Hi there.

quite delighted with this result. May have found a particular loophole so thought id tell all on what happened....

Had an account with HSBCicon earlier last year. then moved to A&L through their switching service. Including a paypal Bank funding direct debiticon.

Hit a problem in December where paypal took payment for an item late and it resulted in me being overdrawn for 17 days for being £1.24 overdrawn. ending in an £85 charge in Jan. This had a knock on effect of then taking me overdrawn again which then charged me £65 in Feb. I was able to top up my account with this charge payback so only left me overdrawn for 4 days. Resulting in an additional £20 in march.

This was affecting my credit score to the point where i had a mortgageicon declined. The only way of securing an appeal with the decision was to see if i could get the charges reversed.

So i did some digging. I checked my original paypal direct debit mandate that i received when i set up the account with HSBC. When the account was switched to A&L it was switched to a new reference number. I was never ever notified of the change. Which resulted in the direct debit being invalid. Therefore all payments taken from my account under this direct debit were unlawful. Which also meant, Because of this unlawful direct debit i was taken overdrawn and then charged by A&L.

I contacted A&L who at first advised that this wasnt an acceptable excuse for demanding payment back. I kept on at them demanding a refund under the direct debit gaurantee which they then passed me through to a lovely lady in their Direct debits department. She checked back on the original switching papers and confirmed that the switch inadvertantly changed the rererence number. They should have advised of this change but they never did. This then resulted in them admitting it was their fault and so then refunded all the charges they had made on my account due to this invalid DD.

So the morale of the story. if you have switched accounts and moved your Direct Debits over with the account creation. Check your mandates and make sure the reference numbers match to what you have on your new account. If not.. you have them. if the particular DD caused you to go overdrawn at any point..claim that money back. Obviously you will owe the refunded DD money to the particular claimant. but the bank charge money is yours to keep. I got approx £185 back this way. A&L are also arranging for my credit file to be amended to show no problems in the months it hit me

I first contacted A&L about this Tuedsay 21st April. By friday i had all the money back in my account. Of course i will be depositing the money for Paypal into that account but it was a way round the hold on charges out there.

I have the phone number to the lovely lady who sorted my account out. If you want it PM Me.

See how you get on..!!