Alliance and Leciester Running Balance help

chimpanzee23

Hi

Just wondering if someone could help with something please.

I have a Premier 21 account and on 14 August I had a few credits and debits going through the account.

My running balance went as follows

Started at £187.10
then had a debit card refund of £200.00 = £387.10
then a BACS debit for £400.00 = -£12.90
then a BACS credit of £200.00 = £267.10

Although this all went through on the same day will I get charged for going overdrawn or is is just the way thier system does the transactions, does it matter? My other concern is A+L putting a payment default on my credit report

Can someone reassure me that the ' running balance' doesn't mean nothing and also does the order of the transactions matter as well

Thank you

RedBern

wouldn't worry about it if it's all on the same day.

citrine_2

it does matter with A and L, they do debits first then credit last..i just got stung by that one, and charged £25..

have you checked your account for a charge? it usually goes out on the same day...

exel1966

A&L have a very peculiar and outdated system and as for their internet banking, it's shockingly poor !

It confuses the hell out of people when 3 different balances are shown on a current account which are not 'live'. Why do they need a running balance, an available balance and a balance ?

They apply debits before all credits into accounts which are not applied until overnight which does send accounts into the red.

As for your credit report, don't worry it doesn't apply here.

Grade_A_Reject

I agree with Excel1966 on the appalling naffness of A&L's online banking. I reconcile my balances daily wherever possible using Microsoft Money and having a running balance, balance and available balance which sometimes bear no resemblence to each other and don't offer any clue as to why makes it a difficult task.

I've also been caught out by the debits before credits lark too. I transferred money from my wife's A&L account to mine to cover a DD coming out the next day thinking this would be ok as the transfers usually show on the balance the next day. Unfortunatley these funds aren't "available funds" until the day after that so I got hit with an account review fee of £25. Unbelievable that in these days of faster payments that A&L can't move funds internally in less than 48 hours and then have the cheek to charge penalties to their customers for the tardiness of their systems.

londonuk2008

One of the reasons I decieded to switch after three years. Luckily I know where I am with my balances . Haven't said that most bank's apply debit's before credit's - correct me if I'm wrong.

LilacPixie

I dunno the specfics of the debits before credits lark but I bank with RBS and if I have a 0 balance on the thursday then on the friday i get £200 wages and a £50 dd comes out i will have £150 in my account and no charge or penalty. I presume this means they either apply the credits first or just don't care because the transaction was on the same day.

seatzie

this happened to me once with A&L when I just switched and their response was for a dd coming out on the Thursday you should have your money in on a Wednesday night not wait as in my case for my wages also going in on the thursday morning by bacs, I wrote them a polite letter telling them to catch up with the 21 century and as I'd only switched to them if that was how they dealt with things I'd be switching away again! They refunded the charge and its never happened again despite occassions where they apply payments first and my running balance shows a - figure, it seems to correct itself overnight because when I look next day they show the money coming in first then money out

Remember all charges tend to be automated so reclaim it if you can but they may still be holding all reclaims until the bank fee case is finally sorted

Cloudane

I addressed this sort of thing in another thread:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=13442823&postcount=4

Yeah, you might get charged. Best way to be sure is to just ask, although I'm guessing a charge would be automated and therefore appear within a day or two.

The best way to work with an A&L account is to assume that everything going into it requires 1 working day to clear. That's not strictly true (I don't think) but given how their system works it's the easiest way to handle it.

Also, do your own running balance on a spreadsheet or something - as has been noted, their online banking is pants. The "balance", "available balance" and "whatever's at the top of your transactions list" often end up out of sync and are frankly quite random. Their online list is only really useful for verifying what you already know.

exel1966

londonuk2008 wrote: »

One of the reasons I decieded to switch after three years. Luckily I know where I am with my balances . Haven't said that most bank's apply debit's before credit's - correct me if I'm wrong.

No, not all banks work this way, it tends to be the smaller ones that do. Out of the four current a/c's I operate only A&L do it this way, all others are live as they happen, not processed later in the day/overnight.

carpy

A&L are thieves...

i regularly credited my account the same day (albeit later that day) that my account went over my OD limit without any problems (so it temporarily went to a 'running balance' of -£950 when my OD limit was £700) this was never reflected on a statement because the same day i would credit £250 thus taking me back to my agreed OD.

this happened for months without a problem when one month they decided to not pay the item and charge me £25 even though i credited the account the same day!!

should i have a case for having the charge back as i always though banks take the balance at end of day?

i don't see how they can suddenly move the goalposts and change the way my account operated. as far as i was concerned it was ok.

i have asked for it back before without any joy but wonder if i have a case.