From: Ronald Raygun 
Subject: Re: Can a Direct Debit "Expire"
Newsgroups: uk.finance
Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 12:28:42 GMT

Chris Blunt wrote:

> On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 23:35:14 GMT, Ronald Raygun
>  wrote:
>>It would avoid problems, of course, if the system allowed DD payment
>>requests for £0.00 to go through, the sole purpose of which would be
>>to prevent them going stale.
> 
> But that would defeat the whole purpose of the dormancy rule, which is
> to protect customers who had forgotten that a direct debit is still in
> force from being surprised that money had been debited from their
> accounts.

But if they saw debits for £0.00 appearing on their bank statements,
this will remind them that there's one in force.