One would hope Tesco would cover any costs incurred by customers that are a direct result of this. I know banks in the past have cancelled non-arranged overdraft fees when they've screwed up, but that's easier to do as it's cancelling a charge rather than actually paying money out.

One would hope, but again time is a factor. I've had a weird "I'll be OK soon but for now I'm in trouble" situation before with Bank of Scotland back when I was a student. BOS randomly decided overnight that instead of having an agreed-upon student overdraft limit of GBP 2000 I had none whatsoever and needed to start paying them the full balance immediately. Eventually this was resolved, but for four days I was unable to pay rent or buy food. I was extremely lucky I had friends/family I could rely on in the meantime and that it was resolved so quickly, others may not be so lucky.

I am astonished how many people in this discussion are completely unaware of the idea that some people aren't as lucky as us and work paycheque-to-paycheque. I know HN/SV is a bubble, but surely we're not so out of touch with reality...

I had a very similar experience with BOS back in the early '90s.

And you're spot on - there are so many people juggling these financial balls that one slip up can cause issues for years.

I'm sure the creditors would be lenient if you can prove this incident complicated things for you.

Can't tell if this is sarcasm.

Then again, maybe I am overly cynical. UK utilities at least do seem to have a more positive approach towards people struggling to pay than other countries.

Aye, it's one of the (very) few good things you can say about them (generally).

To some degree you're right - if you've got a landlord you need to pay or a utilities provider (assuming you're not horrendously behind already) then sure, but it'd depend on the creditor. I suspect these lads wouldn't be particularly sympathetic, for example: https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/2015/11/24/warning-of-loa...