Alliance and Leicester - recommend a friend? (Merged)

Gem_

I had no problems recieving my recomend a friend £50 but weirdly the guy who recommended me has not been paid? how that works I have no idea.

He is going to chase them up so we shall see what turns up

Gem

dennyboy

I think if your playing them, then yes you should get your 50 quid as you have stuck by their T&C. I have to admit I didn't really Scrutinize the T&C, naive of me I know, I should have said to him fund it ASAP after you open it up.

I can only say make sure the account is cedited quickly with your own payment from another account, don't wait for your wages to go in, I know for a fact he couldn't have set this up this with his employer any quicker as I work for the same company. and our accounts department are not fast movers.

nigel_wiggins

I have had an A&L account for about 18 months. When "the introduce a friend or family member" offer was launched, I recommended my wife to change from Cahoot to A&L. The account opened normally last August and I thought that all the published criteria for receiving the money was met. However, they didn't pay up.

I phoned on 8 December to find out why, and received some poor excuse about them being to busy. They would make the payment within a couple of days. Still nothing!

I phoned on 13 January to ask again why nothing had been done. "We've been very busy Sir" was the reply. Busy counting all the money they haven't paid.

I received a letter today stating that my wife and I didn't qualify because we didn't meet the criteria. The money paid into my wife's account came from another A&L account. :wall:

The criteria mentioned at the bottom of the A&L leaflet "Recommend a friend and earn £50" ( http://www.alliance-leicester.co.uk/currentaccounts/ec09723.pdf) mentions nothing about this.

Are they allowed to introduce new criteria like this?

I will get my £50 !!! Either A&L pay up or I will switch to Lloyds and get £50. It's their choice.

PS -
The A&L staff in the Cardiff branch recommend that you pay £500 CASH into the new account when opening rather than doing a transfer into your spouses account.

Pontoon

I've given up. My patience and sanity is really at it's extent.

I recieved a letter in reply to an email I sent to their customer services. It says nothing and apologises for "lack of customer care afforded to you on this occasion" in reference to the less than helpful girl I spoke to when I phoned in a complaint. No apology for anything else they've done to irritate and upset my life.

I started writing down the problems I've had with A&L since setting up and online saving account with them, then the disasterous current account fiasco which is still not complete to my satisfaction. I'm onto the 2nd page and I haven't even got to them failing to swich my pay.
The irony being I wasn't even one of the people gaining £50 quid from them as I was joining so I could recommed my other half, which I won't be doing as I've had such a crap time with them. Stupid I know as I should have got someone on here to recommend me, but I was new to this site at the time.
Result is I'm not any better off just more stressed and now having to switch a second time. Lloyds TSB here I come... unless I hear bad things about them.

Has anyone had any luck with their complaints about A&L getting a satisfactory reason why they transfer all the standing orders and half the direct debits and don't attempt to transfer your pay till after this?

Should I just switch to Lloyds and get on with life, or should I keep complaining and hopefully get a proper apology and maybe some compensation?

Bokken_2

hello Pontoon
Keep complaining until it is sorted out to your satisfaction.
I had a similar run around with First direct last years and told them I was complaining to the bankng ombuman and quoted part of the banking code at them.
They promptly paid up and £25 compensation,not much but I was happy with it.
Just a thought ,but are you really moving all of your DD to A&L and then on to TSB/Lloyds?
Why not leave everything with A&L for the moment.Open a new account with Lloyds and transfer the money on line and then collect the joining incentives and then leave them and do it all again with First Direct or Barclays .
Any way stick with the complaint.good luck.

frankie

Hi

Finally got the £25 A&L owed for credit card incentive. Been chasing for almost a year! Threatened to close my accs with them based on their poor performance and the amount of negative responses about them posted on the Internet.

So it pays to keep on at them.

Of course I will now close my account anyway and grab £50 from Lloyds. Hope that that payback goes better!

davidlizard

Finally received our £50 fee each yesterday !

I applied for the account in September, which was duly opened and credited with £25 (which I immediately took out and spent down the pub!). Friend completed the voucher and off it went.

A/L then made a complete shambles of transferring all my direct debits and standing orders, and things such as my mortgage were not transfered, telephone cancelled and not transferred. Therefore I had to leave my salary being paid into my old First Direct account until all this was resolved, which took until November until the mess was sorted, with each Alliance and Leicester office I got through to blaming one of the other offices.

I then asked where my cashback was - they told me at least two payments must go in. So two payments later (after November and Decembers salary) I phone up again, only to be told they had not received the voucher (which is gobbledegook as they read the details out in November as to who my friend was). So we completed another voucher, and nothing happened, so phoned them up again to be told I was not entitled to the £50 as the whole thing took longer than the 8-week period in their T&Cs.

At this point, I hit the roof, and pointed out that the delay was entirely down to their adminstative incompetence. This cut no ice. So I wrote a very terse letter, and threatened to involve the FSA and advertising standards (seeing they advertise this scheme). Lo and behold, two days after posting the letter, £50 appears in our accounts!

Lesson 1 learnt - do not use the A/Ls account switching service.
Lesson 2 learnt - persevere, and don't let them fob you off.

Dave

dennyboy

davidlizard wrote:

At this point, I hit the roof, and pointed out that the delay was entirely down to their adminstative incompetence. This cut no ice. So I wrote a very terse letter, and threatened to involve the FSA and advertising standards (seeing they advertise this scheme). Lo and behold, two days after posting the letter, £50 appears in our accounts!

Lesson 1 learnt - do not use the A/Ls account switching service.
Lesson 2 learnt - persevere, and don't let them fob you off.

Dave

Here Here DavidLizard. I think I will have a go at writting one of these letters myself! This is exactly what had happened to my friend.

DemiDee

I'm so glad I was turned down!

mad

I have had a couple of £50 quids and a further payment of compensation following the direct debits not being transferred without my considerable intervention. They tried to blame the other agencies but I pointed out that they made it sound in their marketing literature that makes out it will all be so easy. If anyone wants the jist of the letter I sent them drop me a line