A&L Bank Extortionate Bank Charges

nikki2804

A & L used to have a decent complaints team, dunno what its like now its Santander.
My partners account went OD cos he transferred his bank account to A&L, but to get the £100 incentive he had to let them transfer his DDs. A&L sent out a letter asking him to confirm what ones were correct, he ticked the ones to transfer and that was that.
2 weeks letter we gotta letter stating bank charges, they had transfered over 2 standing orders which had been cancelled and deleted.
One complaints letter later they admited fault and even gave us £50 as a good will guesture (wasni looking for compo just wanted the charges refunded, but we got this plus extra) so couldnt really moan at that.

Slightly different problem like but hoping the outcome will be the same for you!

natweststaffmember

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

The OFT's argument is almost entirely based on the fact that consumers don't bother reading contracts.

That is a pathetic argument. It is not one which is applied in any other normal situation. The parties to a contract are responsible for understanding them, before they sign up. Saying "they don't look at the overdraft terms because they don't expect them to apply" is madness. It's like saying that early cancellation terms in a mobile phone contract - for example - aren't read by consumers, because they generally keep to the deal for its term. If that is true of any significant proportion of customers, I'll eat my hat - most people understand perfectly well that they are committed for 12 or 18 months, and can't generally avoid paying the rental for that period.

Ditto with bank charges. Most people DO know that they will get charged for going overdrawn without permission. Most people DO know that if they buy an A&L account, there are underfunding charges.

Mark, with all due respect, whilst I agree to and extent with your last comment that most people DO know they will be charged for going overdrawn, they certainly maybe unaware as to when the charges are to be applied, how the charges can work in conjunction with each other to cause further charges.
As a moot point, when you go into a bank, does the banker when they open the account go through the various subtleties of the account such as when things go wrong and the charges and how they are applied? They don't.
Why? Because it is not the main part of the contract that the customer is signing ie a typical customer goes into the bank for an account where they will be able to pay money in/ take money out/ have standing orders direct debits and perhaps a chequebook with the possible addition of a card to take money out.
This is kinda part and parcel of the OFT argument with regards to whether the UTCCR 1999 is applicable to bank charges terms and conditions.
Furthermore, someone I know recently, opened a bank account and the member of staff they spoke to said "sign here and here". They presented them with no paperwork, gave no explanation of the way the account works(yes I know this may seem pedantic but is the contract being individually negotiated on the charges element?).

Mark, I suspect that many mobile phone users know more about how their mobile phone works than their bank account. If you cancel the contract early you pay one charge. You do not pay for example, one charge to Orange for example for not having their phone plus another one for the cancellation of the contract so someone can rip up the piece of paper.

Nathan_Spleen

Dead right Nattie.

For example the banks have complete discretion as to the order in which payments & reciepts are processed on a particular day and therefore the charges are entirely contingent on the bank's choice of order and not that of the order in which the customer actually presents them.

In my view this alone leads to a ''significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer'', as UTCCR states.