Taking money from an account

[NailPost]

At the end of january I found my account (I'm with the Grabby) was overdrawn by £21 in total and paid over a period of four days paid in cheques totalling £1200. These did not clear in time and the bank patronisingly wrote to me twice stating three direct debits had been affected but, as a special favour, they had paid these sums.

Of course, the letters said, we'll have to charge you but we'll let you know two weeks before we take the money from your account. I don't know what these charges will be but they will be claimed back! I have already written to the Grabby to warn them what I intend to do

The point of this thread however is this - in any other business a payment for a service is subject to an invoice being issued and then, if acceptable, is paid either via cheque, cash or other means.

How do the banks justify telling someone they will take £130 from an account on such and such a day and then go ahead and do it even if it means creating an overdrawn situation which triggers further charges and interest.

Surely there must be some way of preventing such heavy handed behaviour?

[Docubot]

There is:

Sue them for recovery - if everyone who was ever charged did this, it would make doing it unworkable and they would be forced to stop.

Secondly, join the demonstration outside the OFT's headquarters - the more people we show are angry about this, the more likely they will be to actually do as they were set-up to do - protect the consumer from this sort of behaviour.

[pollyd]

On December 29th I was charged £300 for unpaid direct debits and going over my authorized overdraft.
On Jan 29th I was charged £150 for the same.
At the end of February I will be charged another £150.
I have now cancelled all my direct debits exept for mortgage, council tax and service charges for my flat.
Does anybody think that these charges are a little excessive? And is there anything I can do?

Yes. You can sue them.

Though you'd make it a little easier for our poor moderators if you were to post the details in the relevant bank forum rather than the general one if you haven't already. That way we can give advise which might hold more relevance to the bank you were sueing than other banks.

[IIIUMINATI]

Direct Debit Mandates
You can demand a full and immediate refund from your bank.
By doing this your account returns to credit and no charges can be applied.
Simply inform your claiments that you have chosen a new date for them to use for billing
they may require a new mandate signing.