Thread: Overdrawn Charges!1

You should be protected by the direct debit guarantee. However we do find a lot of people have difficulty with this and often bank staff either don't seem to know what it is or don't particularly like to acknowledge it and to give their customers the benefit of it even though the banks are obliged to do so.

As with most of my advice on this forum regarding this kind of behaviour from the banks, I think that you should act quite aggressively.

Write a careful and brief letter outlining in list form the direct debit breaches which have occurred.

This means that you list the due date, the beneficiary, the sum payable, the actual date on which the payment was made.

Do make sure that there aren't any arguments as to the fact that may be the direct debit went out early because of bank holiday or weekend etc. I'm not too sure of the rules which relate to these special nonworking days. You had better check to make sure that there is and some rule in place which explains why the direct debits occurred on the wrong days.

As long as you are satisfied that the direct debits have broken the rules, send your list to your bank and complain that because the terms of the direct debits have not been observed by them it has cause you problems and that you require the protection of the direct debit guarantee immediately.

The aggressive part is to tell them that if they do not comply within seven days that you will simply bring a county court action against them for breach of contract.

I hope that it goes without saying that you should not make this threat if you do not intend to go through with it. If the banks sense that you are bluffing they will have even less respect for you as a customer than they already do.