Hi A friend of mine had a bank account with a dd set up on it approx 4yrs
ago. He also had a loan of 5,000. He left that town and move to a town
down south. He paid off the loan in full, cancelled the dd, and closed off
the account. This was done in a sister bank down south. That was the
end of that account as far as he was concerned. He closed the account
because he opened a joint account with his partner in another bank. He
thought no more about it until he got a letter about a two yrs ago, sent
to his old address (his parents home) to say he was over drawn by approx
€90. He wrote to the old bank asking for an explanation as to how he
could possibly owe money when the account was closed. After several
letters he finally got to the bottom of it. The old bank said a request for a
dd was debited from his account. He was paying interst on the
overdrawn dd amount plus the dd debit amount also. My friend wrote to
the bank explaining that he had paid all that was owing on the account
plus he had cancelled the dd and closed the account over two years
ago. He also gave the bank his new address for any correspondence and
told them he no longer lived at the old address. He again thought this
would be the end of the matter ontill he recently got a statement again
sent to his mothers home. This statement had an outstanding amount of
€137.56, which resulted from the interest charged.
Firstly he didn't have an overdraft set up on his original account. The
bank should not have accepted an overdraf if the funds weren't in the
account. The bank seems to be totally ignoring the fact that he said he
had cancelled the dd, closed the account and moved address. He would
not be receiving the mail except the fact his mother passes on his mail.
What should he do: pay up and close the account again even though he
really doesn't have any available money since becoming unemployed. Or
does he have any rights to fight this. He doesn't want to ruin his credit
rating. He didn't keep any documents relating to closing the account etc
because it was so long ago and he didn't expect it to come back to haunt
him. Any suggestions welcome.