Paying off credit card, am I being thick?

[BYTEr]

Basically, I've got a Halifax Ultimate Reward Current Account, £12.50 a month, but get phone insurance (o2 wanted £10 alone), RAC breakdown cover, travel insurance etc, along with this I also got a £300 overdraft and a credit card with a £500 limit.

I was unsure about getting a credit card, but considering I pay for a lot online, I thought the added protection it brings would be a good idea. Being cautious about getting into debit I asked if their was an option of the cards balance being paid off in full automatically each month, their was just a service and so I was told my new account would automatically pay off the cards balance in full each month, great I thought.

So for the next month after being issued my credit card, I managed to spend £270 (Only just passed my driving test, so was mostly car related, CD-player, MOT etc). I checked my online banking to see where things were and as I thought, I didn't quite have the money to pay it off, wasn't too worried as I got paid in a week (around £500) and of course had a £300 overdraft. The "next payment due date" was apparently the 30th October and I thought on this date the card would be paid off and that the cards balance would go to £0 and I'd have £500 credit available again.

Unfortunately this wasn't the case and on the 6th November, nothing had changed, the cards balance was £270, the credit available was £230 and the payment due date was still the 30th October. I was getting a bit anxious about getting charged as I thought the automatic payment must have not been set up after all, so went to the "online payment" online and ticked the pay off in full option and chose which account to take the money, it seems I couldn't pay it off over the weekend so I chose the earliest date available which was the Monday, 9th November, come the Monday and the money was transferred out and the statement online on my credit card was "PAYMENT REC'D - THANK YOU" however the cards balance hadn't changed, I thought it might be a delay or possibly somehow related to the payment being late, anyway, I decided not to use the card at all the past month to see what happened.

So, come the next payment due date, 30th November, I was horrified to learn that it had automatically took the £270 out of my account making me overdrawn over my agreed limit, however the available credit is now £770 and the present balance is £270 CR.

So I'm presuming that when I tried to pay it off online it has for some reason added that £270 onto the cards available limit or something. I've been charged for going over my agreed overdraft limit and in a way lost £270 as its tied into my available limit on my credit card and cant see an option of transferring the extra balance on my credit card back to my account.

What I'm trying to ask is, am i to blame for this? and is their anyway that I could get the £270 back?

Thanks in advance.

 

["andy"]

phone or visit bank and ask them ?

they should easily be able to transfer that extra 270 back into your account. and if you ask nicely might even remove the fees

 

[remy87]

that's very strange I'm also on Halifax credit card
£700 limit
I decided to pay for it, been using around £600
and this was the same case as you, can't pay during weekends I set it at 7th Dec
and I checked today if it went through and was payed I now how £700 limit again.
It only took 1 day.

I would call them up ASAP

 

[BYTEr]

phone or visit bank and ask them ?

they should easily be able to transfer that extra 270 back into your account. and if you ask nicely might even remove the fees

I plan to visit the bank at the earliest opportunity, just so damn busy at the moment.

 

[mrmoose]

looking at this whats happened is that you made the payment when you had the full balance payments setup.

I'd ring halifax in office hours and ask for them to return the second payment to your current account and ask very very nicely if they will remove the charges due to it being a new account.

 

[BYTEr]

I've also be charged £15 on my normal account I've had since I was 16 as o2 tried taking £35 out of my bank but failed as their wasn't enough money as I slightly panicked when this happened and transferred all my money to my Ultimate account to get back within the £300 agreed overdraft as I thought they'd start charging interest, I did pay it off the next day as the misses was able to transfer some funds and agreed to lend me the money for the the being.

Didn't realise you get charged if you try paying for something but it fails because you haven't got enough money, not like Halifax had paid it off in the meanwhile was it, it just failed.

 

[Malakite]

so they took your direct debit for the full amount and your payment online.
Your card is in credit for the difference, you can either just spend it on your card as normal or ask for a credit balance refund for the extra, this can take some time though. Your limit is still £500, you just have a positive balance on your card. Many companies won't normally let this happen on a credit card as it can be tied to Fraud/Money Laundering

With your credit card if you are spending in October and your payment due date is at the end of October your not paying off the balance off what you were spending, your paying off the balance of the last statement you received, i.e September.

So you spend, receive a statement for what you spent, pay it by the due date on that statement.

The issue seems to be that they still took the payment even though you had paid earlier in the month, as your card should have had a zero balance the DD should not have taken.

Phone them up and complain, try and get refunded for your bank charges.

 

[Berserker]

Essentially, you paid off the card before the money was due. Typically it might work like this (all details are entirely made up for illustration).

Statement date 10th, payment date 30th.

10th Oct - £0.00 - October Statement, balance Nil
15th Oct - £100.00 DR - Spend £100
20th Oct - £270.00 DR - Spend £170
30th Oct - £270.00 DR - Repay October statement in full, £0.00 taken.
10th Nov - £270.00 DR - November statement, balance £270.00
30th Nov - £0.00 - Repay November statement in full, £270.00 taken.

So, in this example you could actually have up to 51 days before paying off a purchase. Actually, with most banks it's about 56 days.

What seems to happen with most banks is that if you pay off an amount at least five days before the automatic payment is due, then the automatic payment doesn't happen (so, for example, it you'd repaid £270.00 on 7th Nov that would cancel the payment on the 30th). Sounds like Halifax do something different.

 

[Raumarik]

snip.

It sounds like you changing the settings to pay off the full amount has paid it double, changes are (check your statement for the bank and card) that the automatic payment was taken off, then the altered payment too.

Essentially your card is now in credit, meaning you can spend that 270 they owe you without being charged interest. You can ask them to credit the money back, but frankly mate they'll only mess it up or take ages to do it.

Payments and balances for credit cards don't always update quickly online, it's one of the few things about online banking that annoys me. One card I have typically takes a week to update, so in some cases it looks like I've missed the deadline, then it updates showing I paid it a week before it was due!