Alliance and Leicester unfair charges

bitsnbytes

Apologies in advance if this is the wrong place to ask this question, but I have no where else to go to

I have a premier current account with Alliance & Leicester with an agreed overdraft limit of £2200. I generally transfer funds into this account around the end of each month to cover direct debits etc for the next month. However, I was late the last month (my fault I know), and the funds finally reached my account on the 3rd of April. During this period, there were 3 direct debits taken out of my account (which do go out at the start of each month) and for each of these direct debits I was charged a 'Payment review fee' of £25

The strange thing is that the balance before funds reached my account on the 3rd of April was £2286 overdrawn (£2200 is my agreed overdraft limit), which means I've been only £86 over my limit and the funnier thing is that £75 of this is A&L 'payment review fees'. So I've paid effectively £75 of charges for going £11 over my limit. I think this is terribly unfair, I know it is my fault for transferring the funds late, but being charged around 7 times doesn't make any sense to me

A similar thing happened in January when I was on holiday and 2 payments went over my overdraft limit, however on that occasion these were reviewed by A&L and they refunded the charges. But they sneakily charged £15 for the 3 days my account was over the agreed overdraft limit (£5 a day). Now I'm afraid that in addition to the £75 charges they will charge me around £25 for the 5 days my account was over the limit.

Is there anything I can do about these charges? I told the advisor about the unfair charges testcase, but she said that this is still in the high court and when this has been decided it will be on the national news.

Really sorry for the long post and while I do accept fault for transferring funds late, is there anything I can do to minimise these costs?
Please, please do help, my account is in overdraft for a reason because I don't have the extra money to pay off these debts. Apart from these two instances, I've made sure that the money has reached my account on time for the direct debits etc

adamdynamic

Oddly, I was just about to post something exactly along these lines. I've just returned from holiday to find A&L have charged me £60 because direct debits etc took me £2 over my agreed overdraft limit while I was away. They sent me a letter (while I was away) notifying me that I was £2 over and then another one telling me that they were going to charge me.

Is there any way I can claim back this amount? It seems terribly unfair to charge me while I was away but the lady I spoke to on the phone didn't seem to care that I had no way of receiving a letter?

Any help would be appreciated.

Adam.

moneymaker2

Hi Both,

You can write to them to request any fees back, however I have been waiting for over a year and even though I told them that I was in financial hardship they still wouldn't assess my case due to the fact that the test case has not yet made a decision about charges.
I will be glad when my overdraft with them is cleared. I would certainly not be recommending them to anyone no matter how much money they offer as an incentive!!

Laura

gardener_ruth

I've just been charged £100 (4 lots of £25) because money I transferred from my building society hasn't been sitting in the account long enough before a debit was claimed.

I think Alliance & Leicester are rubbish - I'm moving my account.

nooby19702009

Same here. A&L charged me £25 for going over my overdraft limit for 1 day. Am really tempted to switch - first time I've done this in about 10 years. What a rip off.

rm84

I've just logged on here to see what experiences other people have had with this...

I checked my online banking yesterday to find that I too had been charged a payment review fee. Now the thing is, I check my online banking daily so I couldn't figure out how this had happened. I know that on Monday, when I saw that I didn't have enough money to pay a DD that was due to come out, I transferred money straight across from my A&L PlusSaver. At this time, there was no sign that the DD had been taken, so I assumed it was fine. Then the letter today explained that it was this DD that had pushed me over my limit!

Even my online banking statement shows the additional payment (from my PlusSaver) as going in before the DD came out (although I don't know if this is the standard way transactions are displayed or something.) Anyway, thanks for the advice moneymaker2, I'll be writing to them to ask them to review this charge.

I'm only with A&L for the one year free overdraft. I'm being made redundant at the end of May so I need it for the time being, but when I'm back in work I think I'll be going back to Natwest!

Good luck to any of the rest of you attempting to reclaim charges.