Abbey Another Quirk Discovered!

[TUTTSI]

Hi Guys
Have just joined this forum and I wanted to share with you all another one of Abbey's quirks.

A few weeks ago I made a bill paypayment to leave my account on the same day I knew I had a cheque clearing and also 2 bacs payments were also due on that day as credits in my account as cleared funds. 2 days later I receive a letter from their operations department to say that I had insufficient funds to make the bill payment. Although on this occassion they did not charge me. This was I thought to be impossible since I had enough cleared funds on that day.

I raised this issue with their call centre in India - what a nightmare! eventually after a frustrating 30 minutes of time wasting someone who understood me took up my complaint and eventually called me back and explained to me that the money clearing in the account did not clear until 9am that morning but bill payments were scheduled to go out at 1 minute past mid night, therefore they said that I did not have funds at a minute past midnight. But surely in my eyes a day is 24 hours so cheques clearing and BACS payments should all clear at a minute past midnight.

This posses another problem, that, has this happened before and have we been charged for these quirks in their system. I know myself that Abbey have charged me on many occassions ££££ssss of bank charges and apart from them overcharging have they been grabbing extra charges due to this particular quirk. I have been given £10 so far for this - but watch this space as I fully intend to recover all that is owed to me.

My only concern on the bigger issue, is that from reading some of your postings Abbey have closed account! can they do this! Has anybody checked the terms and conditions for them closing accounts! is it legal!

Another question is has any one tried issuing a Statutory demand for the money in connection with claims for recovering these bank charges which I believe could be another avenue. Has anyone tried this route.

Finally, when one tries to recover the bank charges do you recover the whole amount or in accordance with OFT - I believe they say £12 is an acceptable amount

I look forward to receiving any feed back as I am just at the beginning
of recovering what is mine!!!!
Regards
Denise

[thewifeandI]

Hi - take a bit of time to read up first to make sure that you have the facts before going too far ahead. Read the FAQs and template letters then have a good read around here to see how others are getting on. Keep any progress on your own claim or questions that arise in a new thread in the forum for your bank to make it easier for others to follow and advise you. There's a set of links in my sig below that will help you find where all this useful information is. Well done for getting started!

Apologies for problems with the site - this is due to a software upgrade.

This practise is common among all banks and does lead to a convenient method to be able to charge more. As far as the OFT and £12 is concerned - firstly, the statement was only in connection with Credit Card accounts - and secondly, it was a guideline and not an acceptable limit. By making an unlawful charge the whole amount is in dispute, not just a portion of it.