"All banks require at least a day’s notice before the Direct Debit is due to be paid and it is best to check how long your bank needs to do this as it could be as much as three days." Whilst this may be true personally I'd argue the point. The DD guarantee says you can cancel a direct debit at anytime. When I worked at Nationwide provided it was done prior to midnite then it was ok. I would always recommend cancelling it as early as possible though. Did you incur any charges as a result of this? I have recently discovered there is more to the DD guarantee that just the little bit they send out to customers.

Just wondering if there's any value in going to the Ombudsmen with this. Sure the OP can change companies, in this situation I know NPower would change the meter provided the person had been paying for 12 months. So that's one option, it would take a year but you wouldn't have to shell out any money. However it does seem unfair to me that the policies differ so much, given that a referral to the ombudsmen would cost them much time, effort and money I'd consider that course of action. This is particularly so if they still charge a premium for prepayment meters. They are effectively forcing you to stay on a more expensive tariff IF that is the case. Finally any vulnerability? Any young children? Any old people? Anyone chronically sick? If you have any of the above then I think they have to fit a credit meter. Good luck Ps I genuinly don't know which companies do charge a premium and which don't I think its about 50/50 among the big six.

If I was marking that post I'd give you a partial credit. Whilst I agree it is clear individuals can still pursue thier own seperate they DO need to POC's. The OFT case closed down the penalties route which many people have relied upon so using the same POC's is not a good idea. I still think its worth a shot particularly with regard to consent. Of what value is consent when the only choice an individual is between virtually identical (and unfair) terms and conditions. It is of no value whatsoever.

You should write back saying you understand that they have violated the law and that there are not prepaed to do something about it because thier system won't allow them to. Well done for resisting the urge to ask them why thier staff cannot read, I often get the urge to ask that myself when they struggle to address simple points made in plain english.

If you've been on a prepayment meter for 14 years they why not ask to have it removed? I believe most companies would do it free of charge as you've been paying regularly.

It is of great concern to me that the letters I and others have recieved seem to suggest this is an open and shut case which is very much not what the test case resulted in. I'm going to borrow from the one template I've seen on here and propose a compromize. At least if they then apply to have the stay lifted I can show the court I've made an effort to settle, and hopefully the new arguments will be ready to deploy by then.

This is the same letter I had, I'm glad it means what I thought it means I was a little worried the bank could ask for the stay to be removed but then why would they, does the bit about having tried to settle the claim apply to both sides? I figure I may aswell respond to thier letter making it known that I'm not a muppet whos just going to accept thier legal advice at face value. I'll update my thread and post the link so you guys can pick the letter apart, oops erm I mean refine and improve! lol

Eh??? So thier response is we can change the conditions whenver we see fit and you will be bound by them unless you can clear the balance immediately? Ok ok I'm going to stop the fake surprise now. Natwest's letter re the test case is also mis-leading IMO. Shocker. Damn I did it again, ok I promise this time. I may write to my MP about the imbalance between the two parties in general now the OFT has bowed out and the extremely questionable position taken by Halifax. I don't bank with them but I am horrified and remain concerned others will try it on, a lot like bank charges, non dd charges etc etc. The line must be drawn here, this far and no further! If anybody is proposing any co-odrinated action I would be happy to assist.

I'm in two minds on this, on the one hand you should have noticed that no monies were taken for FIVE MONTHS on a service you were using. That said if there was no notification personally I would contact them and try to angle for a goodwill gesture. Regarding the direct debit guarantee I don't think it will apply for the reasons Buzby gives, however most banks will refund the money whilst it is investiagated. Again I have limited sympathy because you should've known they had made an error but, that said it WAS thier error and therefore it would not have been unreasonable for them to allow you more time to pay. The key question I think is were you notified of this? It is unclear from your first post if you were unaware of this because you had not been notified or because you had not checked the bill. If it was a system glitch there's a good chance they are expecting to make some goodwill gestures.

Just had a thought re bankruptcy, the main thing putting me off it is the whole lose the car thing. But the car I now drive I am still paying my dad for, would this make any difference? I've done the CCCS debt tool a few times and it seems to come up with a different suggestion each time.

I have not sent a letter, but I will be sending one along those lines. I also going to include something along the lines of contrary to some coverage in the media this claim is not part of some get rich quick scheme. (customer) was charged £3000 on top of a £1000 OD. Once the first charge was incurred there was nothing he could do. He also had MPPI which did not pay out, but they 'don't have any record' of that complaint even though they replied to it! They are answering a question which was not asked. It is not so much were the charges in the T & C's as is it fair to increase somebodies indebtness by this proportion when you can see they are not working. I'll also throw something in there about the nature of consent. If I consent to something because somebody has a gun to my head that would not be consent in the legal sense. Similarly customer 'consent' to the terms and conditions because they cannot change them and there is a carel in operation.

Recieved letter dated 7th Jan relating to brother claim. "We refer to your complaint relating to unarranged overdraft charges which was previously on hold under the terms of the FSA waiver. The Waiver has not lapsed and we are therefore writing to you to respond to your complaint. We consider your complaint to have been about the leve and, accordingly, the fairness or unlawfulness of these charges. As you will be aware from when we last wrote to you, we (with several other banks) entered into agreed legal proceedings with the Office of Fair Trading in relation to unarranged overdraft charges on 27 July 2007 ro gain clarity on this issue. Following the judgment of the Supreme Court on 25 Nov 2009, the test case process is now complete. In our view, the judgement of the Supreme Court means that the level of the unarranged overdraft charges you have complained about cannot be assessed under Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 or challenged under the common law penalty doctrine. We do not believe that there is any other legal basis on which the level of these charges can be challenged. We are satisfied that the charges you seek to reclaim were properly charges and the outcome of the legal proceedings confirms our position. Blah blah blah" The bit in bold stands out to me as this is simply not true, the very text of the judgment confirms there IS another legal avenue. In line with the instructions of the court we have to attempt to settle this amicable so I'm going to write back thanking them for thier legal advice but pointing out thier error. Also I'm going to point out the inconsistancy in thier position on charges, first £12, then £38 and now £5. If the fees had been £5 initially then the debt would not have gone from £1000 authorized OD th £4000, £3000 of which was unauthorized. Its incredible that, even at this stage, they still make mis-leading claims. Surely such a document should stick to the facts and thier policies not some ill considered statement about the law?

Clearly the best way forward is to have bank charges of £1 million, that way virtually anyone who incurs a charge goes bankrupt. I am only half joking, this is the problem with the situation at the moment. There's nothing to stop them charging that much and some, elsehwhere, argue that there should be no limit on the amount they can charge. Utterly clueless. If the head guy knew nothing about the recent changes at Halifax then who made the decision to do it???? Ps why hasn't the OFT already called in the competition commission given the conerns it has about charges and current accounts in general?

Not really since it'll differ from bank to bank. Hoever in principle I don't see why a cash transaction should be treated any differently to an electronic transfer where they'd have to write the to individual concerned, or thier bank, and ask for the money back. Maybe its different if the person was still in the branch, but what were they doing for 25 minutes???

"have also asked them to send me a copy of the document I must have signed agreeing to their right to unilaterally vary their terms. it will be intersting to see if this turns up!" There won't be such a document, it will say something like they can vary the terms so long as they advise you. Which is fine, the issue here is people are saying thanks for the notification, I do not accept the news terms. Frankly I cannot see how they think thier position of tough is in anyway acceptable.

"Excellent work and look forward to seeing what they come back with after your letter." Lets hope they don't take the Halifax approach, no further correspondance will be entered into. Can they even do that I mean under FSA guidelines and such? AA99 all of what you say people have been saying for a long time. Is it in there interest of a business, any business, to allow a customer to incur debts they cannot pay? I'd say not, but banks don't seem to grasp this. They are willing to gamble most people will pay up, with no thought for the potential consequences.

In Nationwide I believe the tapes were only kept for a week, but this was the physical one which we changed in the branch. I would guess there is a backup made... If the timescale is 25 minutes what was that person doing in that time? I don't really see how wheter or not they have left the branch is relevent since, if thise were an electronic payment, the transaction would not be cancelled in such a manner. In fact when you setup a standing order or a bill payment they tell you to be carful as they cannot recover it (IMHO they can but its not straight forward). Their system does seem to be open to abuse, I hope the OP gets some joy. though obviously I'm sure they will learn from this and indeed have already. Just a minor point I can recall when at Nationwide if there was a clear mix up, eg cashier mis-reading the account no and crediting a cheque to the wrong account, if we hadn't heard from the original account holder we would write to them. But this was only usually done if time had elapsed, and was probably more of an old school thing long serving staff did rather than a rule.

I believe LLoyds did the same, don't know if they still do. Nationwide give 28 days notice, although they don't state the exact date on the statement. Although applying the charges later has its own set of problems it is IMO better than applying them right away.

I know where you are coming from but I think option B might apply, if I'm bored one day I might fire off an e-mail to the CEO of BT... I'm under-whelmed by OTELO too if I'm honest. They said they can't intervene as he first complained over twelve months ago. I explained to them that 1. No complaint was ever logged as thier position was that, as far as thier system was concerned, he did not exist. 2. In taking this position OTELO was effectively rewarding a company for ignoring a complaint. All they have to is ignore it for a year and you can't take it to OTELO. 3. OTELO state they need a deadlock letter to get involved, but I could not obtain this for the reasons listen above.

Just thought I'd let you know the £50 was refunded via cheque, no other info (or apology) sent. The most annoying thing was at all points they agreed 100% that the refund should be made but could not find it.

No I haven't, they are snowed under at the moment anyway and I feel I could get the same info from the likes of CCCS and National Debtline. They have referred me to Payplan for the DMP, the advisor suggested considering an IVA even though the SOA shows a surplus of only £126 this must be an error surely??? I have another question re default notices, if a bank issues one do they have to stop chargingin interest? Do they usually? I can't find this info anyway.

Fat lot of good that did, what we need is LEGISLATION to outlaw this kind of over charging, along with those fees companies charge simply for taking payments (surely a basic neccesity of business since the dawn of time?). Anyway I just popped in to sub and say best of luck.

"IF THE BANK CAN ACCESS INTO MY ACCOUNT BY THE 3RD PERSON'S REQUEST, THIS FRAUD CAN BE USED VARIOUS TYPES OF SCAMS IMHO." I very much agree and I am staggered at the banks position. Does it say in the conditions of the account if some bloke makes a deposit then asks for it back we'll give it to him without consulting the account holder? I should think now. This is like a gift to hustlers!!! I cannot understand why they have not looked at the CCTV footage immediately, they would if they had been stolen from. It doesn't really matter who the cashier was, other than that IMO they have made a monumental cock up. That 'rule' sounds more like a rule of thumb. I mean if you make an electronic transfer they tell you if the info is wrong you can't get it back, so how is cash any different? I am not certain of this but I would've thought once the deposit is made the transaction is done, the money is yours. I would've thought this could only be reversed if there was clear error on the part of the bank. And as I said before do cashier have the authority to void deposits to this value? That is open to abuse, the manager of deputy must've had some input.

The fee is essentially to cover the costs of the scheme, that's why it is paid by the banks. If consumers had to pay it then it would bring ability to pay as a factor in complaining (you know a lot like the courts!). "and I will be telling them I will make a FOS report and let them know it will cost them £450. I fancy I should tell them its for spite and I am encoraging as many 100s of people I can tell, to do the same...... Or should I not say this? Is it really true that each complaint costs that much? Surely the FOS will already have had 100s of these identical complaints, and dont need to investigate each one. Wouldnt they just send a template reply to each complainant?" Oh dear this is what I was afraid of. NO definately do not tell them you know the costs of the FOS and that you are doing this out of spite. Put yourself in the position of the person who looks at the claim. If you have the impression that this person complained just because it would cost the company money you are not going to be sympathetic to them are you? I also would not mention inciting other people to do the same. Your only concern is your own account, even if you also believe the practice is generally unfair. Far better to say something to Halifax like as you have not in anyway addressed my complaint I feel I have no alternative but to take the matter to the FOS. IMO the FOS will not be impressed with Halifax's no further correspondance, becuase its not really a proper final response. A final response should be something like we've looked at your complaint and we cannot uphold it because... Which fair enough really, all companies have policies. What you may find is that they sing an entirely different tune when they hear from the FOS. This might be because the complaint gets in front of someone with some authority to make a decision, or it could be because they fear what the FOS might order. So to sum up mention the FOS, but don't mention the costs. Be businesslike, and above all appear reasonable. I do think, as a seperate issue, this issue does need some publicity as it seems to flout some basic legal principles.

Very good work, if I understand correctly thier position is best summed up as we presume to know what is best for our customer. WOW, just wow. I'm glad my brain retained that bit of random information and hope you get somewhere on this.