Bank charges on unknown overdraft

[Mankens]

Whilst a student and unemployed I ordered some books from Amazon. On Amazon the website retains your card details. I hadn’t used my old account for a while and when I bought the books it asked me did I want to make a payment with the saved card information and I said yes not knowing it had retained my old details.

 

I believed the card to be my student account card, because my other personal account card had been inactive for several months and I know longer used it.

During this time I moved and changed address.

 

 

I didn’t inform my bank because it was one of those things; I never got round to it and in actual fact forgot about the account entirely as I didn’t use it. It was only when I got a letter claiming I owed £700 in overdraft fees did I know anything about it.

 

 

I complained that this was ridiculous, as my bank account had no money in it when I purchased the books, why was it processed, it should have been denied. How can you possibly pay for something when you have no money in your account? It was explained to me that it was in my contract, please bear in mind I had this account from the age of 12 years old and never signed anything after this age, that I could take money from the bank, when there was no money in my account, and I would receive penalty fares.

 

As I knew nothing about the over-draft penalty the overdraft was allowed to mount up to £700 by which time they then decided to freeze my account. They asked for the money to be re-paid but as a student who was unemployed this was not possible and so I began repaying the money to CLS at £5.00 a month.

 

 

I’m still repaying this money years later and I wonder is this was legal? To charge £700 in overdraft fees when I had never agreed to have an overdraft in the first place.

Thanks

Edited September 4, 2012 by citizenB
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[citizenB]

Was there a period of 6 years where no money was paid to this account ?

[BankFodder]

Also, what age were you when you bought the books?