Hello, I'd be very grateful for any advice on how I resolve the following: - I noticed a card payment for 143.66 to Lending Stream going through my account. Realised it was fraudulent and got my card stopped etc - later that day I checked my account more thoroughly and saw that another exact same debit had gone out the month before, but I'd not noticed it - I called lending stream who confirmed they have no account in my name, or at my address and agrees the charges were fraudulent - I have now called multiple times and emailed many more but I've had no further response from them. Where do I go from here? I'd be grateful for any advice. I'm more annoyed that they feel they can just ignore the fact they've allowed two fraudulent charges against my card. Thank you

Hi. my balance and available balance on my HSBC account is a difference of £42 and i have no idea what this £42 is. My overdraft limit is £600. My account at the minute reads £364.74 and my available balance reads £922.74. it looks as though £42 is coming out of my account. But i have no idea what this £42 is. And i haven't bought/ordered anything for that amount. And when i go into standing orders or direct debits it doesn't list anything worth £42. Just my phone contract and car insurance which is £50/£54. Any ideas? Thanks.

Hi all You guys have helped me immensely over the past few years to send packing a number of DCA's that were treating me as a cash cow and I'm immensely grateful. I now need some advice about how to deal with a number of debts belonging to my niece that she's been paying £5 or so per month for a number of years since she was a student. She's been paying a called Debt Managers LTD based in Rotherham the £5 by DD with no contact with them for quite a while. She seems to recall receiving a notice of assignment from Lowlife a while ago about it and her current bank statements shows the DD recipient as Debt Managers. She has had the standard offer letters from both Lowlife and this latest outfit and I've explained to her what this means. The original debt was a student credit card with Barclays. Now I always paid mine over the counter at a bank or post office via a payment book. I've told her I'll send them a CCA request and the follow-up letters if necessary to get them to go skulking back under their stone, but she's asked me when she should stop the DD. If they reply they're suspending collection until they get the info, can the DD be stopped then? Or does she have to wait until they back off and admit they can't collect? One of the other debts she has relates to a student loan taken out around the turn of the century. I've asked her to do a search on Noddle but I'd be grateful for some guidelines about when to stop the Direct Debits. She seems to have around half a dozen debts each of which she's paying at around a fiver per month like this. Thank you all

Yesterday I got a 'new' car. After taxing it, it was unclear whether the existing Direct Debit would simply increase, or whether I had to set up a new one. So every one knows, you set up a new one but YOU must cancel your old direct debit or you will get charged for two lots of road tax (your new vehicle and your old vehicle). As this is still fairly new, I thought it worth mentioning in case anyone else has the same confusion.

Evening and a Happy New Year from a Newbie! It amazes me that the amount of people / consumers who use, but know nothing about how Direct Debits (DD's) work, or should work, is amazing. How many times does a creditor take a different amount to the one agreed with yourselves or how many times does your Direct Debit claim date change? Are you even remotely aware that any Service User (Creditor) who uses the Direct Debit scheme within the UK has to agree to and follow (supposedly) strict regulations imposed by BACS who govern the DD scheme within GB? A few tips for you. When setting up a Direct Debit, a Direct Debit guarantee MUST be issued by the creditor in writing or verbally over the phone. this outlines what the creditor must do with your DD and also your rights if the DD changes or is collected incorrectly by the creditor. Within the DD Guarantee it MUST state how many (WORKING) days notice the creditor will provide you IF the date AND/OR value of the claim changes FOR ANY REASON. This is also called an "Advance Notice" and is covered under section 4 of BACS's Service Users Guide and Regulations to the Direct Debit Scheme. Usually an Advance Notice is issued in the form of a Bill / Invoice. It is worth noting that the Advance Notice period DOES NOT commence until it is received by yourself. A Direct Debit CANNOT and MUST NOT be claimed EARLIER than the agreed date between yourself and the creditor and nor can it be claimed ANY LATER than 3 working days AFTER the agreed collection date. If it is then your creditor is in breach of BACS's regulations and you would be fully entitled to perform an indemnity Claim from your bank. An Indemnity Claim MUST be paid immediately (not next day) AND in FULL to you by your bank (not in part payments). This is covered in Section 11 of BACS's Regulations. With this in mind, you will now be able to keep a more accurate eye on your Direct Debits and you will see just how many creditors are in breach of Direct Debit rules. Each one of these breaches should be reported to BACS themselves at servicedesk @ bacsservices.co.uk

Hi I have found myself in a situation where all my direct debits come out of my current account on the 1st of September but I will not be paid by my employer till the 2nd. I am already using the full extent of my overdraft and have maxed my credit card. The way I see it I have the choices below - 1, Take out a loan which I don't want to do. 2, Cancel the direct debits and pay the direct debits once the money comes by debit card and then re-instate the direct debits. 3, Contact my mortage company and tell them to wait but if I do and they say NO then they might not lend me the money Can anyone put some input in this? Thank you in advance

Hi My OH got an upgrade with Orange a few years ago (Mar 2008 to be exact) Orange had been taking DD for both old and new contracts since March 2008 until June 2013) My OH got a 'gesture of goodwill' refund from Orange for the last 6 months overpayments (~£200) At the time I thought this was a refund of all overpayments, however now it's come to light this was only the tip of the iceberg! From trawling through statements the actual overpayment was just over £2k. Yes, I know she should have checked statements regularly, but excusing that, it does not give Orange the right to keep the money...surely? Apparently they only offered 3 months payments initially but upped this to 6 months and wouldn't go beyond this. Should I contact Orange again and offer them the chance to repay the rest of the money? Or should I go straight to the regulator? (is that Ofcom in this instance?) Or small claims? Thanks (again I know she should have checked her statements!)

Our account was debited twice for all VISA transactions on the 24th July. First transaction was on 24th and another took place on the 25th July. This caused us to go overdrawn. On contacting the bank they knew exactly which transactions I was disputing and told us that it was a glitch by VISA and was being resolved by the bank. Although we should have money in the bank, technically we haven't and it may have been embarrassing doing shopping only to find your card is rejected! Be aware!

Can anybody advise what figure might be considered reasonable for a declined direct debit. I believe that £25 is massively excessive when the only action required of them is to inform the recipient that the dd has been declined, but it's difficult to identify a benchmark as to what might be a more appropriate figure. Does anybody know of anything that can be used as a measure of this?

Hi I have a £1500 overdraft but I have gone over this amount a few times which resulted in some direct debits returned unpaid. This of course has meant I have been charged bank charges. Today I received a letter from my bank stating they are going to cancel all my direct debits and have given me 2 months to arrange alternative payment methods for these. Can someone advise me please as I am worried sick.

Hi I'm looking for some help with a bit of a sticky situation I am in. I'll try to be as brief as possible. I'm looking to get a mortgage, and have an excellent credit report apart from this one blip from Santander which is resulting in me being rejected. I originally opened an account with Alliance & Leicester in 2010 which was sold to Santander. It was an account I didnt use much, just to pay a few direct debits. 2 or 3 direct debits returned unpaid, so Santander hit me with around £100 worth of charges. I was a bit annoyed by this so decided to just stop using the account and ignored it. Now to my knowledge I never received a notice of default despite them claiming that it was sent. Santander defaulted the account on 19/7/11 with an unpaid amount of £415, all made up of charges which I thought was extortionate. I wasn't really bothered as I wasn't planning on getting a mortgage etc and didn't really realise how it would affect me further down the line! I have since been in contact with them and have offered to settle it if they remove the default, but they are refusing to do so as they believe all of the charges where correct. What I am really looking for is advice on how I can get it removed. Obviously tried to negotiation with them, and explaining the circumstances but they refuse to budge. Is there a way that I can look into wheter they have handled the account incorrectly, or is there something I can argue that I signed T&C's as and Alliance & Leicester customer, not Santander? I'm just hoping that someone has a way of getting it removed on a 'technicality'. Also, would it benefit my credit report if it was settled. As I understand it will be there for 6 years anyway, and a default effects your credit file whether settled or not. Thanks in advance for any help. Michael

On 12th September 2012 two unauthorised direct debits came out of our Lloyds business account for £183.60 each (total £367.20) going to a company with which we have no agreement. We found out about this in December when completing our vat return and phoned Lloyds on 12th of December to notify them. We were informed on the phone that the payments would be recredited to our account and the direct debit cancelled and that this was being actioned immediately. Job done. We phoned back, just to be on the safe side, spoke to another member staff who confirmed that action was being taken, and enquired if we should cancel the direct debits manually via the online control panel. They were non-committal and said that we could if we wanted to. We did. Upon checking the account again on January 15th we noticed that no credits had been made to refund these funds. There is no contact email or messaging service via the online facility and so we were forced to telephone Lloyds once again. We explained the situation once again and asked them to check on the status of the refund. We were then told that the refund had been "actioned" on January 11th and that the funds should appear within 3-5 working days of that date. We complained that we were informed on December 12th that the funds would be recredited to our account immediately. They responded that as it was an indemnity claim going back some months that it takes longer to process. Whilst renegotiating our overdraft facility on January 16th, another extended phone call, we enquired as to the status of the refund again. After a lengthy explanation we were told that it had indeed been actioned and that it would take 3-5 days. No explanations were forthcoming regarding the assurances given on December 12th that the refund would be made immediately. When asked for a reference we were told that this was unavailable. When asked to be referred to a supervisor we were repeatedly told that one was unavailable. When asked for a email address for the complaints department I was told there was none. When asked for an address for the complaints department we were told that they did not have one. We were told that a complaint could be raised by them but no reference could be given. We agreed to the complaint being raised and were asked to ......... please hold. More than 10 mins later and back on the line we were told that a complaint had been raised and "would we accept £50 for the trouble?". We replied that, no, we would not accept the pay off as we had no information from them whatsoever regarding the refund and obviously could not now rely on information given over the phone as this had proved to be incorrect previously. We asked again to speak to a supervisor, or at least to the person who had authorised the £50 pay off, but were told that they were unavailable. We asked for the contact details of the Banking Ombudsman and were told that they did not have one and maybe we should look on Google. After a great degree of cajoling, and threatening to take the issue to the Banking Ombudsman, we were then, very reluctantly, given a reference number for the "indemnity claim", a "complaint reference", a "team manager's" name and the address where the staff member was situated. We were still refused any contact info for the complaints department. The whole phone call took 1 hour and 15 mins. As far as we can see Lloyds bank have conducted unauthorised borrowing of £367.20 from our account for over 30 days. Are we within our rights to demand the interest due at the current Lloyds unauthorised business borrowing rate, together with the original sum plus expenses for the time and inconvenience caused. Also ... surely Lloyds bank (as with any on-line business) cannot refuse to provide an email complaints contact address. This wall of misinformation and timewasting is incredibly frustrating.

Hi, I was hoping someone in a similar situation can give me some advice or point me in the right direction. Basically I had some student loan when I was in the US and when I moved to the UK I was unable to continue the payments. I did talk to the loan company and try to work something but it wasn't helpful in the end. The loan was sent to a DCA and they called me in the UK a few times and sent me letters that was a few years ago. They stopped calling me after a while but I had also moved and changed my number not because of them but it just happened that way, so thats why they might have stopped. This time its a new company has called and they managed to find my work number and call me there. I spoke to the agent on the phone and he basically said my only option is to pay a large sum of money or face legal action what ever that means. I tried to ask if there could be some sort of payment plan but he was was insistent on the lump sum. I am worried that they will call me at work and harass my work and I will get into trouble for it. I have managed to tell the reception not to forward any calls form that number, but that wont last long . Also I am not sure what legal action they can pursue. The loan is 4 years old now. Any help you can give will be most appreciated.

I've been caught out a couple of times by direct debits and standing orders leaving my account when there have been insufficient funds (mainly to Barclaycard). Because of this, they have then been returned as unpaid. However, on each occasion I have realised and immediately made a deposit into my account the same day by faster payments (usually first thing in the morning on the day concerned, and the deposit shows almost instantly in online banking). But it seems that this is too late and the payment is still returned. I have phoned up each time, again on the day, and asked if they can reapply the DD, but apparently they cannot, so each time I've reapplied the payment by other means (faster payments). But I still get charged by both parties for the reversed dd. This seems a bit harsh, is there anything I can do to not get charged in this situation? Looks like I've fallen foul of this again today - I transferred money in at 1am, but the DD had already left my account, taking me £3 beyond my limit. No sign of it being returned yet...