How Barclaycard moved the payment goalposts and landed us with an overdraft

My wife and I manage our finances and cashflow very carefully, but a computer error by Barclaycard has caused us to go into the red and incur undeserved overdraft charges.

We both have Barclaycard Platinum Visa cards, and when the monthly payment becomes due, we arrange a transfer of funds to pay off the full debt. The monthly statement includes a payment due date (with the relevant date in bold type) and below this, in normal type, the date when payment will be collected by direct debit. Ever since we have had the cards, the two dates have been the same. However, on our April 2003 statement the payment due date was one week later than the date when the amount was to be collected by direct debit. How were we to know? The obvious happened. Barclaycard took the payment by direct debit before the payment due date. We found out about this when we discovered we were approximately £2,000 overdrawn at the bank, exposing us to unexpected and undeserved bank charges.

I had a heated exchange with Barclaycard's call centre about this. They were not prepared to credit our bank account with the amount that they had, in my view, misappropriated before the due date. They did say I could ask my bank for a repayment, but that the bank would charge me for this. So this was a Catch-22 situation; pay the charges on the overdrawn account, or pay to get our money back.

Barclaycard said the situation had occurred because of a problem in its computer system that would take some time to correct. They told me that I was not the only person affected and there had been a number of similar complaints. I put it to Barclaycard that they had not given us prior notice of their intention to change the dates of collection. Their attitude is that it is in the small print.

We contacted the local branch of our bank - Barclays, but with no connection to Barclaycard. They were very helpful and sympathetic. The lady we spoke to resolved the situation, but not without effort. The money has come back but to do this immediately needed authorisation from someone senior in Barclaycard.

So far so good. However there are potential catches for the unwary. Without the extra effort made by our lady at the bank, Barclaycard were only prepared to do a refund working to their normal timescale; that is, not immediately. We were potentially in danger of not having received the refund before the payment to Barclaycard fell due on the correct date, exposing us to an unwanted overdraft. Barclaycard also said they no longer had a mandate to collect the current payment by direct debit on the correct payment date. We would then be in danger of failing to pay, incurring unwanted interest charges on the outstanding balance and potentially becoming a bad credit risk.

So even more effort was required. Our helpful lady set up a system for the bank to make the one-off payment on the due date. To Barclaycard we say it is about time you took more notice of your customers.

To our lady at the bank we would like to say: 'Thank you, Janice'.

Barclaycard replies...

While undertaking work to make our payments
system quicker and more efficient, we have
mistakenly taken direct debits too early from a
small number of customers.

Call centre staff had been advised to refund any
bank charges that have been incurred, but it
appears that on this occasion it did not happen.

We can only apologise, and credit Mr de Borde
Barker's account with ?50 as a gesture of goodwill
- and extend our thanks to Janice.