A&L Charging £100 on a 19p Authorised Overdraft - Now Resolved

twinkle-star

Hi everyone, I'm hoping someone can help with this.


My boyfriend banks with Alliance & Leicester, he has 2 accounts – a Premier Direct Current Account and a Young Workers Account. The Premier Account is the main one, and the Young Workers Account is rarely used. The Young Workers Account has a £10 authorised overdraft, and for a while the account has been 19p overdrawn.


About a month or so ago my boyfriend got a letter from A&L saying that the YW Account was being upgraded/changed to a Current Account and he needn't do anything as the account number and debit card would stay the same.


I've just logged onto his internet banking to check the balance, had a look in the second account and it gives an advance notice of charges to be taken out – the 19p overdraft is going to cost £100 in charges!!! There's been no warning of this or anything. It says 'EXCEEDING OVERDRAFT LIMIT FEE 20FEB-18MAR 27 DAYS AT £5.00 A MAXIMUM CAP APPLIES TO FEES - £100' (Sorry for caps, just copied and pasted).


How can they do this? The 19p was part of an authorised overdraft and they changed the account over without informing us that we'd need to bring the account into credit. There's been no letters saying the account is overdrawn and we'll start being charged £5 per day. Does anyone know what we can do about it?


Thanks in advance.

jadex

clare-t wrote: »

About a month or so ago my boyfriend got a letter from A&L saying that the YW Account was being upgraded/changed to a Current Account and he needn't do anything as the account number and debit card would stay the same.

Does the letter say anything about overdraft?
I guess it wasn't automatically given to your BF as you are required to apply for overdraft facility as credit check is needed.
£10 overdraft was part of YW Account.
Premier Accounts do not have any overdraft attached without you asking for it.

Nevertheless a £100 for 19p is excessive and you shurely should start from phoning them.

sweetiepie2121

clare-t wrote: »

Hi everyone, I'm hoping someone can help with this.


My boyfriend banks with Alliance & Leicester, he has 2 accounts – a Premier Direct Current Account and a Young Workers Account. The Premier Account is the main one, and the Young Workers Account is rarely used. The Young Workers Account has a £10 authorised overdraft, and for a while the account has been 19p overdrawn.


About a month or so ago my boyfriend got a letter from A&L saying that the YW Account was being upgraded/changed to a Current Account and he needn't do anything as the account number and debit card would stay the same.


I've just logged onto his internet banking to check the balance, had a look in the second account and it gives an advance notice of charges to be taken out – the 19p overdraft is going to cost £100 in charges!!! There's been no warning of this or anything. It says 'EXCEEDING OVERDRAFT LIMIT FEE 20FEB-18MAR 27 DAYS AT £5.00 A MAXIMUM CAP APPLIES TO FEES - £100' (Sorry for caps, just copied and pasted).


How can they do this? The 19p was part of an authorised overdraft and they changed the account over without informing us that we'd need to bring the account into credit. There's been no letters saying the account is overdrawn and we'll start being charged £5 per day. Does anyone know what we can do about it?


Thanks in advance.

I think some thing isn't right.I bank with Natwest if go overdrawn.The maximum charge I get is 28 pound.I would advice you 2 go into your branch n discuss this mater failing that ring up the complaints line.As it isn't your fault as you didn't ask for your account to be upgraded.Or even got a choice in the matter.Argue this point out with them.On the home page of this site their is a template letter for claiming back bank charges.I would recommend that you have this to hand for back up if all else fails.Me personally I don't agree with some bank charges that I have slapped on my account.I have claimed a few charges back by ringing the head office complaints line as the manager in my bank cant take charges of an account.Maybe it applies to all banks.I am not sure check it out.

Best Of Luck xx

jadex

sweetiepie2121 wrote: »

as you didn't ask for your account to be upgraded.

it well may be the case of him turning 21 for instance if the account in question is Premier21

To be able to have a Premier 21 Current Account you must be aged between 16 and 20 and pay in your earnings.

still doesn't make £100 charge for 19p any more fairer IMHO

twinkle-star

jadex wrote: »

Does the letter say anything about overdraft?
I guess it wasn't automatically given to your BF as you are required to apply for overdraft facility as credit check is needed.
£10 overdraft was part of YW Account.
Premier Accounts do not have any overdraft attached without you asking for it.

Nevertheless a £100 for 19p is excessive and you shurely should start from phoning them.

Hi, thanks for your response - the letter didn't mention the overdraft facility.

My boyfriend's going to go into the branch in a while so we'll see what they say and take it from there I suppose.

twinkle-star

jadex wrote: »

it well may be the case of him turning 21 for instance if the account in question is Premier21

still doesn't make £100 charge for 19p any more fairer IMHO

Hi, thanks for your response - he's 26 and already has a Premier Direct Current Account which he uses as his main account. The YW Account that has been upgraded is now on internet banking as just a 'Current Account'.

Does anyone know whether the bank should have written to him to say that as the account is overdrawn he'll be getting charged £5 per day?

Thanks everyone for the help x

ryandj

My A&L current account has an overdraft fee of 50p/day to a maximum of £5/month. It sounds like yours is the same, but to get £100 of charges you would have had to have been overdrawn for 20 months - I doubt this is possible!!

twinkle-star

ryandj wrote: »

My A&L current account has an overdraft fee of 50p/day to a maximum of £5/month. It sounds like yours is the same, but to get £100 of charges you would have had to have been overdrawn for 20 months - I doubt this is possible!!

Hi, the message on internet banking says that the charges are from 20 Feb (which I assume is the date they upgraded the account) to 18 March @ a rate of £5 per day, but capped at £100.

Grade_A_Reject

ryandj wrote: »

My A&L current account has an overdraft fee of 50p/day to a maximum of £5/month.

That's for an authorised overdraft. Unauthorised overdraft fees are higher.

http://www.alliance-leicester.co.uk/current-accounts/interest-rates-and-fees/current-account.aspx

Grade_A_Reject

I'd say you had a grounds for complaint if they withdrew the overdraft facility without informing him of such. The fact that they had told him they were "upgrading" the account to a different type of account is not the same as informing him of withdrawing an overdraft facility.

twinkle-star

Well my boyfriend's spoken to A&L and they've basically said 'tough!'


He went into a branch this morning and had to speak to Customer Services on the phone. The woman he spoke to did not know what she was talking about! She said that he would have had to sign a document to give permission to downgrade the account. He told her he hadn't signed anything, so why did they change the account without permission, and then she said that his internet banking must have been hijacked!!! She asked for his full internet banking password (I didn't think this was allowed?) and he said that if the account's been hijacked he's not going to give out the password when the branch is full of people earwigging!


He rang back again when he got home and spoke to someone else. This person said that a signature was not needed to change the account. It was because the account was a Young Workers Account and he was no longer entitled to it after he turned 21. He's almost 27 now!!!! The bloke on the phone also said that all the information regarding the charges would have been in the leaflets etc accompanying the monthly statements and it's his own fault for not reading them all. He asked why did they not write a letter to him after the account had been downgraded to inform him that he is being charged £5 per day while the account was 19p overdrawn and the bloke on the phone said they did not have to do that because all the relevant info was in the leaflets.


My boyfriend is fuming! At the start of the week before he knew about the charges he transferred some money in to the account just to start building up a rainy day fund and now he just wants to take that out and not pay the £100 charge. Much as I hate for him to pay it, I think I've managed to talk him out of that but he definitely wants to change to a different account provider.


If he pays the charge, will he still be able to reclaim it (or try to at least) after the account is closed? And is there any point in even trying to get the charge refunded?


Thanks everyone for taking the time to help.