The Banks Win...:(

[BoredBloke]

Ahhh...now you're talking about customer service..vs. deciding to allow a direct debit (or whatever) which puts the customer over their agreed limit. Two different things!

I got a 35 quid charge to pay a 6 quid dd. I'd rather they had just cancelled the dd. But that wouldn't have earned them 35 quid would it.

[Moscow Mule]

a bar code is just a font ffs

I know - it was working out what should go in the bar code that was the trouble...

[RichardCranium]

I know that. I estimated a development to stick a bar code on a document so an autosorter/enveloper could read it and put the appriate postage & envelope size etc.

It was over 200 man-days.

Circa 1985 I coded such a thing in RM-COBOL. It utilised the inherent barcoding capability of the Mannesmann Tally printer. It must have taken me a couple of days including the testing and documentation.

Most recently I specified such a thing for an Electronic Document Records Management System. It was trivial task as there are free libraries and typefaces that will produce all manner of barcoding systems.

[TheFaQQer]

I know - it was working out what should go in the bar code that was the trouble...

I did a project a couple of years back where we started to look at barcoding outbound communications which needed a response on a form (e.g. bank details form) so that when the person responded to it, the post room scanner would automatically scan it, know who it was from, add the scanned image to the right record, put a task in the right call centre agent's queue...

In the end, it was more hassle than it was worth - they employed people full time to manually enter document metadata to make sure it ended up in the right place.

As I said, it ain't cheap (or quick!)

[d000hg]

It costs more that 30p to send a letter - there's the cost of the human or machine employed to create the letter for a start.

Yes, about 0.01s of computer time, 10s of printing time.

Then there's the human who has to make a decision about the charge etc etc.

I think it's automated. Humans are involved only when you phone up and ask them to reverse it (which they sometimes will). But even if you have 5min of human operator time (I doubt it) that's about £1 at most.

The question is whether the fees are penalties, or to cover the banks' costs. I'm not sure banks have the legal right to penalise people, one could argue if it's in a contract it's fair but things aren't so simple.

[Moscow Mule]

Circa 1985 I coded such a thing in RM-COBOL. It utilised the inherent barcoding capability of the Mannesmann Tally printer. It must have taken me a couple of days including the testing and documentation.

Most recently I specified such a thing for an Electronic Document Records Management System. It was trivial task as there are free libraries and typefaces that will produce all manner of barcoding systems.

I don't remember why it was so high, I think it was the complexity of the rules rather than the act of converting a number to a bar-code.

That's not my point though. Banks have to have the infrastructure to deal with this sort of thing - it doesn't come cheap so the customer pays.

[swamp]

and normal everyday people like me who run short for a couple days here and there. This wouldn't happen as much if it didn't take Three F**king days for bank transfers! You can try as hard as you like..but if your employer's pay arrives just after the bills - you do end up overdrawn occaisonally...especially if payday is on a holiday or weekend.

The system appears - to me anyway - to be designed to catch people out.

Some of us here are contractors, don't you know.

[BoredBloke]

The pain in the @rse part of charges are the direct debits. It's too easy to set these up and then forget the date at which they are set to debit from the account.

[mace]

If you are likely to go overdrawn, then ARRANGE AN OVERDRAFT FACILITY.

It's not rocket science, FFS - get it approved, then you don't get clobbered with the fees. I have a £1500 overdraft facility that I agreed with the bank as a student - not used it since I started work, but it's there if I need it.

2 things that annoy me about being charged for an overdraft:-

1. I've made a mistake transferring funds between my current and savings accounts and been charged for being overdrawn.

2. The banks administer the overdraft charge on 1 account whilst I have thousands of pounds in another account. The argument that I owe anybody any money in that situation is stupid.

At the end of the day, the banks make money by paying creditors interest and lending the creditor's money to debtors at a higher interest rate. A creditor who temporarily becomes a debtor on 1 account should not be penalised. Until now, I've always had the overdraft charge reversed by threatening to withdraw my money from my savings account, as they would lose a lot more money by not being able to lend out my savings.

[Moscow Mule]

2. The banks administer the overdraft charge on 1 account whilst I have thousands of pounds in another account. The argument that I owe anybody any money in that situation is stupid.

Retail account sweeping to a minimum balance is quite common in Eastern Europe - I wonder why no banks in the UK (that I know of) offer that service? If they did I think I'd move in a flash.