Card transactions over past month been removed from account in 1 day...ADVICE NEEDED!

A question about : Card transactions over past month been removed from account in 1 day...ADVICE NEEDED!

Really need some advice on behalf of our little community. Our local supermarket has just taken 14 days of debit card transactions from my account in one day. I saw this yesterday as I checked my statement inline and there were 9 transactions that morning. I chatted to a friend about this later that day and found out that this had also happened to her and as the day went on we discovered that lots of us in our small community had experienced the same. On a personal level they had taken a total of Ј117. I contacted head office who said there had been a telecommunication problem and to cut a long story short, that as I took the goods I now had to pay for them, that it was what was due to them.At no point did it even cross my mind not to pay, but to take it without any advance warning? And to effectively shrug their shoulders that their customers were pushed into the red and left with no funds? This cannot be right. I was also informed that another payment of transactions from the last month would be coming out, of Ј118.
I am in the last week before payday and funds are very tight and budgeted. I explained that this first payment has pushed me into my overdraft and that it also left me with bills to pay that I can no longer pay. In short... I now face bank charges. Now although I appreciate that the goods need to be paid for, I foolishly thought that they WERE being paid for at the time I 'purchased' them. I am now left with charges that I feel I am not to blame for. Further to this, as I said at the start of this long and laborious message and if you are reading this I thank you for bearing with!.... The supermarket in question said there are more than 3000 transactions of this kind. I already know of one pensioner who has been left with no money this week at all. I know of single parents who are in the red and facing more large withdrawals at some point soon, with no money to pay. IS THERE ANYTHING WE CAN DO????? Please help us all in our little community x

Best answers:

• No, you can't do anything.
  Budgeting is about spending less than earning, not about balancing on the edge of the overdraft.
  It can come as a surprise to you, but if you autorise a payment the company has up to 6 months to collect the money without any further notice. So, the onus lies on you to keep a track of all your spending and to have the money available for collection at any time.
• How on earth can the supermarket be blamed?
  If I go to the shops and spend fifty quid I calculate that fifty quid as being gone from my account before I even leave the till! Once its in the bag and the receipt is in my hand its money spent!
  A supermarket cannot be held responsible for a person not budgeting correctly.
  Maybe it would be an idea to draw cash weekly and pay as you go so you can see clearly what is being spent.
• The shop has if I recall up to 6 months to claim any monies owed via the card terminal in the shop.
  We've been in a similar situation at work, our computer system lost communication to the payment processor. The result was that when it was fixed the computer system collected 7 days of transactions from accounts in one go.
• Is your "little community" one that is completely unable to understand the principles of budgeting? Had the supermarket taken more than 6 months to process the payments then yes, you should have been warned it would happen, and if it was 6 years (5 in Scotland) they wouldn't have been able to do it at all, although you would still have owed the money, but 2 weeks is no time at all. I'd agree with SnowTiger that if you can't cope with this then stick to cash.
• The "advance warning" you crave is surely already implicit in the fact you were in the shop and bought the goods.
  If the system was running without any lags, it would have attempted to collect the money straight away, and presumably either been declined if there weren't sufficient funds available or would incur bank charges if an overdraft was used.
  By the sound of it, it's quite possible this may have actually saved you a few days of being overdrawn, even though it's eventually happened.
• On a practical note I suggest you register for internet banking and check daily whether transactions have gone through as expected, if not do not spend the money.
• Come on it must be a troll post!!!
• If the money for the shopping hadn't debited the account then it should still be there to pay for the transactions ?
  If it isn't and it's been spent, it's hardly the banks fault is it ?
• Its gonna be a hard month for the 'Little house on the prairie gang' by the sounds of it!
• Troll post or:
  "Quick everybody, everything we buy in the local isn't being taken from our account.....stock up".....then "oh no they have caught up and transmitted the transactions, can we get out of paying".