the replies here are quite varied and thanks to everyone who has posted already.
for those of you who asked, no i am not from the banks! i have a couple of friends who work in banks, and bank charges always seem to come up on some conversation every couple of weeks.
the reason why i ask is that recently, through no fault of my own, i went over my overdraft limit. The reason was that my mobile phone company charged me £168.52 rather than the monthly £25. No one at the phone place seemed to know why, but there was no problems sorting this out and i got a refund within a couple of days. The phone company also agreed that they would refund bank charges, i just needed to have a statement that showed that charges were as a result of the phone companies error.
I phoned my bank and asked for this, but they said that there were no chages on my account?
This is what prompted my visit to this site. My bank didn't charge a penny for going o/d. . They also paid, without charge, other DD's that took me further o/d without any charges. My overdraft limit is £1000. Before the incorrect payment went through, my balance was £862.54 debit. Before i noticed the error, two further DD went through my account, one for £58 and one for £72. This took my total balance to 1161.06 debit with a £1000 limit.
I didn't believe that the bank had made no charges. I didn't want to make a fuss with the bank about this in case they made an error, but i politely asked if i would be charged in the future. The person on the phone advised that i should have been charged £75 (£25 each time my account went a further £25 over the limit), but because i had not been over my limit in the past 3 months, they waived any charges. However if the same happened next month, i would be charged.
I think that the bank, in this case, have actually got qutie a fair policy. I will admit that if the charges were £75 that these are high, but for a first 'offense' i was let off. i also found out that the interest charge for the balance over my limit is the same as the balance within my limit, so i paid no more than if my limit would have covered all of the payments.
i am nearly always in my overdraft, but try and manage my accounts so that i never go over my limit. my bank recognised this and so didn't charge.
i think it probably has been said before that the people who are hit hardest by bank charges are those who cannot afford them. i am by no means rich, and £75 would have devistate me, but i had agreed a limit of £1000 and i broke that agreement.
many people have said that if you've agreed with the bank a limit, you should not be allowed to go over this. i my case, the bank actually did a good deed as one direct debit was for my car insurance. if this was not paid, my insurance stops immediately. the other was to cover part of a mortgage payment i share with my partner. if this had not gone through then we may have been in serious trouble.
in case you're interested, my phone company is 02 and my bank, HSBC.