Smile.co.uk left me not smiling

heyho_3

Dear All,

This is a warning if you bank with Smile.co.uk , I went over my £600 overdraft last month about 23rd because of this smile have charged me a un autherised overdraft fee or service fee of £15 and a daily over my overdraft fee of £5. Now for a bank that is so keen on using secuire messages, the first I found out about these fee is when it was taken from my account on the 20th April. :mad:

Now I have checked my statement there is no notice to say that smile.co.uk is going to charge me the fees so is smile.co.uk braking the banking code which states point '

5.5 Before we take interset and charges for standard account services from your current or savings account, we will give at least 14 days notice of how much we will take.'

Now does this make one smiles charges invaild as they never informed me that they would be charging me. And also I use my overdraft and never get infored of the charge for using the overdraft 14 days before they take the money?

irnbru_2

heyho wrote:

5.5 Before we take interset and charges for standard account services from your current or savings account, we will give at least 14 days notice of how much we will take.'

If they gave you no warning then yes.

Check all your details are valid.

Login and check your secure messages too.

fannyadams

Get them back!
go to that banking forum place and ask to get them credited. Loads of people are doing it.
Martins even posted something here about it:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1141050760,24632,

go get 'em!

heyho_3

I spoke to a member of staff who said its my responsiablty to monitor my account and that its according to her in the terms and conditions of no notfcation but they are signed up to the banking code which says different. I had no secured messages and there is No notice on my statement that I am going to be charge.

This makes smile.co.uk a law to its self!!!!!

heyho_3

I have just found it


Charges for the period 3/ 3/06 to 4/ 4/06
Debit Interest - £3.71 Service Charge - £15.00
Daily Charge - £5.00 (1 day) to be applied 21/ 4/06

Right at the bottom of statement.

watchoutkeeper

Complain to them using secure messaging.

I went overdrawn by £1.26 for one day (my mistake) and they charged me £20.

I did complain, saying I was very disappointed with them and would look to move my banking elsewhere.

It took a few weeks, but they did refund the charges.

kaznelson

If you have a look on

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/

you will see that Smile tend to pay up, if you put some pressure on them

odLott

Same here. Made a mistake and made a double transfer to my savings account at ING and went over my limit by about £1,000. On the same day I found out, I sent them a secure message to let them know and tell them I would transfer back the money as soon as possible. Didn't hear from them until after a week when some CS bod simply quoted the T&Cs and that I would be charged for it.

Lucky I had noticed it because I only got a cryptic message telling me to check my account more than a week after.

In the end I was charged 25% of interest plus £45 for the pleasure of being over my limit for a few days. No wonder they weren't in a hurry to tell me.

Fair enough, the interest charge might be justified in that my credit risk increases as a result of my going over the limit, but £45 of charges on top of that! Have filed a complaint. Hopefully I won't have to resort to taking them to the small courts for £45.

So much for ethical banking.

Cup-of-tea_3

I have an even more cautionary tale about Smile.co.uk following a phone conversation today and events over the last few weeks.

I have recently been unable to make my minimum credit card payments due to a spell of unemployment and arrival of a baby. I have followed debt advice and cancelled debits, making payments that I can afford. Unfortunately as you maybe aware standing orders cannot be cancelled and I have quite a large monthly payment (over £300) for a personal loan, also with the Co-op group.

Having written to the loan dept. asking them to stop they told me they would continue to attempt and take payment until I defaulted. My only way round this was to stay just under my agreed overdraft assuming that Smile (aware of my situation and seeing no income into the account) would not let me go over this limit.

They didn’t and took not just one payment but two taking me now £500 over my agreed overdraft. After the first payment they have not only clobbered me with a load of charges but sent a letter saying that ‘as you are no longer able to maintain contractual repayments to your Personal Loan/Visa account, please be advised that the Bank is now giving you 28 days notice of the withdrawal of your current account facilities’.

After taking out the second loan payment they then locked my log-in and after a phone call today find out that under the T&C’s I am now no longer allowed to log in my account! This includes a joint account I share which is within its limit. They have also taken a small amount left in my ISA to repay the debt they have created! All of this occurring in a matter of a few weeks despite having been a Smile customer since 1997.

So be warned, if you are a Smile customer you belong to a so called ‘ethical’ bank that will happily put you over your overdraft limit and then stop your current account. You also belong to an internet bank that can prevent you logging in to see your account under the terms and conditions of use. Thus you cannot even see how much they are charging for the privilege (except to go through a call centre where they want to ‘advise’ you about how you will repay them).

kmhtkmhtkmht

If Smile.co.uk is not making you smile, you should try Smile.com as it's Sunnier Weather than Blighty.