Something that still boggles me.

[ffutures]

I paid my last mastercard bill in cash, in full, and in a branch of the issuing bank (NatWest) on 1st May. Payment was due on the 5th. When I got my next statement they'd charged me a late payment fee and interest; my payment was shown as received on 6th May.

I phoned and queried this, and after a lot of hassle they agreed to refund the charge (though I forgot to ask about interest, and I'm waiting to see if they refund it - if not they will be hearing from me again); their version of this is that they can't guarantee that it will take less than five working days for payment to travel from the bank to their computers and for the amount to be credited. And there was a weekend and a bank holiday in between.

Does anyone else think it odd that they can remove cash from my account in a few seconds, but it takes nearly a week for the electrons to travel from the cashier's computer to theirs - which should be a completely automatic process? Do they shunt into sidings on weekends and public holidays?

It's a couple of weeks till I get the next statement, and if it isn't sorted in full I think that the Banking Ombudsman will be my next port of call. The amount is fairly trivial, the principle isn't.

Comments

[epocalypse.livejournal.com]

Take it to the ombudsman anyway.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I think that the bank can claim that they don't _have_ to give me the refund since I didn't give the full five working days. But if I get the late payment fee refunded, I want the interest back too.

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

I've got a topper for you. My Bank of America credit card is automatically paid from my Bank of America account using online Bank of America software. Yet every now and then they'll charge me a late fee until I complain, and then they reverse it. Luckily I can complain online.

I really suspect they do it because some large section of the population doesn't notice the fee. Several banks ago I'd have to periodically reverse a mysterious $77 debit that would appear every few months... they'd always reverse it, but they could never identify it.

Or how about earlier this month, when my mortgage company auto-withdrew TWO mortgage payments in the same month?

Banks suck, and you need to keep a close eye on them.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Believe me, I do. One of the reasons I don't have automatic payments set up is that I really don't trust the buggers if I'm not watching.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Standard, I'm afraid. Years ago the Countess paid some cash into her account at the branch where the account was held and was told that would take three days to get in.

Banks will do whatever they can get away with to get more money out of you. And they can get away with just about anything.

[learnedhand-dj.livejournal.com]

This is not a UK-specific phenomenon. Over here in the US, my bank has several signs up warning about writing checks before the money is in the account, because the money can come out of your account within 24 hours of the recipient depositing it. But, when I deposit a check, they will only allow me immediate access to $100 of it, and make me wait three business days before I can access the rest of it. If it is an out-of-state check, I have to wait seven business days. Considering how the entire banking industry relies on electronic transfers, everybody knows this is a scam to allow the bank to hold onto your money for longer (and thus make more money off of it), but here in the "regulation-is-evil" US, there's not much we can do about it. I wish we had a Banking Ombudsman.

[robertprior.livejournal.com]

I'll go one worse with this.

Years ago I used to use the Bank of Montreal (not for nothing are they called "BM"). When I moved, I opened a new account at a branch in the city I moved to, and asked if they could transfer the money from my old account to the new one. No problem, they could.

Then I tried to withdraw of of that money. No luck, it was being "held" until the funds "cleared" the source. I checked, and they were already gone from my original bank account. $10,000 was untouchable for a week. When I closed my account shortly after, I made certain to tell BM this was the reason…

[inamac.livejournal.com]

Barclays have done that twice to me in the past couple of months (like all banks they've been cutting down the time between billng and payment cuttoff for heir 'good' payers) - I queried it when I paid the next bill and they immediately offered a refund - and then used the opportunity to 'sell' me the direct debit payment option.

If I were of a suspicious nature I'd wonder whether this wasn't a sales ploy...