Last month my 78-year-old mother got a call from her private banking advisor at SEB. He strongly recommended she activate their free security feature: “delay payment.”

He made it sound completely harmless.

My mother has always taken pride in paying every bill on time. She has never received a reminder fee or interest invoice in her life.

Then this month three late fees suddenly appeared. The money had left her account on time — yet the suppliers registered the payments as late.

Being a woman of action, she dug into it. She discovered that SEB was holding the money for two full days after it had been deducted from her account.

What the advisor “forgot” to mention was simple: if she activated the service, every bill would be paid two days late unless she manually moved the payment date back. During those two days the money sat with the bank — interest-free.

Activating the service? One phone call. Deactivating it? A written request.

If our elderly aren’t being targeted by criminals, they risk being misled by banks that present “free security” without clearly explaining the real cost.

Protecting people should not mean making ordinary, responsible customers look late for bills they paid on time — or letting the bank borrow their money for free.

Have you been sold a “free security” feature that ended up costing you money or time? Or is this just another case of banks protecting themselves first?