Allaince & Leicester help need with charges sent to debt collector

Droop

Please help someone.

In August of last year I opened a Premier Account with the Alliance & Leicester (on the advice of this site to get £100 bonus).

IF ONLY. Not only didn't I get the bonus they are taking me to debt collection for over £400 on a account I never actually ever used.

Apparently "I agreed" to switch over my DDs as I did not receive the letter that gave me 14 days to tell them which ones if any I wanted to transfer.

There was no money there as I didn't expect anything to go out of that account, therefore I immediately became overdrawn.

They charged me a "Payment Review Fee" of £25 and then another. And then £5 / day for each day I was overdrawn.

All this went on without my knowledge as just after I opened the account I needed to stay away from home for a few months down at my Mothers as she was dying of lung cancer. All this only came to light on my return.

Cutting a long story short my 'debt' is now over £400 and has been passed onto a debt collection agency.

Now I know normally the talk here is about reclaiming bank charges, however I haven't actually paid the charges yet. I was hoping they would see sense, but apparently not.

WHAT SHOULD I DO?

I know one option would be to pay up and claim it back (not that I can afford to do that).

HairY

Doesn't the Premier Account have a minimum funding requirement of £500/mo?

If so, by not putting any money into the account, you violated the terms and conditions and owe them a banking fee (you are paying them to run the account for you). Naturally if you didn't have any cash in there then you would go overdrawn when this fee was taken and face fees and/or interest.

Payment Review Fee

If there is not enough money in your account to pay for a transaction, we will decide whether or not to pay or return the item. If we have to make a decision, you will have to pay a Payment Review Fee of £25 for each transaction.

If this was the cause of the problem, and you did ask them to transfer your salary, I think what you might be able to do is claim you never funded the account because they failed to provide you with enough assistance in doing so with their Switching Service.

Someone on here can probably advise you what to do about the debt collection agency.

natweststaffmember

Droop wrote: »

Please help someone.

In August of last year I opened a Premier Account with the Alliance & Leicester (on the advice of this site to get £100 bonus).

IF ONLY. Not only didn't I get the bonus they are taking me to debt collection for over £400 on a account I never actually ever used.

Apparently "I agreed" to switch over my DDs as I did not receive the letter that gave me 14 days to tell them which ones if any I wanted to transfer.

There was no money there as I didn't expect anything to go out of that account, therefore I immediately became overdrawn.

They charged me a "Payment Review Fee" of £25 and then another. And then £5 / day for each day I was overdrawn.

All this went on without my knowledge as just after I opened the account I needed to stay away from home for a few months down at my Mothers as she was dying of lung cancer. All this only came to light on my return.

Cutting a long story short my 'debt' is now over £400 and has been passed onto a debt collection agency.

Now I know normally the talk here is about reclaiming bank charges, however I haven't actually paid the charges yet. I was hoping they would see sense, but apparently not.

WHAT SHOULD I DO?

I know one option would be to pay up and claim it back (not that I can afford to do that).

I don't know the offer you are referring to but was it using a banks' transfer of account service?
Do you have a copy of the account opening forms?

Droop

Don't think I have the forms still.

I don't have a 'salary' as such so I couldn't have agreed to pay that in each month. All I did was pay in £5 to open the account.

HairY

Droop, the Premier account currently has a £500/month minimum funding requirement to avoid fees. If it had this when you signed up a year ago, and you didn't fund the account with this amount every month, they would have started taking £5/month off of you. Unfortunately, this is part of the account terms and conditions.

Whatever happened you need to get on the phone and/or write to them immediately explaining exactly what you did, they did, and why you think the fees are unfair. If you kick up enough fuss they might just call off the dogs, especially because of your mothers circumstances (I know it sounds bad, but you might have to pull this out as a trump/sympathy card)

I don't know anything about debt collectors, but I have this sinking feeling that once the debt has been sold off to one, A&L can't call them off. You really need to seem proper advice on that. My gut instinct (which knows nothing) is you're going to end up paying them and trying to claim it back from A&L.

Oh and CHANGE the topic of this thread by editing your first post -> "Go advanced", you'll get a lot better help that way.

Droop

I've changed the title but had no response.

Any idea what I should change the title too.

esmerellda

Whether or not you have paid the charges you still need to reclaim them. They will reduce the debt (but probably not wipe it completely as you unfortunately are liable for the £5 month underfunding fees)

Follow the standard process to reclaim the fees. Work out how much is valid (ie the £5 month) and make an offer on that. You can also argue against that if you werent originally told about it and can show you wouldnt have agreed to it as you dont have an income each month.

If you have a go at a letter then we can help you with it Have a read of the reclaim guides to get a good starting point.