I posted a version of this yesterday, SAW it on the post and then today it's disappeared. Deleted by a mod (but why?) or a victim of a Mudcat glitch? I basically said:

I hold no brief for banks. One screwed me over royally a few years ago when trying to get me to convert an overdraft at low interest to a loan at much higher interest "to help your financial planning". When I suggested to the manager (politely) that the pressure to convert was probably more to enable her to meet her loan sales targets than to "help" me, the bank immediately cancelled my overdraft and called it in. I couldn't pay at the time. They took legal proceedings and despite me providing evidence that I would be able to pay a few weeks after the date of the hearing, refused to give a grace period and ruined my credit record for a time.

However, with regard to Direct Debits, I'm at a loss as to why the fact that the OP's minimum payment increases every month until it spirals so far upwards it's time for the annual serious spending discussion with the wife should prevent him avoiding late payment charges by setting up a DD. He says that he phones to make a payment every month, so presumably pays at least the minimum then, so how is this different to paying by DD? Presumably if the minimum payment doubles, say, over a period of months, he'd be paying this by phone anyway, so why not just set up the Direct Debit and stop worrying about remembering to make a phone call on time?