Advance notice
An advance notice is the warning a member gets before a Direct Debit collection, telling them the amount and roughly when the money will leave their account.
Bacs scheme rules require an advance notice before every collection, and that obligation sits with whoever holds the Bacs service user number. For Syndik8 that is the payment provider, Stripe, who collect on the syndicate’s behalf. Stripe send the advance-notice email. Neither Syndik8 nor the syndicate is a Bacs service user, so neither is the party the scheme places that duty on.
Syndik8 adds an in-app record of the same event: a “debit incoming” notification, with a push where the member has opted in. It fires the moment the collection reaches Stripe, and names the same amount. Tapping it opens the member’s balance screen, where the charges the collection is taking are listed as being on their way out.
When it happens
Section titled “When it happens”Bacs settles a collection over a few working days, so the money leaves the member’s account some days after the collection is submitted.
Syndik8 does not say which day, and the omission is deliberate. Stripe decide when a collection actually goes, they do not tell Syndik8 what they chose, and their own documentation calls their estimate not guaranteed. A date in the app would therefore be a prediction of somebody else’s behaviour shown to a member as a fact about their own bank account, on the screen where they decide whether to move money. The app says a collection is on its way and what it is worth; the day, when there is one to give, comes from Stripe’s advance-notice email and from the member’s own bank.
Changing your mind
Section titled “Changing your mind”There is no in-app way to stop a collection that has been submitted, and Syndik8 does not offer one. The Direct Debit Guarantee gives the member a stronger remedy directly at their own bank:
- Tell your bank to cancel the Direct Debit instruction, and no further collections are taken.
- If a payment has already been taken and you believe it should not have been, your bank refunds it immediately and in full. You do not have to justify the request, and it is settled between your bank and Stripe’s.
Either way, tell your syndicate admin — the charges themselves do not go away when a collection is reclaimed, and they will reappear on your balance.