your reasonable offer of compensation (I will leave the amount offered to your discretion) to cover the following:

o Your failure to honour the direct debit guarantee to which you have subscribed;
o My extreme inconvenience in having to repeatedly contact you to manage the resolution of this situation (as opposed to you falling over yourselves to assist your valued, paying customer);
o My costs in conducting these communications.

@ Your absolute assurance and guarantee that ALL OF your call centre staff will get additional training to cover:

o Basic customer service techniques; call direction management and understanding the customer’s needs;
o The direct debit guarantee; honour it first and then get it back later if you honoured it in error!

I will look for your full response to this letter within the next seven days; if I do not receive anything of note by then I will be writing to request your “Final Response” letter. This will be forwarded along with my dossier to the Financial Ombudsman’s Service.

Thank you

Yours faithfully,

[Sapphire]

Re: FFS... Last thing I need!! (LONG)

Nice letter Stoney, can't wait to see what they come back with.

[TUTTSI]

Re: FFS... Last thing I need!! (LONG)

Great letter Stoney.

[Curlyben]

Re: FFS... Last thing I need!! (LONG)

I like it

I'd just add this to the bottom

I would appreciate your due diligence in this matter.

I await your rapid response.

Gives it a nice officialish air

[natweststaffmember]

Re: FFS... Last thing I need!! (LONG)

It doesn't say Branch in the DD Guarantee Scheme, its says Bank(sorry to be pedantic). Apart from that I think the letter seems to be spot on allowing the bank to offer an amount of compensation. I would have perhaps mentioned that perhaps this is a training issue that staff should have and could have known and it is very disappointing that they did not view the second phone call as a complaint(FSA defines this as "any dissatisfaction whether justified or not.")

[StoneLaughter]

Re: FFS... Last thing I need!! (LONG)

It doesn't say Branch in the DD Guarantee Scheme, its says Bank(sorry to be pedantic). Apart from that I think the letter seems to be spot on allowing the bank to offer an amount of compensation. I would have perhaps mentioned that perhaps this is a training issue that staff should have and could have known and it is very disappointing that they did not view the second phone call as a complaint(FSA defines this as "any dissatisfaction whether justified or not.")

Ummm.... I copied this verbatim from Direct Debit - your rights - call me old fashioned but this seems to be a reasonably authoritative source?

[StoneLaughter]

Re: FFS... Last thing I need!! (LONG)

Got the standard "We're looking into it and we'll reply to you as soon as possible" letter in the post today...

They must get a lot of complaints if it's taken them six days to get around to that...

[natweststaffmember]

Re: FFS... Last thing I need!! (LONG)

Got the standard "We're looking into it and we'll reply to you as soon as possible" letter in the post today...

They must get a lot of complaints if it's taken them six days to get around to that...

Its FSA compliant and that is why you have the letter, surely it would not take that long to listen to the call and actually realise what was actually said. JMHO, by the way.

[StoneLaughter]

Re: FFS... Last thing I need!! (LONG)

Its FSA compliant and that is why you have the letter, surely it would not take that long to listen to the call and actually realise what was actually said. JMHO, by the way.

I agree completely; but at the moment (until I get their PROPER reply or I start to chase them) they hold the cards.

I will be writing to them on Day 14 (Next Friday).

[WendyB]

Re: FFS... Last thing I need!! (LONG)

A similar thing happened to me a few years ago, with Electricity company taking a dd which they shouldn't have, for over 200. At the time we were in dire straits financially, and there was absolutley zero in our account, no money to live on, food, etc. And it was the friday before a Bank Holiday! I went into my branch, they agreed it was wrong, but said it would take 4 days to get the money back into my account. I quoted the DD guarantee at them, but they still wouldn't budge. I went home, and then returned about 15 minutes before closing time, along with my children, one of whom was still in a pushchair. The bank was very full, with a long queue. I went through it all again, making sure the queue of customers could hear how unfairly me and my starving children were being treated by the bank. Then I flatly refused to leave until it was sorted out. Pointed out that I would have no heating lighting etc at home, as i had no money for the meters, so I might as well stay in the bank where it was nice and warm for the weekend, as no doubt they had tea and coffee making facilities and I could phone up the local newspapers who no doubt would bring us a food parcel or two. The money was in my account about 3 minutes after closing time, at which point they escorted me to the door and locked it very firmly behind me.

I know this isn't much help in your situation SL, but thought it might give you a smile