Fast cheque clearing, ouch!

[Patma]

I was under the impression that Natwest had reduced their charges, but I've had two letters today telling me I'm going to be charged £30 one or more Paid Referral Fees, plus £35 for a Guaranteed Card Payment Fee.

 

All this has come about because I wrote a cheque for £71 in the evening of 5th October (emergency vet's bill). I knew I didn't have sufficient within my overdraft limit to cover it there and then, but knew money was going into my account by the 7th.

The last time I wrote or received a cheque they took several days to clear, but the £71 was deducted on 6th October.

 

These charges mean I'm about to be charged at least £65 for going over the limit by £71 and I certainly don't intend to let them get away with that, so can anyone suggest the best strategy please?

I'd rather stop it being taken than have to reclaim it as that much money would leave a big hole in my finances.

[LilyLou]

How can you pay £35 for a Guaranteed Card Payment Fee when you paid by cheque? I thought minimum clearance for a cheque was 3 days? Cheque would not have been paid in until 6th so earliest date for clearance I would have thought is 8th/9th.

 

May be wrong but I would definately want an explanation. I have banked with Natwest for years and have never known a cheque clear that quickly.

 

Regards

[spitfire650]

Sounds like the payee of the cheque might be a NatWest customer too at the same branch as you - this would get the cheque through in 24 hours. Otherwise if they had deposited it on the 6th it would have been debited from your account on the 8th October.

 

You might get somewhere calling the bank and explaining.

[Patma]

How can you pay £35 for a Guaranteed Card Payment Fee when you paid by cheque? I thought minimum clearance for a cheque was 3 days? Cheque would not have been paid in until 6th so earliest date for clearance I would have thought is 8th/9th.

 

May be wrong but I would definately want an explanation. I have banked with Natwest for years and have never known a cheque clear that quickly.

 

Regards

I agree LilyLou.

I'd never heard of a Guaranteed Card Payment Fee, but I assumed it referred to the fact that I'd used my debit as a cheque guarantee card.

 

I'll write to Customer Service and see how they respond.

Thanks for responding.

[Patma]

Sounds like the payee of the cheque might be a NatWest customer too at the same branch as you - this would get the cheque through in 24 hours. Otherwise if they had deposited it on the 6th it would have been debited from your account on the 8th October.

 

You might get somewhere calling the bank and explaining.

 

Thanks spitfire. I think you're right and the Vet probably did use the same bank. When I've tried calling them previously, I've found them not very helpful, so I think I'll write to customer service, maybe that man who's name I've seen mentioned somewhere.

Does that mean it's allowed to clear instantly I wonder? Because if so everyone needs to beware of this happening.

[yourbank]

The £71.00 worth of charges are likely to be from last month. so charging period of statement date september to October(it could have been august to september) means 21 days later charges go out. I am not sure that the cheque is related to the charge that went out.

[spitfire650]

I think you will find the "Guaranteed Card Payment Fee" is some kind of penalty because they had to honour the cheque as it was guaranteed by the card, but that seems like duplicating the other fee.

 

Either way they are taking the p**s over £71 and I would call inviting them to waive both as there was a genuine misunderstanding or get ready to say goodbye.

 

You might have more success locally than with a customer service representative from some far flung outpost of the form British Empire.

[yourbank]

I think you will find the "Guaranteed Card Payment Fee" is some kind of penalty because they had to honour the cheque as it was guaranteed by the card, but that seems like duplicating the other fee.

 

Either way they are taking the p**s over £71 and I would call inviting them to waive both as there was a genuine misunderstanding or get ready to say goodbye.

 

You might have more success locally than with a customer service representative from some far flung outpost of the form British Empire.

 

The guaranteed card payment may be related to the cheque but the charges would not come out until 21 days after the statement date. If the charges came out shortly after the cheque was returned then the charges are not related to the cheque. They are reclaimable but until the OP understands how the charges work now, we might not be any further forward apart from the fact that they can reclaim. If they guaranteed the cheque then they may find more charges next month.

[Patma]

Hi,

Nothing has been deducted from my account as yet. I've just received notification that I have incurred the charges. The notification came in two letters, one for the Guaranteed Card Payment Fee of £35 and the other for the Paid Referral Fee.

I know they must refer to the cheque because I haven't gone over my limit on any other occasion for at least 6 months.

 

I don't know if it's just me, but I get sooo confused trying to work out when charges and interest are debited:confused: and can't help wondering if they've made it complicated in the hope they can claw in more money. When it happened at the end of the month, I knew where I stood and always made sure there was a bit of money spare left in the account to cover interest.

[Patma]

I was notified that a total of £63 is to be deducted from my account on 13th November for the following reasons......

£35 is to be deducted because I spent £7 on my debit card. on my statement this appears before my account went over my £350 overdraft limit, but it was the same day and a £28 maintenance charge.

The cheque I wrote to the Vet for £71 which cleared the next day is what sent my account over the authorised overdraft limit by £49.

I wrote to Customer service but they've sent back the standard reply saying their charges are fair and reasonable and they won't do anything about it.

My question is now whether it's better for me to cease using this account and not have my money paid into it and claim back the charges, which they will presumably levy next week.

As my overdraft will be pretty near it's limit, the charges may send it over again and presumably incur more charges, so would it be best to ensure I leave £63 within my overdraft limit if I possibly can?

I'm thinking I'll open a current account with another bank and gradually reduce my overdarft with Natwest, then close it.

[davefirewalker]

Hi

 

I made a payment by debit card of £2.00 over the internet (which was authorised and cleared and paid on a saturday) , the following monday they took out a charge of £30 which put me over the limit....then decided to charge me a card referral fee for the £2.00 the upshot of that is that I got charged £28 "maintenance fee" + £35 card referral fee that's £63 for a £2.00 payment that went through and was authorised. ??????

 

wrote a disgusted letter and got back the usual guff about fair and transparent.

 

swiftly followed by me telling them what I thought about their "thievery" and for them to make a note that I would be reclaiming all charges when the OFT case was finally decided.....(was going to do that in any case )

 

its maddening

 

on a further point a friend of mine has his business account with Nastywest and a business mortgage for his building........never gone over the overdraft limit ...never missed a mortgage payment......and they called both in with no notice :O :O

 

barstewards

 

Dave

[Patma]

I decided to pay a visit to my local branch to see if I could persuade them to do something about the charges so I made a point of saying loud and clear so that everyone could hear me that I wanted to see someone about bank charges imposed on my account which I believed were unfair and excessive.I was quickly hustled into a little room, without sound proofing and did manage to get the charges reduced somewhat and pointed out that I shall be reclaiming the rest in due course.

It turned out that the £28 charge has been reduced to £20 and the £35 is now £15, so that got the cost down by £28 for now.These are the new pricing structure which comes in this month anyway I think.

Dave if your charge was levied recently, it might be worth seeing if you can get it reduced to the new level at least for now.

[davefirewalker]

Dave if your charge was levied recently, it might be worth seeing if you can get it reduced to the new level at least for now.

 

 

no matter ......I'm going for them in a big way soon and RBS

 

Then its Barclays........

 

Dave

[indebtstudent]

"Does that mean it's allowed to clear instantly I wonder? Because if so everyone needs to beware of this happening."

 

Cheques usually take some time to clear but I'm pretty sure the usually advice is NEVER to write a cheque unless the funds are there.

 

No its not you that gets confused about charges and interest going onto the account. Giving 28 days notice is better than applying the charges straight away...

 

But its always bugged me. Instead of saying, as it does on Nationwide statements, the charges/interest will come of 28 days from the date of this statement why don't they state the EXACT date.

 

One could make the argument it is delberately made confusing to cause more charges. But then we already knew that

 

I agree that, whatever the statues of the charges, it does not seem right to be charged once for the same issue (the cheque). Unfortunately this is one of the negative delopments in the charges issue, banks digging thier heels in and insisting nothing can be done until the resolution of the test case. Prior to this most banks would've waived the first charge (or charges) provided it was a genuine error.

[Patma]

no matter ......I'm going for them in a big way soon and RBS

 

Then its Barclays........

 

Dave

Good for you. Please keep us informed of how it goes.

[Patma]

Does that mean it's allowed to clear instantly I wonder? Because if so everyone needs to beware of this happening."

 

Cheques usually take some time to clear but I'm pretty sure the usually advice is NEVER to write a cheque unless the funds are there.

 

I raised this issue the other day in the bank and was told that cheques can clear immediately if the person you made the cheque out to, banks in the same branch as you do.

I certainly agree that they make it as confusing as they can. I'm trying to decide which bank to move to now, but they all seem as bad as one another.