My son Jamie is on his gap year and has been working as a barman for an events company at Test Matches, Olympia exhibitions, etc. This is casual employment but offering in practice quite a lot of hours per week on average, just concentrated in heavy bursts.
Jamie was planning to finish shortly and to set off on a cheap hostel holiday around Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, the wages for one of the events at which he had worked did not come through in the expected week, This resulted in him slipping over – by less than ’50 – his ‘250 overdraft limit.
That does not sound like a disaster. But he had been booking his hostels online with his debit card, putting down the tiny deposits required.
8 deposits came in total to only a bit over ’30. But the Halifax allowed each transaction on the card, and then charged him ’30 penalty per transaction. That is a fine of ‘240 on ’34 worth of payments. As a result he has to cancel his holiday, as I have no cash either.
He spoke today to the Halifax, who said this was an “Adminstration charge”. But, as the payments went through normally, where precisely is the extra administration cost? The Halifax also said that pending the resolution of the current High Court case on the legality of such charges, they are not prepared to consider the case.
This is appalling. ‘240 of charges on ’34 of expenditure is plainly disproportionate. I was walking past a bank in Shepherd’s Bush yesterday and saw that a vandal had cracked one of the windows, which was being replaced. I tut-tutted with disapproval at the stupid violence. This morning if I see the vandal who did it, I will shake his hand.
I work in the investment arm of the Halifax.
I would get your son to write to his branch manager requesting a full refund of the charges.
If that fails I'd suggest to him that he follows the route here
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/bank-cha…
Pamery
Thank you very much. He will be doing those things, but the firm message from the Bank this morning was that they will freeze all requests for charge refunds until the current court case is resolved, which they said would mean for several months.
Pamery is absolutely right to suggest that you should fight this one. These 'banks' are simply usurers. And the figures are complete nonsense, bearing in mind that these are electronic and automatic transactions, how can anyone justify a ?30 fee per incident? Outrageous!
I hadn't read this before posting – seems like charges reclaims are on hold for the time being.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/bank-cha…
It's still worth lodging a claim though, as Martin Lewis's site suggests.
I live in Slovenia and would be honored to host Jamie here for free any time he likes, provided he's not allergic to dogs or expecting fancy food/accommodation (I'm a lousy cook and my house is only partly finished).
Seriously.
A couple of years ago on a visit back to the UK I decided to pay my Barclaycard bill at the bank in cash. The next month's bill arrived with no record of the payment, luckily I had kept the receipt and was able to prove I had paid, but they had failed to complete this most basic transaction. Quite how they managed to end up with 700 pounds extra cash at the end of the day and not notice still puzzles me.
I was told they could not set the record straight so that it does not appear I defaulted on a payment, though I did get a letter to this effect. Which suggests there is not a great deal of actual administration going on in these transactions.
Good luck to your son, a terrible shame, but we all have these hiccups with money when we are young and we learn from them.
I once paid in a cheque for ?2100 and ended up only ?21 richer. The person who wrote the cheque had the full ?2100 deducted. It took me two months to get the rest of the money back off the bank. Another time they charged me ?224 for access to my own funds in a savings account because apparently I could only do nine transactions a year on that particular account. I had no choice but to pay because I needed the money to pay the deposit on my house.
That's just miserable. Would fight this one, as they may well have a legal obligation to inform your son of his position before allowing repeated transactions over the limit of his overdraft – take a look at the terms & conditions of the account. In the meantime, I'd be delighted to pay for his accomodation in Warsaw (where I live) – there's a great hostel near the old town which I gather is a lot of fun, just e-mail me, and I'll arrange all for him.
Fight them, keep on posting and tell them that you are posting about them.
Seriously I did the same with regards the inept people at Barclays, I even contacted their "Corporate Advertising Dept." in London.
Shortly after they paid me the monies I was owed, some 900 quid. That said I never did get an apology off of them, but one can not get everything!
Fido: "Shortly after they paid me the monies I was owed, some 900 quid. That said I never did get an apology off of them, but one can not get everything!"
Yep, absolutely. Better hard cash than soft words, eh? Question is, having extracted it, which bank do you put it in?
Which bank to put it in?
I heard the Halifax is quite good . . .
It might be worth making a case
from the BBC website
"John Fry, who pursued the case for his daughter, explained how he persuaded the judge also to suspend any further penalty charges.
"I argued that a stay would have serious financial implications for my daughter as she would have to continue meeting interest payments on her debts, whereas the sum in question (?1,384) would have been sufficient to clear her debt entirely," he said."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6960358.stm