[BEWARE] AmEx Direct Debit and Manual Payment

[Deactivated] on 04/08/2017 - 16:06

About 3 weeks ago AmEx issued my statement. I have direct debit set up and decided to instead pay through the app straight away so I don't have a large sum of money sitting their for no reason. Yesterday was the day my direct debit usually gets processed for which I got an email saying "Thank you for your payment", I quickly logged onto my AmEx account and realised I had been charged again! I quickly called AmEx and they put in a refund request. The lady on the phone told me that their system has no way of knowing if you made a manual payment so it will process the direct debit whether or not you already paid. I think it's ridiculous that a company as large as AmEx doesn't have a system to detect this.

Consider this a warning and to check your statements and accounts often!

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Comments

  • mbck on 04/08/2017 - 16:16
    +59

    You've set direct debit…..then you do a manual pay…..why???

    Before you reply back with oh it's because I don want to have a large sum of money waiting there….whats the difference between leaving the money in one account and on your other account?

      • mbck on 04/08/2017 - 16:50
        +28

        Then plan your money movements between accounts better. Not sure why you'd blame someone else for that…

        Direct debit…is there so that you don't have to worry about paying manually….

        • mbck on 04/08/2017 - 17:09
          +25

          @nurries:
          But if you don't have itchy hands and try to pay something that already has direct debit…there is no problem. You can't expect businesses to stop you from doing stupid things.

          Get over yourself from making your own problem.

          Bye

        • [Deactivated] on 05/08/2017 - 13:41
          +7

          @nurries:

          What a noob.

          What about people who pay extra some months.

          And set up a direct debit.

          Are their direct debits going to cancel every time they pay a bit more that month?

        • MrTweek on 05/08/2017 - 16:03
          +4

          @Michegianni:

          If they had a good, customer friendly system, they would simply direct debit whatever amount of the invoice is still outstanding on the due date.

          No, it's not a requirement for them, but I would have thought that a company like American Express is good at handling payments.

          Coincidentally, I just received an (unrelated) invoice which states this:

          GoGet will automatically deduct payment from your credit/debit card on file on 15/08/2017.
          Alternatively, you can pay via BPAY. Make sure your payment is made before 11/08/2017 to avoid duplicate charges

          Can't be that hard, eh?

        • tomleonhart on 06/08/2017 - 12:26
          +3

          @nurries: here. have a neg.

        • hawkers8905 on 17/08/2017 - 14:22

          Other banks don't work like that for their Credit Cards. My CBA account direct debits the balance remaining if I've also made a manual payment.

      • ronnknee on 05/08/2017 - 22:58

        I've had this happen to me before and it's not just only AMEX. Assume this to be the standard for any direct debit. Let this be a lesson and be grateful that it didn't really harm you (unless you really needed the money but couldn't access it).

    • Gotchas on 04/08/2017 - 19:22
      +3

      Iv done the same on utilities to reach min spend on new credit cards

      • bozbargain on 05/08/2017 - 14:52
        +2

        Same here. Or with health insurance, Telstra bills etc. Especially us on this website have various reasons to do manual card payments every now and then (AmEx statement credits is anorther good example). Also, think about situations when you first set up direct debit and companies come back with vague statements that it may take up to a week to have it all working - better then to pay manually (as a one off) if the due date is within that week. There can also be situations where you've reached your card limit and you want to top up your card - you don't expect a bank the size of AmEx not to have systems in place where they can verify your actual balance due before they trigger their direct debit! I'm with you OP, bad practice and there are many other companies and banks doing a better job here!

    • tooblue on 04/08/2017 - 22:00
      +3

      The Op may have a million reasons to do so, stupid or not, it is at his discretion. He maybe need to top up the card balance to spend big; He maybe need to show someone (Centrelink?) a low bank balance; Please don't judge.
      I don't think your question is relevant to the fact the Op does give us a valid warning if anyone wants to do so for their AmEx cards.

      • jasonb on 06/08/2017 - 23:11

        He may.

        He also then should realise that setting up a direct debit means there's a direct debit set up, and call up and suspend it for that month if he's made a manual payment.

        Or, if a payment he didn't want to happen goes through, he can call Amex and get it refunded. Which he has. No harm no foul?

        And he's now learnt how the system works.

  • dasher86 on 04/08/2017 - 16:37
    +16

    No companies have the technologies you are talking about.
    It's your own fault.

    • cimrak on 04/08/2017 - 17:01
      +4

      Say what ? Pretty standard function for almost all automated billing systems at companies I've used DD for;

      1. Is it the Due Date for this account ?
      2. Is Balance for this billing period larger than $0.00 ?
      3. Is Direct Debit or other automated payment available ?
      4. Skip step 5
      5. AHAHAHHA DOUBLE BILL! EXTRA PROFIT! SEND CEO ON HOLIDAY!
      6. Issue statement

      :D

    • Baysew on 04/08/2017 - 17:03
      +4

      ANZ does with "CardPay Direct" for its Credit Cards.

      If a credit is made to your ANZ credit card account between the date of your statement and the payment Due Date, then CardPay Direct would make allowances for that credit and debit your nominated account depending on your choice of payment.

      However, mind reading technology would also be useful.

    • MrTweek on 05/08/2017 - 17:46
      +1

      I work in software and have worked on payment systems of multiple huge Australian companies.
      I can guarantee you that this is not even hard to do.

      Reasons I can think of, why a company doesn't have a somewhat smarter billing system that handles these things in a customer friendly manner:

      • incompetence
      • not willing or able to fund their software department properly
      • intentional: after all, double charging makes them money, so why spend money on software to prevent it. It's much easier to tell customers it's their own fault.

      I am no finance expert, but my guess is that Amex is too big for the first 2.

    • theblake on 06/08/2017 - 21:59
      +2

      Wrong. Several banks do have the 'technology' for this.
      payments received during the month reduce the amount of the Direct debit.

      I cant remember which banks because I have many credit cards and I dont care.

      The dumb thing is assuming the bank wouldnt proceess the direct debit without checking.

    • nickj on 07/08/2017 - 16:23
      +2

      That is untrue. For example, Origin Energy has this for electricity and gas bills. You can manually pay before by BPAY, or they direct debit your credit card if you haven't paid by the due date. The only catch is that it can take 3 days for them to realise you've paid before by BPAY (presumably there's a lag for payments to go through). So as long as you pay manually 3 days before the due date, then you can do either, and not get double-billed. To be honest, I considered this fairly basic stuff, and am surprised that Amex don't have it.

    • hawkers8905 on 17/08/2017 - 14:24

      CBA do.

      You should research before rushing into leaving a comment.

  • ausdday on 04/08/2017 - 16:55
    +4

    As an AmEx user, I noticed AmEx technology isn't state of the art. For example, on AmEx website, when you login, the password isn't even case sensitive.

    • o53djz7qTPY4der on 04/08/2017 - 21:06
      +1

      mine is.

    • merivetio on 04/08/2017 - 21:13
      +2

      You'd be surprised (or not, depending on how you look at it/if you've heard about it before) how many banks (see: just about every major one) has shoddy password practices - Commonwealth Bank, for example, has case-insensitive passwords.

      • MrTweek on 05/08/2017 - 17:49
        +1

        Yep. Westpac is even a lot worse. Password is not only case insensitive, but also no special characters allowed and it can't be longer than 6 characters.

        Also, they force you to use a stupid on screen keyboard, which means you can't use it safely anywhere where there are other people in the room (like in the office).

        • merivetio on 06/08/2017 - 14:21
          +1

          Holy moly! That's just atrocious - I feel for you if you have to be wary of your surroundings just to be able to use the Westpac app.

          For all the preaching the bigger places like CBA do (the security divisions are relatively geeked out), the most basic of basic practices for passwords haven't been used…it boggles the mind.

      • hawkers8905 on 17/08/2017 - 14:28

        Commonwealth Bank, for example, has case-insensitive passwords

        Really?

        My password has upper, lower, symbols and numbers and if I type it in the wrong case it tells me it is wrong

        EDIT: I stand corrected. Just tried it again! Wow!

    • Associateddsar @ American Express on 05/08/2017 - 07:47
      +1

      it is..

      • o53djz7qTPY4der on 05/08/2017 - 10:38
        +2

        I take that back. I thought it was as I have a combination of caps and lower in my password.

        I just tried it with some of the 'caps' as lower… and to my surprise… It worked.

        That is incredible.

  • havebeerbelywillsumo on 04/08/2017 - 17:33
    +5

    Personally I'd expect any company's invoicing system to recognise there is nil outstanding when it triggers time to collect a payment. Poorly programmed otherwise and that is the biller's responsibility not the clients.

    +1 to "Their systems not being up to scratch is not my problem".

    • dasher86 on 04/08/2017 - 21:36
      +1

      Well OP was complaining about Amex. It usually takes at least 1 business day for funds to be transferred and then maybe even another for the business to allocate those funds.

  • neyo on 04/08/2017 - 18:14
    +17

    You have authorised both forms of payment and are now trying to blame AmEx??

      • TailsK on 07/08/2017 - 10:58
        +2

        Clearly they are.

  • garetz on 04/08/2017 - 19:50
    +6

    Why do you think its their responsibility to somehow detect you made a manual payment and disregard the automatic debit that you authorised and made happen yourself ?

    How does that make any sense at all.

        • terrys on 05/08/2017 - 16:39
          +7

          Cue the numpty who asks for advice, gets it, then howls at the messenger. You instructed a company to direct debit your account. that's what they did. They have no way of mind-reading why you chose to put more money on that account. You have been quite personal about people given an honest and non-judgmental opinion and appear open to no responses other than " Yeah, bunch of droogs man, bummer".

          You asked for advice. If instead you merely wanted support and the backing of your peers in your righteous anger you should have maybe set-up your own site for running the thread "What I know about the finance business - no negative posts allowed."

          Stop wasting our time.

    • chillin222 on 05/08/2017 - 15:25
      -2

      Can't tell if this is serious? Of course it's the company's responsibility to charge you only what you owe, and nothing more. ESPECIALLY in the credit card industry where allowing customers to run credit balances is bad both from a commercials and AML perspective.

    • MrTweek on 05/08/2017 - 17:55
      -1

      Makes a lot of sense to me to assume that a massive global finance company is able to handle payments better than that.

      "somehow detect payments" makes it sound like you think it is difficult for them to find out whether you paid an invoice or not?
      That's pretty much their core business, they are definitely able to, if they really wanted to.

  • Kill Joy on 04/08/2017 - 20:26
    +5

    So does this just mean you go into a positive balance? It's not like you've lost money, jeez.

    I think worse than your questionable finger pointing is your piss-poor attitude to anyone who doesn't agree with you. Must get you far in life.

      • Settero on 04/08/2017 - 21:03
        +7

        o no , a company did what you asked and things don't turn out well because u changed plans without telling them.
        your the type that would next time get super pissed if you made the payment with the intention of freeing up credit for another purchase , and they didn't make the DD because of said payment.
        they can not read your mind , there are MANY reasons people put money on CC's while there's is a DD set up , most still intend for the DD to take effect.

        • [Deactivated] on 04/08/2017 - 21:09
          -7

          No one intends for the dd to take effect when they paid their outstanding balance down to 0. Cry me a river.

        • terrys on 05/08/2017 - 16:41
          +6

          @nurries: "Cry me a river."
          You seem to be doing that by yourself.

  • pyramid on 04/08/2017 - 21:18
    +2

    Consider this a warning and to check your statements and accounts often!

    Lol, you tried to oversmart their system and now blaming amex. This is warning for you to setup your DD and manual payments in correct way.

    • [Deactivated] on 04/08/2017 - 21:19
      -5

      It's not that hard to implement an if statement that checks to see if your outstanding balance is 0. Barely "oversmart". But k.

      • pyramid on 04/08/2017 - 21:26
        +6

        Its not hard to cancel DD before making manual payments. Its common sense not to do manual payments when you have dd setup.

        • [Deactivated] on 04/08/2017 - 21:30
          -8

          Intriguing tale, I'll be sure to remember this sound piece of advice for the future.

  • Seven8Nine on 04/08/2017 - 22:36
    +1

    OP OP oye oye oye, take a chill pill.

  • daft009 on 04/08/2017 - 23:48
    +3

    Agree with OP.
    Yes it will still process the DD even if you have manually paid.
    Would be good if it didn't but it does.
    Need to change your processes accordingly and move on

  • kerryww on 05/08/2017 - 09:30

    To keep people happy, maybe Amex could add this little bit of code to their billing system. :)

    if (condition) {
    if customer owes > $0.00 process debt
    } else {
    move to next account number if customers account is < $0.00
    }

    :)

    • [Deactivated] on 05/08/2017 - 11:42
      -2

      Just thought I would add a slight improvement. <=$0.00

      Not that it matters which one you use. I just prefer my code this way haha

    • chillin222 on 05/08/2017 - 15:26

      I bet their billing system gets a monthly extract of closing balances, and can't actually run queries against the transaction database. Not that this is excusable!

    • theguyrules on 05/08/2017 - 23:36

      Slight syntax errors.

      if (customer owes > $0.00) {
      process debt
      } else {
      move to next account number
      }

      That's better.

      • tooblue on 08/08/2017 - 17:11

        My statement balance is $100 and I repaid $99 manualy. I wonder why you still direct debit me $100 instead of the remaining $1?

        I am going to put a post on the forum [AmEx Direct Debit and Manual Payment], and contact ACA, TodayTonight to condemn this shonky business.

    • tooblue on 08/08/2017 - 17:05

      WOW, code monkeys know how to if…then…else. How amazing.

      From technical perspective, do you have any idea how many queries it requires to achieve the goal? Do you have any idea how long does it take the database to do such queries and update all the records? Especially a global company like AmEx?

      From management perspective, they will ask the business case: how much revenue it will generate? how much cost it will cut? The answer is: no, but it will reduce the repayments we receive from the customer. So less cash flow for AmEx.

      Why would AmEx do it?

      • theguyrules on 08/08/2017 - 17:35
        -2

        From technical perspective, do you have any idea how many queries it requires to achieve the goal? Do you have any idea how long does it take the database to do such queries and update all the records? Especially a global company like AmEx?

        Sounds like you don't either, and are just throwing words like 'query' out there to sound smart. A+

  • dp1 on 05/08/2017 - 10:32
    +6

    Sometimes people might want a positive card balance- do you want them to prevent this? . I have done this when buying a car on Amex if the amount I am paying is higher than the credit limit. It's quicker and cheaper than bank drafts/cash/other more traditional methods of large value money transfers especially on weekends and public holidays

    • JohnHowardsEyebrows on 05/08/2017 - 15:40

      Which car dealers accept Amex?

      • dp1 on 06/08/2017 - 08:30
        +1

        So far in my experience mazda, bmw, ford, Toyota, Mitsubishi. Fee free below $5k for bmw

  • demiurge on 05/08/2017 - 10:45
    +2

    You should've paid earlier. If you pay off the card before the monthly statement is generated then it won't direct debit anything.

    • Aussie Smurfette on 05/08/2017 - 10:50

      Of course it will. The system does not know that you don't want to overpay the balance 🙄

      • demiurge on 05/08/2017 - 10:51
        +2

        It will not. The amount to direct debit is calculated at statement generation. If you paid off the card before then the statement will be zero.

    • [Deactivated] on 05/08/2017 - 10:56
      -1

      20 days is plenty early.

      • demiurge on 05/08/2017 - 11:01
        +1

        It's not. On my card statement is generated at end of month and payment is due on the 24th of next month. AMEX just gives you almost a month to pay the statement.

        • [Deactivated] on 05/08/2017 - 11:04

          I see what you mean by the statement generation. But how hard is it for their system to check if your balance is 0 and cancel the dd before processing it.

        • demiurge on 05/08/2017 - 11:10
          +1

          @nurries:
          I can see multiple problem with your idea. When should AMEX check? There must be some deadline, especially with credit cards your balance is actually not very precise at each point in time, due to pending charges and authorizations. So it is actually good practice for AMEX to say exactly how much they are going to take out of your bank on your statement so you can prepare for it well ahead.

        • [Deactivated] on 05/08/2017 - 11:16
          +1

          @demiurge:

          Wouldn't it make sense to check just before they process the dd?

          Or are you trying to tell me that your current balance and the calculated balance for that invoice aren't seperate and so they have no way of telling?

        • demiurge on 05/08/2017 - 11:22
          +3

          @nurries:
          Your "current balance" is not a precise number. Say your last month's bill was $500, you decide to pay it off, but then afterwards you bought something for $350 just before direct debit day, so how much should AMEX bill you? If you say $350 then you are actually losing the interest free days on your $350 purchase. Furthermore what if the $350 is just pending charges?

        • [Deactivated] on 05/08/2017 - 11:27

          @demiurge:

          Yeh, that makes sense. So pretty much any new charges after the statement is issued will still contribute to my total balance but the dd system can't tell them apart and only knows "this is the amount I need to dd" which it got from the last statement?

        • demiurge on 05/08/2017 - 11:30
          +2

          @nurries:
          Yeah, all new charges/payments after statement generation will only be counted towards next statement period as far as dd is concerned. It's actually preferable to a lot of people that way because it's better to have a precise dd amount well ahead of time.

        • [Deactivated] on 05/08/2017 - 11:38
          +1

          @demiurge:

          Interesting. I just assumed dd would count that manual payment as paying off your current statement rather than just paying down your balance. I see why I got double charged then.

        • [Deactivated] on 05/08/2017 - 11:38
          +2

          @demiurge:

          Thanks for clearing that up rather than saying "har har har it's your fault" and leaving no decent explanation.

        • demiurge on 05/08/2017 - 11:44
          +1

          @nurries:
          You are right, there is no way for AMEX to tell what the intention of your payment is. Furthermore refunds also count as payments which just makes things really complicated. So technically you can buy an expensive item, get a refund, and then the refund could count towards your last statement instead! That's why it's better to just cut off at a set date.

        • [Deactivated] on 05/08/2017 - 11:45

          @demiurge:

          Yeh, that refund situation happened to me and I was a bit confused until I had a good think about it haha

        • chillin222 on 05/08/2017 - 15:30
          +2

          @nurries: other banks e.g. CBA will do the following calculation: DD amount = prior month CB - payments to date. They do not DD funds to cover current statement period transactions. Thought this was industry standard??

  • Aussie Smurfette on 05/08/2017 - 10:57
    +4

    AMEX are and always have been the worst and less usable of any card except Diners Cllub, which I think may have finally died out.
    Totally different in this case though, the system can not know what you want to happen unless you tell it. Pretty sure you could have contacted ANEX before the automatic payment date to advise them you didn't want the payment to happen.
    I have no automatic payments set up for a single thing for this and any other bill. Have you set up the automatic payments from your bank account or do you just allow these companies to access your account?
    So many basic issues with your comprehension of how these things work that it astounds me you have an AMEX card.

    • [Deactivated] on 05/08/2017 - 11:02
      -4

      AmEx is allowed to debit my account. Who in their right mind wants a direct debit to continue after they just paid their balance down to 0. The issue isn't my comprehension, it's everyone else who can't understand that a basic 'if' statement could prevent all this.

      You're going to tell me that if you pay your phone bill manually and had dd setup that you would still want your dd to go through? No, you wouldn't.

      • JohnHowardsEyebrows on 05/08/2017 - 15:41
        +8

        You need to learn about about the financial system we currently have before asserting how much you know, champ.

  • [Deactivated] on 05/08/2017 - 12:47
    +1

    Don't stress over nothing: you've only just been on holiday!

  • imahapyboy on 05/08/2017 - 16:00

    well… i knew it years ago, nothing new, still inlove with my amex card

  • Gronk on 05/08/2017 - 17:27

    ITT: OP learns how credit cards work. Go you OP.

    • kungfupanda on 05/08/2017 - 18:22
      +3

      I think OP needs to understand how Direct Debit works.

  • [Deactivated] on 05/08/2017 - 18:52
    +11

    I used most of my daily negs on this guy.

  • kolorijo on 05/08/2017 - 20:58
    +2

    The sense of …. is strong with this one. <Fill the blank>

  • [Deactivated] on 05/08/2017 - 22:44
    +1

    Are you trying to get the most cumulative negative posts ever?

    • [Deactivated] on 06/08/2017 - 06:05

      I feel sorry for JV. That is his thing.

  • [Deactivated] on 06/08/2017 - 09:20

    OP needs to learn to take responsibility for own actions.

  • wtfnodeal on 06/08/2017 - 09:31

    Op, how does Amex know if you didn't deliberately want to leave a credit balance in the Amex account instead of your own bank account? What if Amex automatically cancels or reverses your direct debit after your manual payment and you stil go and complain Amex not to interfere your strange behavior leaving a credit balance in a credit card account? Sounds like either Amex do something or not after detecing your manual payment will get a complaint from a difficult customer like you.

  • MathNerd on 06/08/2017 - 09:46

    This is why we can't have nice things.

  • Diesmile on 06/08/2017 - 11:38

    I find that surprising no one has mentioned that's not how direct debit works.

    When credit card reached the end of billing cycle, it well see how much is owed on the card and issue a date for direct debit for the amount. if you want to do a manual payment, you should do before amex issue the direct debit date, that way you will have a reduced direct debit amount to pay later on

    I gave done this many times

  • kaleidoscope on 06/08/2017 - 12:01

    I think op learnt it the hard way how dd works 👏

  • marquise on 06/08/2017 - 14:28

    If you call up to do a manual payment they will adjust the direct debit amount by what you have paid.

  • charlie123 on 06/08/2017 - 16:28

    Something in OPs favour: CBA told me that they can set a direct debit for MasterCard and if in case I already pay before the direct debit then the debit wont happen.

  • JohnHowardsEyebrows on 06/08/2017 - 19:01

    I'm noticing a theme with the OP…quite a forgetful one. :)

  • lakes_8 on 06/08/2017 - 20:16

    same happened to me, wasn't even fussed

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