What charges are lurking behind your bank account?

Went into my nearest branch and changed my bank account details in person with an advisor I was assured that all direct debits and standing orders would go out of my new account and that any company approaching my account would be diverted to the new account. I would not of minded but it was just a old account closed and new account opened in same bank. It turned out that was not the case and was charged by the company taking the DD £15 and then £8 from the bank, I spoke to customer services and they then refunded the charges Phew.

I had someone carry out a fraudulent transaction on my HSBC account last year which totally cleared me out. I was a student at the time so £450 just disappearing meant I couldn’t pay rent or bills for a month. However, HSBC agreed initially to refund the money to me pending investigation.

A few months passed, and I got a letter claiming that in fact I had carried out this mystery transaction (which I managed to later track myself by doing what HSBC should have done and ringing up the website through which the money was transferred – it was in Germany). So, they took the £450 back out again leaving me overdrawn on an account which does not have an overdraft.

So I rang the police and opened an investigation. Meanwhile, HSBC had decided to start charging interest on the overdrawn account. I absolutely refused to pay the money back, so they got debt collectors and all sorts onto me. I still refused and instead got the financial Ombudsman involved. It was only then that I discovered that in fact HSBC have closed my account without actually informing me, but are still trying to charge me for this transaction. I’m waiting for them to respond to the Ombudsman, but I will never have an account with them again.

It is not in UK alone. In Kenya, East Africa the challenge of hidden costs is too common. The regulator, Central Bank is either unwilling or has no capacity to rein in on the nearly 100 per cent uncompetitive banks. We are keen to lean from Which.co.uk on hoe you are dealing with this challengeh: Consumers Federation of Kenya (www.cofek.co.ke or @consumerskenya on twitter) is hosting the inaugural Consumers Dialogue Forum -1 on bank interest rates. Thanks

My problem was with an HSBC small business account. Back in January I was closing down the company after 2 disastrous years of recession meant I had no option but to cease trading, and mis-timing of a £10 cheque to companies house applying to strike the company off resulted in a small overdraft, wihch was rectified within 48 hours. I wrote to HSBC twice by recorded delivery, clearly explaining the situation and asking them to cancel all further direct debits, standing orders and block any further debit transactions pending closing the account. They responded by applying £120 in charges for the overdraft and no reply. I phoned them, made an appointment and went to see the local branch business account manager, who was very understanding – agreeing that in the circumstances the charges were disproportionate and said it would all be sorted out, and I would get a call from someone in a different department in due course.

Well, it seems that “contacted” meant my wife and I being bombarded with calls from random people in overseas call centres demanding repayment of the overdraft *they* created, some of these calls went on for an hour as it was explained to them again and again that the company had ceased trading and no funds were available to pay in to the account which should have been closed. Each one seemed not to have read the file and has to have the entire story spelled out to them. One agreed that the conversation was going in circles before giving up.

As a twist to the tale, an unexpected tax refund was paid into the account last month, putting it back into credit by a small amount. HSBC responded by debiting further overdraft charges of another £120, thus rendering it over £100 in the red – again! So not including interest, they have now applied a total of £240 in charges for a £10 overdraft for 48 hours.

I am now waiting for the next barrage of demands.

I was pretty angry with a situation I found myself in this time last year. I paid off a credit card in full at the bank in the last few days of June, unaware that the direct debit for the same amount had already been issued. Subsequently on the 1st of the month double the payment came out of my account putting me into my overdraft. Fortunately I was able to transfer funds putting me back into the black ver shortly. However, I was annoyed to discover that as I went into my overdraft at 11:59pm on the 30th of June and that overdraft carried on to the 1st July, I was charged the £5 fixed overdraft usage fee twice(!), once for each month, plus the interest for the two days. Had this happned mid-month I nwould have only been charged the £5 once. As most payments go out at the beginning of the month I expect this happens all the time.

How about this for a hidden charge! My ISA with Santander was tucked away by me for a rainy day or as a retirement present for my wife. I never needed to draw on it so come my wife’s retirement I decided to draw it out only to be told it was now a dormant account and couldn’t be traced. After loads of expensive telephone calls and numerous visits to the bank (armed with every single pay-in receipt) I eventually told them that If I couldn’t have my money plus interest within 1 week I would report the matter to the ombudsman and also send full details to the MoneyMail. Suddenly they found it and added lost interest.
If I hadn’t been “on the ball” and kept careful records I wonder if I would still be without it. I also wonder if my experience is unique ……….I very much doubt it……. How many other people would have kept comprehensive records?
I think very little publicity would be given to similar cases and I don’t think this sort of occurance is limited to any one bank. As far as I can see the only possible winners could be the banks if so what incentive is there to prevent such things happening.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there is a not a substantial annual income to the banks caused by this sort of thing

Hi I have a standerd bank account with rbs with no overdraft but it let me overdraw by 10pounds . When I noticed that had happend i paid the 10pound into the account the next few day . When i look at my account the next week i was charged 20 pounds then again for the next four months then the next month it was 180 then 174 then 30 then again 174 pounds then 204 pounds i refuse to pay it because i paid the 10pounds in do aye have to pay it all back I have even had debt collector at me

I get daily mini statements to check when money comes out of my bank.What I have noticed {after being charged £25.00 a time } Is that when I have used my card to pay for something it shows on my mini that it is pending and taken off my balance,only to reappear as money available.Knowing that money willl be going in the next day I have then spent a little of it,only to get a mini the next day showing that the money had actually been taken out the day before, apparently after 6pm even though the banks were closed.Making me overdrawn and being charged the usual £25.00.This is so frustrating when this happens .As sometimes it is only a couple of pounds overdrawn and I feel that it is the banks fault for putting money back into an account that they know needs to come out .I use my card a lot and when money is going in and out like a yoyo then it is very easy to become a few pounds overdrawn .I think this particular bank does this purposefully.

i bank with Halifax
ive gone overdrawn last month thought i paid off the full amount the next month i get a bill
saying im overdrawn i go check my online banking it only shows one amount taken from my account no details what for?
i went into the bank to be told when you get a letter its already a month old ???
i had to ask in the bank how much i needed to pay to stop the overdraft fees
whats the point of sending a letter a month late and online banking if charges aint shown?
keeping you up to date……

I am at present having difficulty with RBS over charges coming out of my account mid month, which are taking me over my overdraught. Thereby making sure I am charged again the following month. At the time it is taken out, there is no chance of me topping it up within my overdraught limit, therfore i am being charged £6 a day untill my wages are deposited.

There is no point in asking them to waiver the fee and i have asked them to change the date of withdrawing the charges, but they are of little help. It seems it is gonna be quite a while before i am gonna get out of this mess, but it makes me so angry that their withdrawlsare the cause of my £100 monthly charges.

Surely there could be some sort of timeline, say 3 months, that if you continuously go over the arranged overdraught, THEN they begin to charge you. It would only take one month for me and I would be sorted.

Myself and my partner bought our first house nearly four years ago. We opened a current account with Halifax to help us budget the household bills. After a few months we then opened an account with our mortgage provider and stopped putting money in the account and all our direct debits were cancelled in effect making this a dorment account.
Now admittedly we never used to pay a lot of attention to our finances back then but we didn’t realise we were still being charged the account fee every month which put us into into our overdraft for which we were then charged £1 a day for the pleasure. Our overdraft was only £100 so it wasn’t long before we went over our limit and the charges went up to £5 a day.
Around a year later my wages took a big hit and we struggled to pay and my partner thought we’d miscalculated how much we had paid and withdrew around £50 more than we should have and we missed the repayment but eventually our luck changed and we managed to clear the balance.
We thought that was the end of it. We then got more letters saying we owed them hundreds more pounds. Again we set up a repayment plan and have been told this has now come to an end and we still owe over £400.
Neither my wife or I are very good at complaining and neither can profess to be particularly savvy with money but surely this must be disproportionate to how much we money we had that we shouldn’t of? We have been charged at least £2000 over three years for an account we haven’t even used in that time.

Citibank: awful.

Issued a cheque to clear a credit card bill, and set up online internal transfer from deposit to current to cover this. They bounced the cheque, charging me 25 quid for that, not to mention the fact that the credit card company also hit me as a result. Their rationale was that the cheque cleared on a bank holiday. Apparently they are able to transact cheques on bank holidays but not internal transfers.

Over £100 in fees now, I referred it to the ombudsman, who are still waiting on citibank. Ironically, I had a call from a company doing a survey for citibank on quality of customer service a couple of weeks ago, it took me some time to fully convey my exasperation, but they recorded it all.