Annoyed at Wankers^WBankers

[chrishansenhome]

I was looking at my direct debits (arrangements with one's bank for a vendor of some sort (utilities, newspapers, and the like) to deduct funds from your account for remittances) and I saw this one:

Name Date Amount

CHURCH TIMES 00-00-0000 £999,999,999.00

Now I realised that the Church Times had recently changed direct debit systems, but I was worried that the bank would actually try to take that much money out of our account, and I wasn't convinced that HWMBO's and my salary would cover it.

I sent a message to my bank's customer service department:

"I have a direct debit for the Church Times. In looking at my direct debits, I see that the last date is 00-00-0000 and the amount is £999,999,999.00.

"I doubt my overdraft will cover this if that amount is removed from my account when the direct debit next happens. As a software test professional, I do hear of glitches like this; I didn't expect to see one on my own account.

"I would request urgently that someone check this 'transaction' and ensure that the amounts and date are correct."

Today I got their response:

"Thank you for your message. Please accept our apologies for the delay in our response.

"Please note that until the originator claims funds from us the amount shown as debited in the list of direct debits will be £999,999,999. This is just a display and nothing related to the merchant claiming an incorrect amount."

What a bunch of wankers! Didn't they realise that people might get a little upset about such a large amount appearing in their bank records??

This is almost as good as the (probably apocryphal) story of the man who got a bill for $0.00 and didn't bother to pay it, whereupon he got a red bill (means "overdue" here if they print it on red paper), sent them a cheque for $0.00 which promptly broke their remittance systems.

Comments

[quillon.livejournal.com]

::putting on the bank customer service hat::

I'm not sure if banks in the UK use the same method of payments, but in the US they use the ACH (Automated Clearing House). If a merchant or company sends one of these ACH transactions through to either debit or credit your account, from what I understand, the bank doesn't have much control over how the transaction is labelled. Usually the name that's displayed is what is transmitted through the electronic system from the debiting party.

::taking off the bank customer service hat::

The banking system is weird.

[chrishansenhome.livejournal.com]

There is a totally different system here. But the important fact is that this is a "new" direct debit (companies that are too small to have their own systems contract with another specialist company to collect their direct debits and remit the money to them minus a fee) and no money has ever been collected from it. So the numbers shown are totally from my bank's imagination.

I blame the software designer, the developer, and especially the software tester, who should have known the effect this would have on customers.

[rui81.livejournal.com]

so weird ...

[Rui睿]™

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

I know that the Church Times can be a valuable source of information, but not that valuable.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

You'd think that if they need a fake amount as a placeholder, zero ought to work just fine (it's not -- or shouldn't be -- a valid amount to transfer).