Is there anything we can do?

[julezboo]

Hi there

On friday afternoon we put £40 in my car at sainsburys.Paid by card. Drove down to cornwall so no access to a natwest machine or online at all. had a lovely weekend but today dp has checked his bank and they have taken the £40 off the card today!! 5 days later and this has put him overdrawn and therefore a charge of £38 on the account. Something we cant afford at the moment with tax credits dragging their feet. Can we complain or something?

banks processing closes at 4pm fridays
bank holidat monday
processing would start tuesday so charge would be applied at midnight wednesday
no complaints but you can complain about the amount of the charge.
Do you not balance your account at all?

I thought if you paid by card it is suppost to come straight off your card?

midnight tuesday whoooops

well it's quite normal for shops to take the money 5 days later so you can't get all of the money back, but 30 quid is excessive - you can write a stroppy letter and get it reduced to 12. hang on a min, I'll find the instructions.

No there is nothing you can do. It's down to you to manage your money not Sainsburys I'm affraid. They will just say you should have left £40 until they took their money. If you don't usually go overdrawn it might be worth ringing the bank and asking them to refund the charges as a gesture of goodwill. It's worth a shot, sometimes they do refund the charges but only if you have an unblemished record usually.

scooby: no, shops have up to 6 months to take the money. our local shop charged 2 months worth in one go once (and I hadn't noticed). it hurt.

here

Cant remember the poster who mentioned money coming right out of the account, it wasnt a credit card, it was a solo card so money has to be there to use it.1 So surely if money wasnt there today the card cant be used.

We do balance the account but we were on a weekend away, we couldnt find no where to check the balance till yesterday, we still had money then so assumed it had come out already.

debit cards rarely come out same day esp on fridays.
Your bank makes an angreemetn to pay when your debit card is used, ie : the machine checks with your bank that the card is ok and there are funds at that time
However the money is not transferred until humans are there IYSWIM
I think you'll get little sympathy from your bank tbh, if this is only a one off they may let you off the charge. Worth ringing

ive told dp to ring the ban but hes not one for complaining, in the last 3 weeks we have had a fair amount of £39 charges - we are struggling at the mo because we are £100 from tax credits!!! But thats a whole other thread lol

Try www.consumercreditgroup.co.uk and click on bank charges on the left.Alternatively check another thread on this legal forum-says something like -bank charges over 12.00 and about 480 responses. Its a long process but you can claim all your bank charges back over the last 6 years !

Presumably the money wasn't there on Friday either though , if you've not made a withdrawal since, so you'd still be OD. Sorry but when you know things are so tight you just have to keep a closer eye on it and don't think the delay inn processing is the real issue.

If you'd been slapped with an unexpected charge before the weekend which put him OD when the £40 went through then you may have something to argue about. Yes the charges are a pita, and steep, but it doesn't sound as if £100 is the solution on its own anyway.

Money was there on fri as dp got paid. We went away for the weekend so money obviously got spent on deposits and stuff, we assumed it had come out already as this has never happened before. We wil be claiming back our bank charges though and on one last note.... tax credits are silly!! they are the reason we are in a mess!!!

julezbo - go on moneysavingexpert dot com and read the article re claiming back your bank charges.
This issue is your responsibility and you do need to pay a charge, but the amounts you have been getting charged are way too high and you can get the difference back