Letter: Banks taketh … and then taketh again
Friday 5th November 2010, 5:01AM GMT.
Letter: My credit card bill came through the door – no worries – all paid for the month, or so I thought.
No. Late payment charge of £12.
Well over £60 extra paid in the month, why?
Yes, one of the payments had arrived four days late, but within the set time I was more than £40 overpaid.
That long process to speak to a human ended in a block. I demanded to speak to a supervisor.
She tried to block me again.
Where does it say that the payments must be made by the cardholder and where does it say that a refund is not a payment?
I asked for the exact wording and where it is in the contract that I signed.
“We’ll get back within the hour” was at last agreed.
To their credit they did come back.
Those stipulations, which led to the £12 late payment tax, were not in writing anywhere, but were part of what the bank’s rules.
No apology, but head office is quickly going to make it clear to future customers.
How many other customers have been wrongly charged this £12?
I have had mine refunded.
I put it to the manager that if I’d purchased something one day and found out that I’d been overcharged and refunded the next, which is what happened to me, I was being charged for an error made by the retailer and its was compounded by errors made by the bank.
“Yes but that is our policy,” was the reply.
Beware everyone.
The sum of £12 may not be much, but I’d rather have it in my pocket, than lining the bank’s.
Mrs BA Flowers
Newport
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Most card companies provide a facility to pay off the minimum amount, a fixed amount or the full amount monthly by direct debit. That way, it’s impossible to incur late payment fees.
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Almost exactly the same thing happened to me. It was a slightly bigger problem because it meant that my 0% interest period was voided and they then added interest to the next payment and the “delayed” payment.
There’s an effective way to sort this out: go through the required complaints procedure, BUT do it quickly and do not talk with more than one level of person at the same time. Ideally, get to supervisor level in the same single call. If the problem is not resolved quickly, write a letter to the company. If the complain has not been resolved adequately within two weeks, take your case to the ombudsman. Financial Institutions hate it when complaints go to the ombudsman because they have to pay a “hearing” fee which is far more than one overpayment charge. This sum is levied to support the ombudsman office.
Banks cannot apply internal rules that they have not advised and contracted to the client. So a rule that is not in the contract that states that a refund not counting as a payment cannot be enforced without incurring the wrath of the ombudsman.
It’s also a bit stupid: if you start with a balance of £zero and someone accidentally bills you for £20 and then refunds the £20 a minute later, the bank should not be able to say that you actually owe £20 because the £20 refund does not count as a payment.
But you are correct – they do, because they did it to me. But in my case, the application of a £12 charge resulted in expenditure for them of a couple of £hundred because they tried to make the fee stick and the ombudsman said “no”.
ANOTHER DANGER TO WATCH FOR: if you go into late payment territory, (even if not your fault), a certain company will have a robot computer dial you up and automatically advise you of this; but before it advises you of the problem, it will ask you to press a key on your phone to confirm that you really are the person who owns the account. When you confirm, it gives you details. THERE IS NO SECURITY, so anyone could answer your phone and have access to your credit history details.
The company also punishes you if you hang up on the computer call – but how many times have we been told not to accept unsolicited calls regarding our financial matters? This system is madness and a similar sounding system could easily be set up by a scammer company looking for personal details.
Ridiculous.
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I hold a number of credit cards and in the past 12 months each card company have tried various tricks to charge me a late payment fee. In every case I have persuaded them to refund the fee and re-instate any preferential interest rates I was receiving that were revoked due to my ‘supposed’ late payment.
To clarify, no matter what their terms say on how long it takes to process a payment, when a payment is made by debit/credit card it only takes 3 working days to credit the recipient’s account. The fact that it takes them another 2 days to process the payment onto my account is of no nevermind to me and is an argument I have used and won many a time.
You have to watch them, they’re slippery so and so’s. Also bear in mind that they are now required by the Consumer Credit Act to pre-inform you in writing that they intend to apply any fees to your account before they are applied, another weapon I have used to my advantage. Be credit aware as ignorance is something creditors are all too often trying to take advantage of to take your money.
As for the phonecalls, I don’t answer numbers I don’t know, if they want their money that badly they can leave a message!
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