Barclaycard....Advice needed

Plenty of other people have.

At 21:05:31 on 14/07/2006, Peter Saxton delighted uk.legal by announcing:

Then you should contact them. Their own website states that "You'll also be given plenty of time to check the bill before the payment is made."

Then you should follow the complaints procedure and contact the ombudsman.

Then they are breaching the rules and deserve to have their knuckles rapped.

Yes it does. Either that or being dragged through the courts, and jeopardising their DD licence.

You think I don't contact them? They are run by idiots. Many websites are full of statements that are not true. They said that it was the fault of Royal Mail. I said they chose to use Royal Mail, they should use a supplier that delivers quicker. They said they could send the bill by email. I said yes but I also wanted a paper copy (due to the need to prove address). They said they couldn't do that. Another example of incompetence - their computer system only allowed one choice of delivery.

That makes paying by direct debit a lot of hassle and a perfect reason to try to avoid paying by that method.

That still doesnt mean I am not inconvenienced by direct debit.

No it doesn't. An obligation doesn't mean that you should mindlessly assume that companies adhere to their obligations. The whole point I am making is that, despite a few people saying that DDs are good because there are rules, having rules doesn't mean that everyone will take notice of them. You sound like one of these people who thinks that there are rules against bank robberies so that must mean that nobody will try to rob a bank!

[snip]

We were told otherwise before, IIRC, so thanks for clearing that one up.

Banks get robbed by people who willingly break the law.

But *banks* cannot get away with deliberately refusing to honour the DD guarantee. Yes, there are the occasional idiots to be found in the lower echelons of bank staff who mistakenly think you need to provide evidence that you have been wronged, and it must be scrutinised before a refund is considered, or who will try to fob you off by asking you to take the matter up with the merchant, but this is "a training issue" and these things are sent to try us and it's up to us to escalate the matter where necessary to get the monkeys trained.

The DD guarantee is cast-iron and absolutely safe. CCAs, on the other hand, are best avoided.

Alex wrote: [snip]

How do the issuers "correct" the card details ?

What's wrong with paying online at a time convenient to you?

At 22:33:53 on 15/07/2006, Peter Saxton delighted uk.finance by announcing:

DDs for certain services can reduce your bill, but otherwise nothing. Of course, there are still those strange people who don't have (or trust) that interweb. Some people still pay everything by cheque!

1) It's more tedious than it happening automatically 2) It can be forgotten 3) You can make a mistake

I have one of my credit cards set up to DD the full balance from my bank each month. Never any problem. I have another card set up so that I have to make the payment explicitly. Usually, after the bill comes, I go online and schedule the payment in advance, to take place a few days before it is due, which is exactly what you are suggesting.

(Actually I didn't really get into online banking until about 5 years ago or so, previously I always made the explicit payments by cheque over the counter at a bank).

Sometimes, I put the bill aside to pay it later but then (2) happens. To mitigate the dire consequences of this I then changed it to DD the minimum payment each month, so I still have to manually remit the difference between the full balance and the minimum payment, but if I forget, at most I pay some interest, but no penalty/admin charges.

Recently I fell victim to (3) and not only forgot to subtract the minimum payment, but I also managed to transpose two digits in the amount, as a result of which my card account was overpaid to the tune of nearly £100.

I have a system where I go to my online bank every morning and I don't find it tedious.

I have a tray with payments due which I look at every morning.

I can't remember any case of me making a mistake whereas I remember several cases of suppliers making mistakes with DDs.

Well in advance might be a couple of hours to some people

Still doesn't get your immediate problem solved.

At 21:09:35 on 15/07/2006, Fergus O'Rourke delighted uk.finance by announcing:

Is this a trick question? They send the correct details back to the retailer.

"Alex" wrote

Do they ask the cardholder if they are happy with this, before they go distributing their personal details to someone they may no longer have a relationship with?

[DPA implications?]

"Ronald Raygun" wrote

They will be listed as exceptions where I placed "..." above!

"Ronald Raygun" wrote

Which is why he telephoned the insurer...

"Ronald Raygun" wrote

How would a prankster manage to get the Direct Debit cancelled?

"Ronald Raygun" wrote

Exactly!

"Ronald Raygun" wrote

Wouldn't that be against the T&C of the card? The cardholder agrees not to make transactions that exceed the credit limit; therefore, (s)he *cannot* (properly) authorise a payment of a "non-specific" amount...

"Ronald Raygun" wrote

Wouldn't that mean that the retailer could *unilaterally* turn a "one-off" into a CCA, without the cardholder's authority?

"Ronald Raygun" wrote

But it wouldn't know if the cardholder had given such authority!

By doing so over the phone and pretending to be the insured.