Alliance & Leicester Current Account

zoony67

This enquiry is not for me but one of my daughters, she came home today very upset with A & L. What has happend is that she went overdrawn by £ 3.48 last month and had not realised. She has received a letter from A & L today which states she owes them nearly £ 245.00 in unauthorised overdraft fees ! based on being charged £ 5.00 per day for the £ 3.48 overdrawn amount. A & L claim that they sent her a letter when she went overdrawn but she never received that letter and the letter received today is the first she has actually received and all her mail comes via me.

My daughter has phoned them a number of times today but they will not budge on the fees which I find frankly staggering. I have never heard of such extrotionate charges and my daughter is worried out of her life. She cannot afford to pay this amount in full at this precise time and A & L have said that she has two options.

1. Pay the amount if full and avoid extra charges at £ 5.00 Per day !

2. Close the Account and pay off the £245.00 in installments of £ 35.00 Per month until cleared.

What should we do, any suggestions,

natweststaffmember

How old is your daughter? If she is over 17 years of age then she will have to start the process by reading Martin's Guide to reclaiming.

chirpy007

I have an A&L account and im charged £5.00 per month for being overdrawn. £5 per day doesnt sound right at all, when l queried a charge for buying currency l emailed them and got a vey quick response.

Have you checked the T&C on her account?

Sandieflowers

My son was in the same situation with A and L, he went overdrawn by a small amount because they applied what they called a 'ghost overdraft' (their words) to his account and allowed him to use his debit card, other banks would have declined the transaction.
He was being charged £5 per day and ended up with £150 charges, he has started the reclaim process but it was put on hold because of the test case. He has paid the charges and closed the account.
I think your daughter should try and pay these charges (beg or borrow) and close this account as soon as possible and then start the reclaim process.
My husband and I had our savings invested with A&L but since I have now seen first hand how they treat people with a problem we have moved all our accounts.
Hope it gets sorted for you.

zoony67

Sandieflowers wrote: »

My son was in the same situation with A and L, he went overdrawn by a small amount because they applied what they called a 'ghost overdraft' (their words) to his account and allowed him to use his debit card, other banks would have declined the transaction.
He was being charged £5 per day and ended up with £150 charges, he has started the reclaim process but it was put on hold because of the test case. He has paid the charges and closed the account.
I think your daughter should try and pay these charges (beg or borrow) and close this account as soon as possible and then start the reclaim process.
My husband and I had our savings invested with A&L but since I have now seen first hand how they treat people with a problem we have moved all our accounts.
Hope it gets sorted for you.

What I cannot understand is that my daughter never had any overdraft arrangement with the A & L. When a £ 3.49 direct debit was requested from that account A & L paid it without any consultation with her, they claim that they sent a letter advising her of this but we never recieved that item of correspondence and they then started charging her £ 5.00 per day ! for Exceeding an unauthorised overdraft ?

My view is that this is outrageous profiteering by any standards and I have got my daughter to call up A & L and request printed bank statements since she opened the account 4 months ago until now when A & L have suspended the account so see the chronilogical events of charging. A & L state that they will charge £ 5.00 per day up to 20 days in a charging period. I have advised her to settle the charges in full £ 243.00 and then we can make an assement of if it is viable to pursue A & L through the court for the fees they have demanded. I would in the meantime urge anyone especially the younger people here not to have any dealings with A & L as is seems to me that companies like this pray on the ignorance and vunerablity of this sector.

I would be very interested to learn from A & L how their costs are derived at £243.00 ! for a £ 3.49 mistake albeit that they should not have assumed payment in the first place !

evilgiraf

Hi zoony67,

I am in a very similar situation: I have a Premier Direct account which requires a Credit of £500/month. I transferred my balance away with the intention of closing the account, however, I didn't do this fast enough and A&L charged me £5 due to 'under-funding' (acc still in credit by £4.82 but I did not pay in the £500). This charge by A&L sent me O/D to the tune of 18p on the 6-Nov-08.

zoony67

evilgiraf wrote: »

Hi zoony67,

I am in a very similar situation: I have a Premier Direct account which requires a Credit of £500/month. I transferred my balance away with the intention of closing the account, however, I didn't do this fast enough and A&L charged me £5 due to 'under-funding' (acc still in credit by £4.82 but I did not pay in the £500). This charge by A&L sent me O/D to the tune of 18p on the 6-Nov-08.

I did not notice that I had gone O/D until I received a letter from A&L dated 8-Dec-08 stating an outstanding debit of £80 on the account (15 days at £5/day). I immediately transferred money to the account and called A&L. They informed me that there would be another £100 of charges to pay (20 days at £5/day). The total amount charged now stands at £190 (!) and I received a letter yesterday stating that their fees were raised correctly in accordance with their fee structure! :mad:

*****
I think it is appalling that it was their charge that sent me overdrawn in the first place - I had specifically declined an overdraft facility.

1. Does anyone know whether I can claim these fees back either in full or in part?
2. Should I close the account before submitting my claim?
Thank you in advance :cool:

I think that it is obvious from the many various posts that the banks concerned are taking the P*** and are blatant with it. Sure they are businesses at the end of the day and any business must be able to cover its running costs and make a profit.
But the charges that people are talking about here are excessive, what sticks in my throat is that many of these banks are only still trading due to the fact that us as Taxpayers are keeping them trading with billions of our money being poured into them. My view of this is that we should ley some of them go to the wall which will sharpen up the others games, especially when the the likes of Northen Rock funded entirely by the british taxpayer is paying large bonus payments to its staff !

:mad:

caelshorn

evilgiraf wrote: »

1. Does anyone know whether I can claim these fees back either in full or in part?
2. Should I close the account before submitting my claim?
Thank you in advance :cool:

It seems there are lots of us in this situation. I closed my account immediately, and although the woman at the branch was appalled, couldn't get through the employee direct line to customer services (had to hang up after being on hold for an HOUR) and assured me there were no further charges to the account, I got whacked with another £90 (18 days at £5). That was 39 days ago, and today I received that data I asked for. I see that in previous months they put a £5 limit on the charges, but in the last month they must have thought "f*** it, let's just take the lot". I am now physically repulsed by the Santander adverts and have to leave the room when they come on.

As to the first question: I'm going to ask for the whole lot back. Chances are they won't give it anyway.

evilgiraf

Hi caelshorn - thanks for joining in. It's apalling but at the same time it's good to know that there's another in the same situation and we can (hopefully) sort it together.
Keep us updated on how you get on and I'll do the same.
All the best.