They've taken too much money

[Indebtagain]

We pay our IVA on the 1st of the month and I've just been to back only to find out that they taken £931 instead of the normal £435.

Can they do this as this means we don't have enough for our mortgage this month, we've had no letter about this and have not missed any payments and are not due a review.

I've them but am waiting for them to return my call but being a Saturday I doubt I will hear from them till Monday, so now I have to worry all weekend.

[MelanieGiles]

That is the danger of paying by direct debit rather than standing order. And if your IP was going to be taking more money out they ought to have had the courtesy of advising you about this, unless this is a banking error. Make sure that you contact them urgently first thing Monday morning, and demand to speak to someone in authority.

[Adam Davies]

Hi
You are covered by the direct debit guarantee,ask your bank to refund it[they will no problem]whilst you sort this out.
Did you have any payments from overtime due following a review ?

[Skippy]

You may have to insist that the bank refund the money - a couple of years ago a direct debit was taken from Dave's account after he had cancelled the DD. It turned out that the company had reactivated the DD (even though he had notified them that he no longer required the services) and Natwest told him that they were perfectly entitled to do this and they couldn't help. He asked about the DD guarantee and they said that if you have a problem it's much better to talk to the company involved.

Make sure that they abide by the guarantee!

[Adam Davies]

Hi
I find banks will look for the easy way out,I had this when I was charged twice on my debit card for the same transaction and was told to go to the retailer to sort it out.I stuck to my guns and insisted that they[the bank] sorted it out,they did.
The guarantee is there for exactly this sort of thing,use it
Regards

[Skippy]

Sadly Dave is more patient than me - I would have been shouting from the roof tops to get the money back! Dave waited for the company to repay him, which took a couple of months - he has the patience of a saint!

[J-DOUBLEYA]

You are covered by the DD guarantee but if no satisfactory explanation is forthcoming from the IP egarding why this has occurred perhaps a formal written complaint might work.

Like skippy, i am not very patient either but sometimes you really have to go the formal route as well as being quite determined with the bank.

This could simply be an admin error but there is really no excuse for this especially as it leaves you in such a desperate situation.
Good Luck

[Indebtagain]

Thanks everyone, been on the phone to the bank again and have found out its a banking error. A few weeks back I went into the bank to change my mortgage payments and the cashier amended both the mortgage and our IVA. Even though the IVA was never even mentioned.

I've got to phone the IVA on Monday in hope they will refund me back the difference but in the mean time I have no money, we have £100 in the bank and I need to pay the childminder, put petrol in the car and do the food shopping. All I've had to eat today is cheese toast as we have no food and now no money.

I hope the IVA will give us our money back.

[Martin2011]

Hiya, given the advice above re DD guarantee, if it's now known to be the banks error, they should credit your account immediately pending the return of monies from your IP's firm....

Best of luck getting it sorted...

Martin

[Adam Davies]

Hi
Don't let the bank fob you off.
Insist that the money is put back in the account straight away under the guarantee.
Regards

[Soulgrowth]

A similar thing happened to me after I had cancelled a direct debit. Six months later, and completely out of the blue, the company, under a different name, took an amount from my account. The only reason I could identify it was because the amount seemed familiar. Nationwide were brilliant and had investigated and refunded the amount to my account within the day. But I am glad I did what I did last year which was to have a good clear out of my bank account and only keep the bare minimum to survive (i.e mortgage, council tax) on direct debit, everything else I pay when I chose to and the amount I chose to.

Debbie