TSB Charges crippling us!

dogsan

Help! In the last three months we have been charged approx £500 in returned DD & SO charges. We have an overdraft but now have an unplanned overdraft each month which is growing due to the charges. I have asked the bank for help, ie defer charges for a month, extend overdraft for a month, payment holiday on my bank loan, etc. Any one of these solutions would give us enough time to get straight. Their only answer was for us to buy from them a LARGE consolodation loan or to remortgage our house to pay off our debts. What else can we do?:eek:

beverleyhills

Work out your State of Finacial Affairs using this link http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html and post on the Debt Free Wanabee board for advice.

talana

Good advice, do a full SOA and post on the other board.

To break this cycle of charges you need to cut back on your monthly expenses (even if just temporarily) so that you can throw some money at reducing the overdraft.
What are these DDs and SOs for? If any are non-critical, cancel them for the time being so you don't rack up yet more charges.

dogsan

Thanks for replies!
DDs & SOs are for credit cards, loans, utilities so we have to pay them. Have given the bank a detailed financial breakdown of income/outgoings and they can see that within 4-6 weeks we would be fluent again but 'policy' dictates that they can only offer us a loan or remortgage. We understand that for the first month we were overdrawn and spoke to the bank about our situation right away, but they aren't interested. The only thing that puts us in arrears on our overdraft are the charges every month!

talana

High time to do a full financial review then!

DDs & SOs are for credit cards, loans, utilities so we have to pay them.

Utilities for example, yes you have to pay. But there's little sense paying by DD or SO at the moment if it just means racking up more charges.
Go to their websites/speak to them and see what other payment alternatives there are.

willo65

talana wrote: »

High time to do a full financial review then!



Utilities for example, yes you have to pay. But there's little sense paying by DD or SO at the moment if it just means racking up more charges.
Go to their websites/speak to them and see what other payment alternatives there are.

I would agree with this poster and cancel all S/o and D/d and pay by debit card or transfer when the funds are available and you won't get any charges that way, when you are sorted then set them up again.

starsinmycrown

dogsan wrote: »

Thanks for replies!
DDs & SOs are for credit cards, loans, utilities so we have to pay them. Have given the bank a detailed financial breakdown of income/outgoings and they can see that within 4-6 weeks we would be fluent again but 'policy' dictates that they can only offer us a loan or remortgage. We understand that for the first month we were overdrawn and spoke to the bank about our situation right away, but they aren't interested. The only thing that puts us in arrears on our overdraft are the charges every month!

There are sadly lots of people in this position with evil lloyds, and it is typical of them to offer you high interest alternatives. this is pretty typical practice for them, and it's stage one of them putting the screws into you. They won't help you, because lloyds are great at standing there with a JCB digging a giant hole for people in financial difficulty to fall into. I really really hope one day they will get their comeuppance. nasty nasty bank.

As somebody who has fallen into the tar-filled lloyds trap as a student, i would advise you to try and open a parachute account and then move everything to there. yes you'll get charged, but one charge a month for being overdrawn, not £500. it is beyond reproach what theyre doing to you. You must get away from lloyds as quick as you can because this will carry on. the other night i was on dooyoo reading some lloyds tsb customer stories and a couple of reviewers on there have ended up in bankruptcy proceeding because of these charges. i know how quickly it can spiral, as they charged me £200 over christmas once, and as i was a student, i just couldn't produce the money to pay it off. in lloyds terms and conditions this is what they insultingly call "fair".

Forgive me for making judgements on your financial situation, but you're clearly in difficulty and this is going to go on and on and on with them. You'll end up in debt collections next, this is their normal plan of attack. one day without warning you'll be told you're in there, and they'll start demanding repayments from you. Sometimes their next plan of attack is to remove your facility; effectively meaning that what money you have and what goes into there is swallowed, rendering your bank account essentially a repayment facility for them, and swallowing your wages. So watch out for this. Theyve got many nasty tricks, and their only "policy" seems to be to do the most lucrative thing they can. It might be "policy" to get you to remortgage your house, but it wasn't "policy" for me, because I don't have a house! They got my friend Alana with this "we've charged you £400, now YOU have to put it on one of our credit cards or buy a loan or we'll start collection proceedings against you". It seems par for the course. They'll always suggest the most expensive option for you.

This might not be great advice, but can you not get away with not paying something for a month, to avoid a hefty charge, or is it pretty much even stevens? for examaple if i don't pay my cc, i get charged £12 late fee from them, but if i miss a payment attatched to lloyds i get charged £35, plus £25 a day o/d charge, plus interest on unplanned. Is your bank loan with them too, or can you not negotiate there to get a break from another creditor? it's always worth a go, some are okay.

Lloyds are infamous for treating people who are on low incomes or who are in a sticky patch like criminals. As long as you have money (for which lloydspeak is "keeping your account in good order/managing your account) they'll be okay. The second you don't they're onto you. Please don't fall into the trap of me and my friends and many other MSers, move everything you can away from lloyds, as quick as you can. cancel dds, coming from them and set up a new account. That way if they decide to do their worst, which most likely they will, they won't be able to get at everything you have. Good luck, and my empathy. x

PBA

dogsan wrote: »

Thanks for replies!
DDs & SOs are for credit cards, loans, utilities so we have to pay them.

You still need to cancel the DDs. If the DDs are being bounced anyway then there's no point paying bank charges as well as whatever the companies you're paying will be charging you. Paying your bills in cash may cost a couple pounds a month more, but nothing like what it sounds like you're incurring in unpaid DD charges.