natwest/lloyds tsb

citrine_2

i poster yesterday about bank recomendations, but no one replied..

so have had a look at various banks, called them up and generally found out if they had all the facilities i needed to run my accounts..

anyhoo natwest and lloyds tsb seem to be the 2 main accounts that have everything i need,

i dont want to jump into a new bank this time without doing proper homework on it, i did that when i left abby and tbh i,m not happy with A&L and i dont think i always have been..

so any feedback from either customers or staff, happy or disgruntled would be great...

wendy_

Well, up till now I have been happy with Natwest. I use internet banking and 2 weeks ago I was advised by natwest that due to a virus on my computer they would have to suspend my online banking and I would have to re register. I did this but somehow I managed to go £3 overdrawn. My salary went in the following day but they charged me £38 for going overdrawn for 1 day. Today I received another letter saying they are taking a maintainance charge of £28.00 at the end of this month making a total of £66 charges for being £3 overdrawn for 1 day. They were not interested when I rang them up and said that there was nothing they could do unless it was there fault. I consider these charges extortunate. What does anyone else think?

LittleVoice

Just to say, citrine, that I have been very happy with LTSB over the last 18 months or so. (I opened an account in December 06.) They seem to me to operate fairly - but I have no experience of being overdrawn and I do not have one of their current accounts which charge a monthly fee.

I have had some savings accounts with them which were worth it at the time and then were not appropriate for what I wanted. Closing the accounts was easy, though it did need a visit to a branch.

They recently offered 6% to new customers opening some of their current accounts. They also allowed existing holders of those accounts to register for the same rate. This seems to me fair - though it would have been even better to automatically upgrade people to the higher rate rather than require them to contact them to do it!

Online banking seems good. And they have Faster Payments in operation.

jonesMUFCforever

The 6% offer was open to both new and existing customers as long as they paid in £1k every month to the current account.

mrposhman

Natwest charged me for being 12p over my limit last month.

It seems their financial performance over the last year have made them even more money grabbing.

If you will have money in your account, don't bother with natwest as their current account interest rate is 0.1% AER!!

jonesMUFCforever

mrposhman wrote: »

Natwest charged me for being 12p over my limit last month.

It seems their financial performance over the last year have made them even more money grabbing.

If you will have money in your account, don't bother with natwest as their current account interest rate is 0.1% AER!!

It's not their fault that you overspent though is it?

mrposhman

£28 for a 12p overspend, yes thats in line with the offence and not an outrageous amount to charge for that.

It was a DD that I went over on, they said they would pay it then charge me.

Heres an idea, using the £28 that apparantly I have to pay, pick up a phone, give me a call and TALK TO ME to let me know that this is happening, or is that just common sense??

corpus

My experience of Lloyds TSB is not good. I remember getting in a fix about 20 years ago - I went straight into the bank and met a lovely old chap called George. He went through my statement on his computer and just cancelled all the charges. He also discovered that my "fix" had affected my credit status. With a click of his mouse he changed my credit rating from high to low risk and all was well.

Now, I can't make an appointment within a fortnight and every time I go to the bank I meet somebody different. Everybody there has a "computer sez no" attitude and the charges they apply for "unplanned overdrafts" are punitive to put it mildly. You can't speak to your own branch directly by telephone and, again, you never speak to the same person twice on the 'phone.

All that and they charge me £17 per month for the privilege of having an account for them to plunder. I'm out of there as soon as I can manage it and wouldn't recommend Lloyds if it was the last bank on earth.

MABLE

corpus wrote: »

My experience of Lloyds TSB is not good. I remember getting in a fix about 20 years ago - I went straight into the bank and met a lovely old chap called George. He went through my statement on his computer and just cancelled all the charges. He also discovered that my "fix" had affected my credit status. With a click of his mouse he changed my credit rating from high to low risk and all was well.

Now, I can't make an appointment within a fortnight and every time I go to the bank I meet somebody different. Everybody there has a "computer sez no" attitude and the charges they apply for "unplanned overdrafts" are punitive to put it mildly. You can't speak to your own branch directly by telephone and, again, you never speak to the same person twice on the 'phone.

All that and they charge me £17 per month for the privilege of having an account for them to plunder. I'm out of there as soon as I can manage it and wouldn't recommend Lloyds if it was the last bank on earth.

Well if you keep to the terms and conditions then you should have no problem. I have been with Lloyds for over 25 years and in my experience they are the best. Whenever I have needed a loan, overdraft, credit card or savings account there has never been a problem.

Also I have never felt the need to visit a George in branch because I know the terms and conditions and never breach them.

corpus

MABLE wrote: »

Well if you keep to the terms and conditions then you should have no problem. I have been with Lloyds for over 25 years and in my experience they are the best. Whenever I have needed a loan, overdraft, credit card or savings account there has never been a problem.

Also I have never felt the need to visit a George in branch because I know the terms and conditions and never breach them.

Well bully for you Mable. Unfortunately not everybody is able to stay on the path of the financially virtuous. You only need to be made redundant once to find your circumstances changing drastically and very suddenly. When you've been made redundant twice, it becomes that little bit more difficult to keep to the terms and conditions. "Sorry kids, I can't buy any food today because I don't want to breach the terms and conditions." It's easy to be smug about it when you've never been there.

MABLE

corpus wrote: »

Well bully for you Mable. Unfortunately not everybody is able to stay on the path of the financially virtuous. You only need to be made redundant once to find your circumstances changing drastically and very suddenly. When you've been made redundant twice, it becomes that little bit more difficult to keep to the terms and conditions. "Sorry kids, I can't buy any food today because I don't want to breach the terms and conditions." It's easy to be smug about it when you've never been there.

Well in my life time I have been redundant three times. I never once felt sorry for myself and I did not help myself to the banks money without permission.

The first thing I did was make an appointment with the bank and told them the situation. They were brilliant and supported me through the difficult times.

You either stick to the terms and conditions or face the consequences.