Keep an eye on your direct debits

Direct debits are wonderful things. They make it far easier when dealing with, say an energy company, where payments are regular but potentially variable. But I've reasonably discovered a downside, at least if you are involved in a charity or small organisation.

I'm treasurer of a small local charity. The other day I was glancing at the bank accounts online and noticed something odd. Two direct debit payments had been made from our account, both for relatively small amounts. Each had a reference starting DVLA- followed by a car registration number. When I had a look at our regular payments there were in fact three direct debits of this kind, though one hadn't had any money taken yet. This was from an account only used for incoming payments.

We had not set up any direct debits - certainly not with the UK's DVLA, which handles car licensing as there are no vehicles associated with the charity. I rang the bank and, to their credit (or, rather, ours) they had refunded the money with 2 hours. But this should not be able to happen.

Traditionally, direct debits could only be authorised with a mandate that had a signature (in the case of our charity, two signatures), which would be checked at the branch against a signature card. Now, though, this is all handled centrally, and direct debits can be set up online. All you appear to need to set one up is the sort code and account number.

After mentioning it on a group for similar charity officials, several others came back and said they'd experienced the same thing. While the bank was very quick to act they have also said '[DVLA reference] must have your permission to take a direct debit... We've asked them to provide proof they had your permission... if they did we may take back the refund.' Now clearly there's a flaw in that statement. They didn't have our permission but still allowed the payment to go out.

I've now been into the bank and they tell me that with an electronic direct debit, set up by someone like the DVLA, no checks are made by the bank at all. They don't even have a mandate - they just rely on the DVLA to ensure details are correct before taking money. Keep an eye on your direct debits!

Image by Museums Victoria from the 1980s on Unsplash - banks aren't like this anymore...

These articles will always be free - but if you'd like to support my online work, consider buying a virtual coffee:

See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

Comments

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp...

Murder by Candlelight - Ed. Cecily Gayford ***

Nothing seems to suit Christmas reading better than either ghost stories or Christmas-set novels. For some this means a fluffy romance in the snow, but for those of us with darker preferences, it's hard to beat a good Christmas murder. An annual event for me over the last few years has been getting the excellent series of classic murderous Christmas short stories pulled together by Cecily Gayford, starting with the 2016 Murder under the Christmas Tree . This featured seasonal output from the likes of Margery Allingham, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ellis Peters and Dorothy L. Sayers, laced with a few more modern authors such as Ian Rankin and Val McDermid, in some shiny Christmassy twisty tales. I actually thought while purchasing this year's addition 'Surely she is going to run out of classic stories soon' - and sadly, to a degree, Gayford has. The first half of Murder by Candlelight is up to the usual standard with some good seasonal tales from the likes of Catherine Aird, Car...

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5. However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor...

Search This Blog