Alliance & Leicester SVR concern

michaelm

mrdantheman wrote: »

Well, all I can say is that I hope A&L adhere to the "Treating Customers Fairly" principle promoted by the Financial services authority. I honestly thought being an existing customer I would be at an advantage but obviously not! They could at least waive the £295 admin charge for moving my mortgage!

Some chance. With arguably the most wide ranging and highest of all banking charges in the UK if anything they'll raise the charge.

Colin_London

Looks like A&L are attempting the old 'fiscal drag' trick. They'll probably wait to drop the SVR until the day after the next BoE interest rate reduction in December, and conveniently deprive their customers of some of the reductions passed on by other banks. With more customers now sitting on SVRs it gives them more time to rake in a bit of extra profit.

Good thing we've just remortgaged and will be leaving them very shortly.....

jrh20

Its worth checking A&L press releases from time to time

http://www.alliance-leicester-group.co.uk/html/media/latest_releases.aspx

Latest Release:

YOU CAN’T BEAT A BRITISH CHRISTMAS

While many British expats celebrate Christmas by soaking up the sun and enjoying BBQs on the beach, research by Alliance & Leicester International (ALIL), the offshore savings bank with a strong focus on expatriate customers around the globe, reveals that this does not make up for being able to spend the festive season with family and friends.

Nice to see their spending their money on worthwhile research.

John1999a

Looks as though they've changed the SVR to 5.84%. Dropped it 1.1%

http://www.alliance-leicester.co.uk/mortgages/mortgage-rates.aspx

Hopefully this will kick in from next month (week)...

lizzymouse

well, its not the full 1.5, and they only passed on 0.25 of the earlier 0.5 cut, so they have still shorchanged us by 0.65 !!

Still, this makes me breathe a sigh of relief as their SVR is now making my monthly budget look alot more manageable for when i do come off my current fixed rate with them, maybe it will even have come down a bit more by the time that happens with a further interest rate cut likely, and then we can all go through this waiting game with them again- happy days (sort off ! )

pritsim

just een the svr is 5.84 which is a bit ridcolous..only passed 1.35% cut in the last 3 months while boe has come down 2%...but i suppose better than nothing...but how come thier sister company abbey has got 5.44% svr...

jrh20

FINALLY. But too little, bit late but will improve christmas for us.

jaigo76

It certainly does feel like 'too little too late', but its better than nothing i suppose. Think i might ride on the SVR for a bit now and wait to see if they bring out any cheaper fixed rates out.

austinslide

To me it seems that not applying the full 1.5% is crazy.
The point of the rate drop was to help out comsumers.. not banks.
The PM himself had met with and urged banks to pass it on.
To have only decreased by 1.1 basically means that the A+L is capitalising off a drop that was meant to help consumers.
This seems to be riduculous... the SVR was massively above the base rate in the first place!

EDIT...
Actually.. I just looked into this myself and decided to give the financial ombusman a call.
They said that while they normally take the stance that they dont have much to say about interest rates, as this is very much up to the bank, they accepted that my complaint is that they havent passed on an interest rate which banks had been specifically urged to do. As such they are sending me a form and will put forward the complaint to the A+L.
I would urge lots of other people to do the same thing.
Perhaps if there are enough official complaints we may get somewhere...
The phone number is... 0845 080 1800 or 020 7964 0500
or you can email [EMAIL="complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.uk"]complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.uk[/EMAIL]

Hope you all get on board and complain about this terrible service we are recieving.

lizzymouse

....and we could also all complain to the man himself:

[EMAIL="ministers@hm-treasury.gsi.gov.uk"]ministers@hm-treasury.gsi.gov.uk[/EMAIL]

this will go through to the treasury office, you are suppose to get a responce in 15 days according to the website

It might not change anything but if nobody complains, it certainly wont change anything