Auto Top-up Immediately Takes Payment

[Daedalus]

After having some issues with my Auto Top-ups, I was able to add a new Auto Top-up to my account today, which is good. During the setup process, the website said something along the lines of "If you have chosen low-balance auto top-up, payment will be taken the next time your balance falls below the specified amount." However, when I completed the process, payment was taken immediately from my card, despite my account being well over the limit I set up.

So what's the deal here? Is payment intended to be taken immediately, regardless of balance? If so, the information presented during the setup process is incorrect and should be fixed, as it mislead me into topping up when I clearly didn't need to. If not, why was I charged £15, when my top-up limit was set to £10 and my balance was £23?

Web chat help (as with my previous issue) is just a waste of time, and has spent a half an hour now looking at my account, only to tell me that £15 was taken because the balance was below £10 (it was definitely, definitely not), and that they can't give refunds.

[MI5 · Accepted solution]

@Daedalus 

A first top up is always taken when you setup the auto top up.

I can't comment on the amount taken as clearly if you asked for £10 and it took £15, something is wrong, but taking the payment immediately is how it works, regardless of your balance at the time you set it up.

[Daedalus]

There's no issue wit hthe amount taken - I set it for £15 and that's what was taken. The issue is that I wouldn't have set it up at all if the website didn't make it look like that wasn't the case.

The actual quote from the setup page is:

When you press “Submit” we’ll process your first £15 top up immediately, and set up your auto top-up going forward.

If you’ve chosen low balance top-up. Your first auto top-up will happen the next time your credit goes below the amount you’ve chosen.

So what's happened here is that there's talk of two "first" payments, which is confusing. Additionally, the bold text in the second part makes that sentence appear to be more important than the others, including overriding the first statement, which is a generic line included with any type of Auto Top-up setup. This led me to interpret it all something like: "Your first payment will be taken immediately, but if you chose low balance top-up, then your first payment will be taken when your balance goes below the set amount."

I don't think it's that unreasonable to have read it that way. I'm not a stupid guy (although I may appear like it to some), and I'm sure others can make the same mistake I did. So, as I said in the first post, I think the text on the page should be fixed to remove the ambiguity for people who are not as intimately familiar with the system as others.

[MI5]

When you press “Submit” we’ll process your first £15 top up immediately

I think that is clear enough and I'm not sure how it could be written differently?