Alliance & Leicester - What a load of ****!

Paulos77

Ive just joined A & L about 5 weeks ago, still wating for the transfer over from my old bank though, I got all the card and cheque books in the first couple of weeks. Im getting doubts as to what Ive done though after reading this thread.

When they say you have to wait until the day after payday before you can touch your money, I get paid monthly on the 15th of every month, but does this mean if my payday falls on a Friday I have to wait until monday before I can touch it? or the saturday?. Also does this effect direct debits because I have a good few directs that come out on payday.

Martinslovechild

Paulos77 wrote: »

When they say you have to wait until the day after payday before you can touch your money, I get paid monthly on the 15th of every month, but does this mean if my payday falls on a Friday I have to wait until monday before I can touch it? or the saturday?. Also does this effect (sic) direct debits because I have a good few directs that come out on payday.

I'm assuming that your pay is deposited using BACS? If so, you'll be able to withdraw it as soon as it's deposited into your account.

Direct Debits shouldn't be affected, although it really depends on at what point of the day your salary is deposited - and whether this is before or after direct debit amounts are requested for your bills.

To be completely on the safe side, it may be worth considering altering the dates that direct debits are processed to the 20th. You'll need to contact the relevant companies to arrange this.

Martinslovechild

Just as a follow-up to previous comments, I've recently moved to Abbey from A&L (what was I thinking of??).

In a nutshell, I took up A&L's Premier Direct Current Account offer of 8.5% on the first £2,500 (it was 8.5% at the time I ran the account anyway, although it's fallen since!). I found their customer service wasn't too bad, but the website is pretty horrible. On the whole, I was neither impressed nor unimpressed with A&L. The transfer from my previous bank was fairly straightforward, although I did have to call them about a couple of problems along the way.

The most disappointing things I found about A&L were their secure messaging facility which is hidden away under Help - Other Ways To Contact Us - Send Us A Secure Message. Not exactly user-friendly!

Also, they're not transparent - if you want to know the interest rates on your various A&L accounts, you won't find them in the summary of each account - that would be too easy wouldn't it!! Instead, you'll need to click the 'Interest Rates' link, select 'Closed Accounts' from a picklist and scroll down the page until you find your various products.

Their debit card has a £250/day ATM withdrawal limit - not exactly ideal when you need to pay workmen.

The performance of their website could be better - and I wish they would change their horrible colour scheme too!!.

I've recently moved to Abbey - still part of the Santander group - but Abbey is an altogether different proposition. But that's one for another time...

cedrickerry

I've also just switched to them for the £100 & £50 quidco. Used to bank with them until beginning of last year, no major hassles, but never particularly helpful either. The switching process seems to be taking ages, and I'm not sure that I'll even get the £100 as although I tried to accept switching on application (a condition of getting the £100), the website froze. Wasn't even sure that the application went through - it did - but apparently my request for switching didn't and I had to call to sort it out. Just waiting for them to decline the £100. Not sure this is worth the hassle.

The_Golden_Goose

To get the £100 I believe you need to be a customer for three months.

TBH I am not sure I'll bother switching as it sounds like a right load of aggro!!!

exel1966

Paulos77 wrote: »

Ive just joined A & L about 5 weeks ago, still wating for the transfer over from my old bank though, I got all the card and cheque books in the first couple of weeks. Im getting doubts as to what Ive done though after reading this thread.

When they say you have to wait until the day after payday before you can touch your money, I get paid monthly on the 15th of every month, but does this mean if my payday falls on a Friday I have to wait until monday before I can touch it? or the saturday?. Also does this effect direct debits because I have a good few directs that come out on payday.

Like MLC above I use the Prem Direct account as a savings account just to get the 8% (£14pm) from them. If it wasn't for that there's no way I'd use them. It's takes a little while to get used to the A&L anomylies.

Anyway the salary. DO NOT move the salary the day it hits the account UNLESS you have an available overdraft of an equal or greater amount than the salary. Why ? Because all A&L transactions are cleared overnight, (not during the same day) and all debits are applied prior to credits, therefore you could inadvertently find yourself overdrawn.
As for DD's it's common amongst all banks that the funds should be in place and cleared 1 working day BEFORE the DD is due out. Though again A&L again are slightly different here as for example a DD due to go on the 1st will not leave the account til overnight 1st/2nd.

Grade_A_Reject

exel1966 wrote: »

Why ? Because all A&L transactions are cleared overnight, (not during the same day) and all debits are applied prior to credits, therefore you could inadvertently find yourself overdrawn.

A&L's clearing practices are weird.

I've had occasions where I've waited til my account was funded and the balance was showing as available before transferring the money to another account only to find the statement then shows the account as "overdrawn" as they retrospectively report the debit transactions before the credit transactions that occur on the same day. Stupid.

SJ_Jones

I've applied for the A&L account for the £100 (stupidly forgot to do it through Quidco grrr).

Anyway, I don't really want the account as I'm happy with HSBC. Does anyone know if it's ok to switch all my DD & SO back to my old account straight away? All it says is you had to use the "switching" process... which I did...

Kavanne

once you have experienced the switching process once, you won't want to do it again

SJ_Jones

I'll have to do it as I'm not changing my salary to be paid into it...