Bit of a pity party, sorry

[CatKisser]

After years of being rubbish with money, I've been gradually getting myself together. Debt down to 3k and this month I budgeted £100 for a party for my 30th. Have been monitoring my account carefully. Doing well and on track to get to the end of the month with money left (unheard of recently.)

Just checked account. £85 taken out today by EDF. I recently set up a dd with them for £85, due to commence on 3rd October. Why on earth has this come out now? Can I get it back? I'm quite upset - I now have £50 to last until Sept 30th... Why has this happened?

If you contact your bank then I'm pretty certain they will return the money to you under the direct debit guarantee.

Enjoy your party and well done for getting your debt down.

Sorry, I was typing fast so the party comment sounded irrelevant - I meant I'd budgeted £100 and still have a bit of money left at the end of the month so I'm doing well this month.
Checked account this morning and it's down even more NatWest have taken their account fee and overdraft fee out - I have GOT to get this money back! Tried to ring natwest bit it's seems actually impossible to talk to a human.
Stressing.

First thing you need to do is switch to a free, basic account with no extras. The paid ones are a complete rip off.
Next thing is go through your statement and find out when every DD comes out. Try toove them all to just after pay day. This made me far more confident that my bank balance was telling me the truth.
And definitely get on the phone to EDF and play merry hell!

Confused, thanks! All my DDs come out just after pay day except the NatWest fees which I dont think I can change the date of. This unexpected one was...well, unexpected! However, it seems it was my fault for not reading through my bumf carefully.

I don't think any decent accounts will be available to me as I have crap credit and a £1600 OD that needs shifting first.

Ring EDF and ask them to return the money on a FPI, it hits your account faster that way.

Then google their CEO's email address and complain to them, you might get extra paid in as compensation.

Try applying for a Halifax account, the one that gives you £5 a month if you pay in over a certain amount, you'll get £100 if you let them shut your NatWest account and they might be able to take the od on too, If you don't ask you don't get.

I wouldn't pay a bank account fees, those packaged accounts are a rip off. If any of the benefits don't apply to you or you were told you had to have a packaged account to get an OD you can apply to have all the fees returned.

Your EDF bill seems high, do you rely on electric for heating?/

Thanks for the tip about the Halifax - my friend uses that account and says it's good. You're right - i need to ASK about these things.
EDF is a fair amount as I'm paying off a previous bill, which is incorporated in the £85. I don't have heating so only electricity I use is lighting and kitchen stuff. I'm happy with EDF in general, but I do think they should have explained that £85 would be coming out at the end of the month.

Also, it seems I'm a mug for having to pay for my bank account - don't most people have accounts like this?

I used to but stopped it over a year ago. All you need is the most basic account Nat West offer which comes with a debut card. I actually lasted over 3 years on a cash only account. Everything paid either by cash or DD.

I have a paid for account as the £10 covers smart phone insurance for all three phones in our houses which is really cheap.

No.

It can be cheaper if it saves you buying travel insurance but or you get mobile phone cover cheaper.

BUT

You can get those cheaper buying singly using cashback sites.

To put your leccy bill into context, we pay £26 a month and I only work part time. The cat gets a hot water bottle in his bed during the day.

I've got 3 bank accounts, business, personal and joint and I don't pay fees on any of them. Dh has the halifax one too.

I'll dig out what moneysavingexperts say on account fees and you can see if you'd qualify for a refund.

Fluffy I challenge you to find I phone insurance for less than £3.34 a month .

Actually getting scared about how much of my money goes on nothingness. Interest, charges, fees.
Having a minor panic.

Don't panic. It's all fixable you know. I'm sure I read on mse that if you were told a packaged account was the only way to access an od it's mis-selling.

I never even counted up all my debts, I got scared at the £10k I had on cc and od. God knows how much I owed in tax. Even now I don't want to add it up.

Soon I cannot beat that. I did a quote for my sony & it came out as £1.45 a month. But I'm on payg, if I lose it then I've not lost anything expensive. Plus no ones going to steal my phone. They just wouldn't want to.

I wonder if these packaged accounts are like credit expert etc where you ring to cancel & magically get offered a 90% discount?.

I've had a mobile for 20 years . Never had insurance.

Not sure if it's necessary.

I definitely think a hot water bottle for the cat is an essential though

I didn't bother with insurance until I got an Iphone.

depending on your income we have a 123 Santander account and get cash back on our bills, every month about 15 pounds and no fee, but comes with no extras and probably interest on an od (we never use ours)

How on earth is your leccy bill so cheap, Fluffy, if you don't mind me asking?! I'm the only one in my house and work full time!! Apparently my current useage is £42/month (the rest of the £85 is to cover the previous debt) and I thought 42 was very reasonable!
(ps Im so glad other people give their cats hot water bottles too....)

Thanks Super, that's interesting about the cashback. I know nothing about Santander but there's one in town so I will take a look.
Another reason I want to leave Natwest is the fact the nearest branch is over 15 miles away - quite inconvenient.

Under the Direct Debit Guarantee scheme your bank needs to refund you immediately. They will refund you from their own funds and then obtain the money back from EDF. This is your right.

Ask them to action this as the direct debit is 'not yet due' as the reason.
If for some reason they cannot do this then they need to agree a temporary overdraft limit for the amount of the direct debit (free of charge) until the money is refunded back to your account.

If they refuse any of the above then you need to raise an official complaint.

Hope this helps.

superbagpuss Santander123 charges £2 a month although the cashback on bills usually negates this. You can get a bit of interest on it too.

OP - scream at the bank for a refund under the direct debit guarantee. Then raise a formal complaint with EDF demanding compensation. Do it by phone as emails are usually ignored.

Npower did the same to me and look like they will be cocking up again as their IT simply does not work and they won't believe it. £75 in compo so far this year.

Soon I drop ALL my phones so that's why I only have a cheapy phone. If I had an all singing and dancing IPhone 6 I'd want it covered.

Cat
Where to start? LED lightbulbs in as many fittings as possible, induction hob in the kitchen, halogen oven for most cooking, kettle an eco one from phillips and only filled with as much water as needed, tv only on for short spells because we only watch catch up so we don't need a licence, water heated on gas (if I had an electric shower I'd turn the damn thing off altogether) dishwasher run on the eco cycle, washing machine run on the cold cycle, everything bar the central heating control turned off at the wall, spin dryer instead of a tumble dryer, freezer defrosted monthly, fridge set to lowest setting, E-Cloth mop which doesn't need hot water, windows opened instead of running the extractor fans.

I'm not a big fan of power companies, I think with the profit they make they could provide better insulation for the housing stock in this country. Free energy saving light bulbs will knock a bit off the bill but what's needed is A rated boilers.

But, on the other hand why should they?. This is why the green deal was launched but its not well understood so takeup is minimal.

special thanks for the clarification, I guess I hadn't noticed the charge as we are in a net gain process

Oh and a slow cooker. Flipping love that slow cooker.

the green deal is plain stupid. It is incredibly difficult and risky to get through, and costs a bomb for all concerned. You have to jump through loads of hoops and (I suspect, I didn't follow it through) that the suppliers you are forced to use charge more. They certainly overcharge for the EPC and one you already have isn't valid.

simple measures:

• remove VAT on insulation and new boilers

too simple. Doesn't need consultants. Costs us all less. Doesn't happen.

Yep, it's about £300 just for the assessment.

I think take up is embarrassingly low.

I'm with natwest and they can recall a direct debit on the same day it comes out I have had to do this- used live chat online option)