What is a bank's responsibility regarding bogus direct debit?

I opened a German bank account last year, in Deutsche Bank. There's a whole thread about it in the Deposits section.

Anyway, checking my account online late last year I found that "Alice und O2", a mobile company I think, had deducted money from my account, and had credited it again. I had not authorised ANY debits at all from my account.

This year again, the deducted around €15 in January and February.

I called DB repeatedly about this. Long story short: they refund my money, but they insist that I should call "Alice und O2" to try to stop these debits. I insist that it is DB's responsibility to protect my money, which I entrust to them.

In the end DB phone help keeps passing me on to someone else, until eventually the phone line just breaks off.

I don't think it's anything malicious, but I don't see why I should go calling an mobile company in Germany about this. You can imagine how many menus I would have to go through.

What is a bank's responsibility? Do they have an obligation to check every direct debit? Do they have to follow up and try to block any repeated bogus debits?

Banks dont have an obligation to check every direct debit other than to check that a mandate is in place for the first collection. If there is no mandate it should be returned on 1st presentation. If the T&C's of your account allow you cancel dd's then the bank should cancel the mandate and return any presentations.

Scallywag
If what you say is correct, then you have not given consent for this transaction and an immediate refund by the bank should be forthcoming - no quibbles. The relevant legislation in Ireland is S.I No. 383-2009 — EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (PAYMENT SERVICES) REGULATIONS 2009 which enables the provisions of the EU Payment Services Directive. The equivalent German legislation was passed by the German Bundestag (Parliament) on July 2, 2009

Thanks for the replies. The bank actually refunded the money that was taken out, but the point is they won't agree to take any follow-up action to stop it happening again. It has happened three times now. In other words they won't make the call to "Alice und O2", they want me to do that. I don't really see why I should have to do that.

scallywag said:

I don't really see why I should have to do that.

Click to expand...

Because that is how they do things in Germany! Switzerland too for that matter, banks have no way of knowing what arrangements customers make on a daily basis, so they will continue to process what they believe to be valid payment requests.

So anyone armed with a persons account details can empty that account at will?

Not at all, but this charge is from a reputable company and is typical of the kind of charge they would make, so no alarms will go off. It is your responsibility to check your account and sort it out - and that means contacting the company making the charge - Germen style.

Good thing I don't live in Germany so.

Hmm. Just got a letter from them saying there were doing something about this, very vague. I think my threat to close the account raised some alarms.

They did say to me that they couldn't check all direct debits, but that they do check the first withdrawal of any dd. That seems true - the first withdrawal was refunded before I even knew about it.

Still, it doesn't exactly give a warm, safe feeling.