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Right - I know I'm putting myself up for a flaming from those of us who NEVER get bank charges, and who think that those of us who do are inept, clueless, child-brained twits with no grasp of real life.
However; about four months ago, I sat down, did some sums and decided I'd like to clear my overdraft with the RBS. I worked out that it was eminently do-able but that things would be a bit tight for the next year.
Month one went fine - didn't have to resort to beans on toast, just stayed away from CRC etc. Month two, went overdrawn by £8 and didn't notice until I got an email saying my online advice-of-charges was ready to view - it was about £80. This meant that next month's payment put me back into the red and culminated in a not-so-happy phone call to the bank today.
The long and the short of it is that they want £336 in charges for a total of 30 days in the red (one period of 11 days, one of 19 days).
OK so I involuntarily broke the rules, but to end up in this state over an £8 oversight seems utterly insane - I'm usually pretty careful and manage to keep two other accounts in good working order, without any crazy charges.
They've agreed to refund £80, but as an institution I feel they just aren't playing nicely. Not crying about it, just had to vent somewhere and this seemed as good a place to get flamed as any....
Huge sympathy for you, that's just horrible. It implies that actually you are better running a credit card as their rates aren't anything like as bad 😥
bank in not giving a toss shocker
That is a ridculas amount of charges for such a small oversight. 👿 Once youve cleared your OD, perhaps its time to swap banks.
Yup - I'm actually changing bank with immediate effect - the overdraft is being paid off through a personal loan with the payments coming outof the account in question - it was very slightly cheaper than continuing to pay the interest on the OD, as well as the frankly obscene 'monthly maintenance fee' just for having an OD...
I think it's worth taking some legal advice, that seems excessive. Worth speaking to the Ombudsman too - you're probably not the only one who's been faced with such charges.
RBS will be under great pressure right now to turn a profit so it can be sold back to the private sector and the debt to the taxpayer paid off. For the country as a whole, that's probably a good thing. For individual customers it will mean they will try and make a profit any way they can...
There's a difference IMO between what you were doing which was taking responsibility and trying to clear your debt, and people who run up massive overdrafts without making any attempt to pay them back or pay the fees
Cheers chaps - feeling a bit less punched-in-the-stomach now! brooess - I've a horrible feeling they've got me over a barrel with this one and plan to just suck it up...
Sounds like you're trying to do the right thing, and their charges sound mental! When you said you went £8 overdrawn, was that just £8 overdrawn, i.e. you had £-8 in the bank, or £8 over an agreed overdraft, i.e. £-1008 in the bank?
Looking at the RBS charges structure, I can't see any way you get charged this much just for going slightly overdrawn, you'd need to have them honouring a fair number of transactions while in unauthorised overdraft to incur those higher charges? (they say £6 per day for being in excess, £6 for any bounced items to a maximum of £60 per charging period, and then a range of other charges only applicable if you have dds or cheques honoured.
If they haven't fully explained the charges, get them to do so and make sure it matches what they advertise...
Banks are basically robbing bast*rds. I know from experience!
Can you explain how they came to charge you so much. I get the feeling we're only getting half a story here at the very most.
SBZ, [url= http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/psa-its-apparently-illegal-to-ride-on-the-road-with-a-trailer-and-your-son ]cough cough...[/url] 😉
Sounds like you're trying to do the right thing, and their charges sound mental! When you said you went £8 overdrawn, was that just £8 overdrawn, i.e. you had £-8 in the bank, or £8 over an agreed overdraft, i.e. £-1008 in the bank?
Ian - they gave me a personal loan to the value of my overdraft, resetting my balance to £0.00. The repayments come out of this account. So yes, it was originally -£8 overdrawn.
Northwind - I agree - I've been out since my last post but also can't get it to add up. It includes both reurned item fees and also fees for honouring other DDs etc (the decision seems to be utterly arbitrary)but even with those added, it still doesn't make sense...
Most annoyingly, the second I saw I'd gone into the OD for the second time, I transferred a largish wedge of cash to ensure further charges wouldn't apply. Think I will call again tomorrow (when I'm a little calmer) and get them to go through it as many times as it takes for me to understand.
OK, how have they continued to honour transactions despite you 'only' being £8 overdrawn? Was £8 the starting figure as if you were out by only £8 you'd not expect to see any further debits to the account? However, the mention of two distinct charging periods implies that you put the account back into credit before running up a debit balance.
I don't know if they still do it but RBS used to charge you for every transaction made during the quarter if you had gone over drawn in that quarter.
I got caught out by that when I was a student. I cleared my over draft and had enough in credit to cover the imminent charges due at the end of the quarter but RBS charged me to take out money that was in credit and these charges put me over drawn at the end of the quarter again which would leave me liable for another quarters worth of transaction charges.
At that time RBS would charge you £10 to close your account too.
I don't bank with RBS anymore and never will.
<anecdote>
I got into the same situation with the HSBC a few years ago. Long story short, I rang them up and explained that I was out of work, that the charges were snowball fees due to their own charges, and unacceptable. Particularly galling was that they refused a direct debit due to lack of funds, then charged me for the failed direct debit and took their own (higher) charges directly out of my account.
After a couple of phone calls and me digging my heels in, they refunded the lot.
</anecdote>
Cougar - MemberParticularly galling was that they refused a direct debit due to lack of funds, then charged me for the failed direct debit and took their own (higher) charges directly out of my account.
Why is that galling?
Well don't change banks to first direct.
We went over our overdraft a £100 or so for ONE day due to loads of bloody bank holidays and for some reason it taking 5 working days for my monthly payment from my lloyds account to show up in our joint account. My money leaves my account on the 22nd of each month (now the 20th)
Penalty was a £35 charge, which was waived after much complaining. However we were then charged another £35 for 'reviewing our overdraft limit' (which stayed the same....) this was not refunded.
We are about to change. Santandar look to be the best and offer a £100 switch bonus. However their customer dis-service doesn't have the greatest feedback online either
Go to Barclays as they are great for investments, they will be able to turn your feeble 18 quid into over 300 in less than three months, only if you are overdrawn and it works in their favour, of course. 😉
They've agreed to refund £80, but as an institution that [i]I own 80% of as a Tax Payer[/i], I feel they just aren't playing nicely.
Corrected that for you.