Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaun
I think that even though the charges are still too hight for my liking (I'd like to see it around the 5 to 8 pound mark) the charging policy set out by HSBC is one of the fairer ones. No fee for your first bounce in 6 months, no fee if you pay in cash to cover it before close of play. No fees if you go less than £10 overdrawn!
*** Interesting point Xassers  |
Very interesting points, especially as she's been charged £150 in a day and certainly not gone £150 over her overdraft limit!
The other thing is their literature that says they'll increase the overdraft automatically as required for £25 each time, so your new overdraft should be higher, meaning if you bring yourself back into credit, you should have the new overdraft for emergencies. That wasn't how it worked, if you went back into credit (or into your old overdraft level), the new overdraft was reset to the old one, so you'd get stung again if you went over.
So say you were at your £100 overdraft limit, and your fridge packed up and you needed to spend £50 to get it fixed, you'd be at £175 (the extra £50, and extra charge to extend your overdraft).
You find a scratch card and win £75, being good you put in in your bank account, taking you back to £100 overdrawn. Then your central heating springs a leak and you have to spend £25 on getting it repaired, so you're at £-125, HSBC would charge again so you're actually at £-150.
The thing is, they don't charge you on the day, there's a delay so just before the charges are due out, you could get yourself back to £-100, then they charge you the £50 for going over the £100 limit twice, which now takes you to £-150, and they charge you another £25!
We've got nothing against charges covering the costs involved in increasing an overdraft or returning a failed direct debit/standing order (although standing order should just not be actioned) but £25 for each is way more than it actually costs.