Barclays taking £8 charges when still in O/D Limit!

[s4ddys]

Hi,

 

Has anyone else had issues with Barclays taking £8 charges againts an apparent over 'cleared balance'? I have been within my limit (although quite close to it!) and received a letter last week and another one today with 2 x £8.00 charges on them for having 'insufficient cleared funds' in my account, although this was not the case.

 

I spoke to Barclays earlier in the week and they have agreed to refund the first charge (after a 30 minute phone call). I was wondering firstly if anyone had the same problem and secondly if anyone can give me any advice on how to address Barclays as im sick of the constant letters. I very rearely go over my overdraft, but always use it!

 

Cheers

 

S4ddy

[Bookworm]

I take it you mean you went over your Reserve amount, not your o/d itself?

 

No, you're the first I have heard saying that. :-? Can you give us a bit more info?

[s4ddys]

Sorry I should have explained in more detail. I have no reserve amount as when this was introduced I was on a repayment plan from £800 down to £0. When I had paid this off, a couple of months later they put me a £540 O/D limit on, didnt ask or anything, it just appeared. I happily spent this (thanks Barclays) and generally operate within this limit (coz I dont want them to take it off and have to pay it back lol). My account says O/D £540 Reserve amount £0.00 so as far as I am aware I have opted out of the reserve thing, no mention in the letter of a £22 charge.

 

I had a number of arguments with then previously about reserve / charges and opted out.

[Bookworm]

Sorry, I know this isn't helping you, but this is intriguing me.

 

Let me get this right: You don't have a Reserve. You (supposedly) went over your o/d limit, they paid/bounced a couple of items and only charged you £8 a go???

[s4ddys]

Thats right, no £22 charge for 5 days etc, just 3 x £8.00 charges

[yourbank]

Our fees when you exceed your limits

Whenever a payment is made that would cause you to exceed the limits on your personal current account as follows:

 

• Exceeding your overdraft limit by £1 and you do not have a Reserve; or
  
• Exceeding your Reserve limit by £1; or
  
• Taking your personal current account overdrawn by more than £15 and you have neither an overdraft or a Reserve on your personal current account then, unless the payment is a Guaranteed Transaction (which we must honour), the payment will be returned unpaid and we shall charge you a Returned Transaction Fee.
  

When two or more payments are made at the same time that would, together, cause you to exceed your limits, then subject to whether any of those payments are Guaranteed Transactions (which we must honour), then it is within our discretion as to which payments are paid and which are returned unpaid.

Subject always to our discretion, we would ordinarily seek to deal with your payments in a way that minimises the number of unpaid payments and therefore the number of Returned Transaction Fees incurred on your personal current account. We must emphasis that (i) while we shall ordinarily seek to deal with your payments in this way, this may not always be possible; and (ii) we may not necessarily be able to honour payments that you regard as important.

When in these circumstances the payment is a Guaranteed Transaction, we shall honour the transaction but you will be charged a Guaranteed Transaction Fee.

A Guaranteed Transaction is one that we cannot refuse, for example a payment made by a guaranteed cheque.

Returned Transaction Fee £8 per item Guaranteed Transaction Fee £8 per item We shall not charge you more than 5 Returned Transaction Fees and/or Guaranteed Transaction Fees in any one working day.

If you draw against a sum credited to your account, such as a cheque, that is subsequently returned unpaid, then is the reversal of that credit causes your account to exceed any of its limits, you will be charged a Reserve Usage Fee or Returned Transaction Fee, as appropriate. You will also be expected to make an immediate payment into your account in order to bring it back within your limit.

If we have to remove or restrict the use of your overdraft or Reserve, you will incur Returned Transaction Fees and/or Guaranteed Transaction Fees if thereafter you attempt to exceed your revised limit.

 

 

How and when fees will be applied

• The account fee is charged on the first working day of each month.
  
• Overdraft interest is calculated on the daily statement balance and charged to your personal current account monthly.
  
• Reserve Usage Fees are incurred on the day on which you go into your Reserve (capped at one fee per period of five consecutive working days starting on the day on which you go into your Reserve) and applied to your account monthly. We will write to you each time you incur a Reserve Usage Fee and will tell you the value of the fee(s) incurred.
  
• Returned Transaction Fees are incurred the day an item is returned and applied to your account monthly. We will write to you each time you incur a Returned Transaction Fee and will tell you the value of the fee(s) incurred.
  
• Guaranteed Transaction Fees are incurred the day an item is paid and applied to your account monthly. We will write to you each time you incur a Guaranteed Transaction Fee and will tell you the value of the fee(s) incurred.
  
• You will be given at least 14 days' advance notice on your statement of the total of any overdraft interest, Reserve Usage Fees, Returned Transaction Fees and Guaranteed Transaction Fees to be debited from your account.
  
• We work out the monthly charging period from the date you select for your statement frequency. The monthly charging period always closes two days before the statement issue date.
  
• Most of our other fees are applied at the time you use our services.
  

*EAR means Equivalent Annual Rate.

That is taken direct from their website and hopefully will help others to understand what you are saying with regards to NOT having the £22 reserve useage fee.

[s4ddys]

I have no problems with the structure, but

'If you draw against a sum credited to your account, such as a cheque, that is subsequently returned unpaid, then is the reversal of that credit causes your account to exceed any of its limits, you will be charged a Reserve Usage Fee or Returned Transaction Fee, as appropriate. You will also be expected to make an immediate payment into your account in order to bring it back within your limit.'

 

- My example is:

 

I make a payment in Tesco on my visa debit card for £10.00 on the 1st of the month when I am up to my limit. I get paid on the 3rd of the month. Because payments take a couple of days to go through the system, the Tesco transaction appears on my statement as the 3rd of the month.

 

Barclays are still charging me £8.00 because my 'cleared balance' on the 2nd of the month was £10.00 over my limit. i.e. the payment to tesco's although doesnt show on my statement until the 3rd, so my statement looks fine, its the 'cleared balance' on the 2nd which they are charging me for.

 

Secondly, the thing that is really annoying is the fact the neither my 'cleared balance' or account balance was over my overdraft in the charges I started this thread about!

[s4ddys]

I have sent them the draft letter below:

 

ACCOUNT NUMBER: XXXXXXXX SORT CODE: XXXXXX

I am extremely unhappy with the service provided to me over the past two weeks.

I received a letter dated 24 March 2009 your ref XXXXXXXXXX/XX stating I had made a payment without having the cleared funds available. I log into your internet banking service daily to keep a track of my funds and I know this was not the case. I called Barclays and to cut a long story short after 3 phone calls the Advisor told me he was unsure why I had been charged in the first place and agreed to refund the charge (ref: XXXXXXX). I was unhappy that it had taken over an hour to get the issue resolved but glad it had been sorted out eventually. I was told the refund would be issued in 3-4 days but this has still not happened.

I have now received a letter dated 31 March saying I have had another 2 charges for £8.00 each for transaction numbers XXXXXX & XXXXXX even though I know I was still within my limit, if only by 75p. To add insult to injury the transactions were for 86p & 59p. I refuse to ring customer services again and spend another hour on the phone sorting out something which is obviously a banking error.

These letters / charges are causing me great stress / concern and I am reluctant to have my salary paid into my Barclays account in April as it seems every time I use my card when I am near to my credit limit, I seem to be charged. I have another account elsewhere with a Maestro card and do not seem to incur these problems.

I am also now aware that Barclays now apply there charges to the ‘cleared balance’, which did not use to be the case. I do not pay in cheques so the cleared balance should not affect me, but it does when I make payments which take a couple of days to clear with my Visa Debit card.

I also have another question that is if a payment is made into my account on any afternoon, is it right that I cannot use my card to pay for purchases that day?

If this is the case I think this is absolutely horrendous, as if money goes onto my account at ANY time, I should be able to spend it as I see fit after the transaction has taken place.

I would appreciate your comments in writing on the matter and what you intend to do to rectify my situation.

I will also be sending a copy of my letter to the Financial Ombudsman Service for their comments as I feel since Barclays have revised their charging structure to charge less, they have become extremely aggressive with regards to how the charges are applied. I also feel the charges applied are unlawful and not in line with my current account terms & conditions. I appreciate Barclays are a business, and are there to make money, however, applying aggressive charging tactics to customers who use the facilities provided I feel is both morally and more importantly, legally wrong.

 

 

Yours faithfully,

 

 

 

 

XXXXX XXXXX

Copy: Financial Ombudsman Service, South Quay Plaza, 183 Marsh Wall, London, E14 9SR

[Bookworm]

That is taken direct from their website and hopefully will help others to understand what you are saying with regards to NOT having the £22 reserve useage fee.

That's the problem, YB: it doesn't.

 

As far as we have been able to ascertain up to now, either you're opted in and you get charged the £22 / 5 days to go into the Reserve and £8 if you go over the Reserve amount, or you opt out and they charge the usual £30/£35 per transgression.

 

This is the 1st time I have seen s/one being opted out, going over and only being charged the £8, hence my interest.

 

s4ddys, let us know what they say, this is very odd. One of the reasons I stayed with B's is that they always let me draw out money on the day I would pay in money, even if it was a cheque and not charge me (apart from the higher interest which is fair enough IMO). Also I am regularly over my limit on the uncleared amount but as long as I am within my limit on the cleared amount, they don't charge me, so it doesn't make sense.

 

Is yours a regular common or garden current account?

 

(This is bugging me now )

[s4ddys]

Just a normal current account, standard one with a visa debit card and no extras. It cant be because they think I am a good customer as I said I only finished off paying my arranged payment in Feburary coz I went £1200 overdrawn with no overdraft!

[s4ddys]

Has this never happened to anyone else?

[yourbank]

That's the problem, YB: it doesn't.

 

As far as we have been able to ascertain up to now, either you're opted in and you get charged the £22 / 5 days to go into the Reserve and £8 if you go over the Reserve amount, or you opt out and they charge the usual £30/£35 per transgression.

Can you link me to that bit where you are charges £30/£35 per transaction cos I don't see it in their rates and fees on their website?

This is the 1st time I have seen s/one being opted out, going over and only being charged the £8, hence my interest.

They don't get the reserve fee AFAIK

s4ddys, let us know what they say, this is very odd. One of the reasons I stayed with B's is that they always let me draw out money on the day I would pay in money, even if it was a cheque and not charge me (apart from the higher interest which is fair enough IMO). Also I am regularly over my limit on the uncleared amount but as long as I am within my limit on the cleared amount, they don't charge me, so it doesn't make sense.

 

Is yours a regular common or garden current account?

 

(This is bugging me now )

I think OP has already stated they don't get charged £22 reserve useage fee.

[Bookworm]

I think OP has already stated they don't get charged £22 reserve useage fee.

Yes, I know. Hence my queries. ;-)

 

Ok, let's take it point by point:

 

There is (wait for it, this is a good one) nothing in the T&Cs that says what will happen to charges if you opt out. So far, the only evidence has been through people calling and asking and the answers given to them verbally by Barclays or actually getting charged the £30/£35. Good, huh?

 

What we do know is that people opted in will get charged £22 for a 5 day period for going into the reserve. If they go over their "authorised" reserve amount, they will then get charged 1) £22 per 5 day period + 2) £8 per transaction paid/bounced up to a maximum of 5 a day = £40 a day.

 

If Barclays only charged £8 for paid/bounced transactions to people who are opted out, don't you think by now I would have been shouting from the rooftops for people to opt out if B's customers and join them if they banked elsewhere?

 

This is why this case is intriguing me so much. It doesn't add up to B's own MO.

[yourbank]

I am gonna ask someone I know who works for Barclays to explain it to me so I can explain it to you. Not sure why I didn't think of that before, BRB

[Bookworm]

Nice one. See if you can get him/her to point where it says what happens to the charges if you opt out. ;-)

[yourbank]

Would love to but you know me, I ask people on MSE

Barclays Reserve: what happens if you opt out? - MoneySavingExpert.com Forums

Ask Barclaysmanager....nice BLOKE

[slick132]

...... coz I went £1200 overdrawn with no overdraft!

Leaving aside the ongoing debate, have you started working out how much in bank charges (I assume) you've paid while o/drawn. So you can reclaim the charges.

[Bookworm]

Would love to but you know me, I ask people on MSE

Barclays Reserve: what happens if you opt out? - MoneySavingExpert.com Forums

Ask Barclaysmanager....nice BLOKE

I'm sure he is... However:

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/show-post/post-1596736.html

 

Oh by the way Bookworm i asked the question, and if i opt out my the charges for transaction fees stays at £30 & £35.

And that's the problem... It doesn't say that anywhere.

 

Having said that, might not be a problem as such, in fact, could be an interesting way to challenge the fees... How is one supposed to make an informed decision when one isn't being given all possible options and drawbacks? ;-)

[yourbank]

Bookworm, that post was July 2008, I think before they introduced the reserve. I can't see anything on there website at all with regards to the charges of £35/£30. You know we need someone with a Barclays account to ring them, don't you?

[Bookworm]

Yes, I know when it was posted, I was there, lol. There are others, but as it is it took me about 1 hour yesterday to find this one! It was something that came up a few times last year when the Reserve started because there was such uncertainty. That's also how I know that it doesn't say anything in the T&Cs about it because I went looking, believe me!

 

As for phoning them, 2 minds with but one thought, I woke up earlier thinking exactly the same, lol.

 

Back with whatever reply I get as soon as.

[Bookworm]

Ok, so between then and now, they have been changes, and your info is more up to date. ;-)

 

According to the chap I have just spoken to, bounced/paid costs are indeed £8 a pop if you are opted out.

 

So:

 

s4ddys, sorry for the hijack of your thread, but that's one mini-mystery solved, so thank you for your patience with YB and me.

 

YB, I'm going to start another thread to discuss this further, see you there? ;-)

[s4ddys]

Well just to give you an update on where I am at. Barclays are still saying the charges are right even though you can see from my statement I did not go over my overdraft. I have written to them again today with the letter below. Will update when they respond.

 

Thank you for you letter dated *****2009. However, I still have a number of issues that I feel are still unresolved.

I have returned a copy of your letter, numbered for ease of use.

Firstly on item 1 – Thank you for reversing the charge incurred on *******, although this had already been agreed by one of your colleagues as stated in my original letter.

Item 2 – You stated in your letter these charges must stand as I was over my agreed overdraft limit. I must disagree, I have attached a copy of statement for ease of use and highlighted the transactions in question. You can clearly see I was within my agreed limit of £**** both when the transactions were completed and when they left my account. I ask you once again to look at this matter, and if you disagree to state clearly your reasons why.

Item 3 – I do not feel you have addressed this matter at all, apart from stating charges were applied within the terms and conditions of my account. I do not feel this is the case, there is nothing in your Personal overdraft & Reserve charges which states you cannot draw against an uncleared balance, only that if the item is returned you may be charged in line and expected to make a payment to bring your account up to date. I have attached a copy of these charges printed from your website today, so I am assuming they are the latest copy. If Barclays do now charge from the ‘cleared balance’ I would like to know when this was implemented, as I have received no notification of this being the case and there is still nothing in your terms and conditions to state this. I can prove from previous statements that this did not used to be the case.

I now feel Barclays are operating outside the terms and conditions of my account, and are being totally unfair in the way they are operating.

As this is not the first time I am having to waste my time and effort writing to you, I am now also seeking financial compensation for the way I have been treated. I stated in my first letter the charges and my concerns were causing me great stress, and I do not feel you have addressed my points / concerns from my original letter, just reiterated the refund of a charge which I had already agreed, and the rest just seemed like standard jargon.

I have sent copies of this reply and all relevant documents to the Financial Ombudsman as I feel this matter does probably not just apply to me, but other Barclays customers who are also being charged by Barclays underhand tactics.

I would appreciate a simple reply to my concerns, addressing the points I have raised.

 

Will see what they have to say.....

[spongebob71]

Hi all,

just looking at this thread and I think I have similar thing with barclays. I had a direct debit returned even though I was still UNDER my limit !!!! I went into the bank and the person at the customer service counter was less than helpful. I went through it all with her and her reply was that " there must have been a card purchase that was due to go out a couple of days later and that took priority over the direct debit". I am really cheesed of with barclays at the moment, they owe me over £6000 in charges !!!!!!!!! It seems that allthough they dont charge £25 each time you go over they still hit you with the little £8 here and £8 there which soon add up , so they havent lost anyway. We have had charges built up over the last statement period that add up to £60 or £70 a time. It's NOT RIGHT !! Where is the money going to? You ask the board of directors at any of the banks how much it costs for a pint of milk or loaf of bread !!!!!!!

[s4ddys]

My advice would be to put your complaint in writing, thats all im gonna keep doing, just going up one stage everytime. When I get to the board of directors I will ask about milk and bread lol

[slick132]

Hi Spongebob and welcome to CAG.

 

Please feel free to start your own thread, here in Barclays or any other forum, if you want to.