Enforceability of overdraft

[Fishermansa]

In summary, the bank inadvertently allowed my account to go into overdraft as the bank account records were inaccurate. The bank had erroneously duplicated several deposits. As there was a high volume of transactions of the same value it was hard to know if this was a timing issue or genuine duplication. Before making payments from the account, I confirmed with the bank that the account would not go into overdraft if the payment was made as I did not want to be in overdraft and did not have an overdraft facility. It turns out the account did in fact go into overdraft as the bank miscalculated my account balance. The bank has not charged any overdraft penalties or interest. However, the bank now claims I owe them GBP25,000 which I believe is slightly inflated/ miscalculated.

I have now made financial commitments not realising I owed the bank this GBP25000. The bank has issued their final response and they have offered to compensate me for GBP700 for their oversights.

I had specifically requested not to have an overdraft and had specifically asked the bank if making certain payments would result in overdraft and they confirmed it would not. The bank is not disputing their oversights and have confirmed this in writing.

I have just written to the Ombudsman and I am waiting to hear from them.

Is there anything else I need to do?

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[Never-In-Doubt]

Good luck! Although how on earth did you get a £25k overdraft without knowing and additionally, how would you not realise that you'd used £25k that you never had (to leave you in an OD position)..... is this bank error, as in are you £25k down / has it been lost somewhere or have you genuinely spent £25k that you never had?

I can't see where your argument is, based on what you've said so far so likely the Ombudsman will say similar unless there's more to this..... was it a business account or personal account?

[Fishermansa]

Thank you for your response and some valid questions you raise. Let me try to explain this a bit better.

1. Some small personal investments were being liquidated and several credits/ deposits of the same amount were flowing into my account.
2. The bank over stated the deposits and in so doing over stated my account balance.
3. Something did look strange and I contacted bank to ask if the balance was correct and they confirmed it was. I could not figure if it was correct as the deposits were coming in over a few weeks and I did not have time to do a detailed reconciliation between investments liquidated, deposit received to date, deposits still to be received, etc
4. I needed to make some payments. Being a bit uncertain about the accuracy of my balance, I asked the bank to check again and to confirm that I could make payments without account going into overdraft. After the bank's reassurance that my payments would not cause me to go into overdraft I genuinely didn't think I would go into overdraft.

I have now genuinely spent $25k that I never had. It's a personal account.

My argument is:

I never asked for credit and I specifically said I don't want credit yet I now owe the bank money because of their own fault in over stating my account balance. It took the banks several months to figure out what they believe to be the correct balance. I still believe that their balance is incorrect.

For enforceability would I not have had to agree to the terms of the overdraft and would the terms not have had to be disclosed to me? None of this was disclosed and specifically denied an overdraft.