Direct Debit not enough cash charge aib?

jimoc wrote: »

I'm not sure of the exact figures for AIB but bank of ireland have the following charges,

12.50 if a company presents a direct debit which is not honoured.

0, 2.50, 5, 5, 10 for the first to 5th and above items that are paid but have no funds to cover them. So if you have a DD on your account and you have no funds the first time it happens in a quarter costs you nothing, after that the cost goes up to a tenner a go at the 5th time and above.

It's actually €12.70 for standing orders and DDs which are not paid.

The sliding scale charges you mention above are applied to Laser Transactions which put you over your limit, it does not apply for direct debits and standing orders. The scale is as follows:

1st Overlimit item - Free
2nd & 3rd Overlimit item - €2.50
4th & 5th Overlimit item - €5.00
6th and subsequent Overlimit items - €10.00

These are for the number of items you have in each fee quarter. In fairness, since the Laser system went live, it's much harder to build up these charges. Before the system went live, I'd often see customers who would go absolutely nuts with the Laser card over the weekends, like they might only have a balance of €500 but they'd spend nearly a grand over the weekend, and then on the monday and tuesday when the transactions started to hit the account, they'd be racking up a load of charges. The best way to avoid them is to keep track of what you spend and what your balance is.

Also, which I only discovered recently is that they will allow your account to go to 500 euro into unauthorised overdraft before they actually stop direct debits and standing orders from being taken out.

That's not correct either, it is completely dependent on the account and each is looked at on a case by case basis. Some accounts will not allow DDs and standing orders to be paid if the account is 1c short of the amount needed to honour the DD. It's all dependent on how your account operates, ie if you usually operate your account well and one month you're a bit short, they'll allow your direct debits to go through rather than cause you embarrassment with the suppliers. Other times if a few direct debits come through and there's not enough money to cover them all, they would pick the most important one and allow that go through ie if your mortgage, sky digital and gym subscription all came through on the same day, they'd pay the mortgage and bounce the TV and gym.

If you don't want this to happen and would prefer that if the funds aren't there then bills etc are not paid, give your branch a call and they can put up an indicator on your account. Customers should be aware though that this only applies to Direct Debits and Standing Orders, Laser transactions can still go through (depending on the retailer's systems) and put you over your limit, so it's important to tally up what you're spending against what your balance is.

http://www.bankofireland.ie/includes/personal/pdfs/fees_charges.pdf