Dont go near Alliance and Liecester!

AandLHell

A&L have given us two years of hell which we were unable to escape from as they plunged us into debt as we opened the accounts by screwing up their "easy switch" service; failing to apply some DD and paying others twice! Hard worked for Credit scores messed up irrevocably; latest is that they changed a cash payment into my partners account from £260 to £160 without any consultation, today they had failed to have a cheque cleared which they had stated would be clear by today. Now that sounds petty, but this was my only day off for months (self employed) I'd planned to recklessly go to the hairdressers, have coffee and maybe buy a new (and cheap) top. I wont have another day off for ages and they wrecked it by giving out "misinformation". Staff in only office locally are useless and only say "all we can do is apologies", well if I misinformed like this or got payments wrong I'd be fined for it! Obviously this is just a couple of memorable highlights from nearly two years of Hell!

Sick of A&L being recommended as a bank account - they couldn’t organise a moderately entertaining evening in a brewery.
They ignore letters of complaint until threatened with IFA, phone staff are aggressive and useless and I cant figure out what the in-store staff are being paid for at all. If they do deal with a complaint it takes months and when an agreement is reached they "forget" to re-pay or re-instate and then cant understand past notes! Yet again I have spent a day chasing round after them and now I need to find a bank with any kind of brains (and ethics hopefully - though that may be asking too much!)
I am so glad that others have posted their horrible experiences as they make you feel you are the only one to doubt their genius service!

Stonk

Bummer. Now I can't go near A&L either. What with all the other people demanding that I don't use specific companies, that pretty much wraps up the banking sector. I'll just have to keep my money under the bed.

hoyles10

Stonk wrote: »

I'll just have to keep my money under the bed.

Don't keep it under a sleepmasters!!!

missile

I opened accounts with them and after weeks I still can't access on line, so I have closed the accounts. Seems like I have had a lucky escape?

hoyles10

I must admit I moved from Natwest to A and L and it's the best banking move i've done. I personally can't fault them.

Mrs_Ryan

If anyone has seen any of my past posts, I have made it clear just how awful A&L are. They have messed up my account so badly it is untrue. And I cant even move accounts as they put so much false information (they admit it is false, and it shouldnt be there, FOS have ordered them to remove it and rapped them for the mess they've made of my accounts - after this happened they actually threatened to close my account because I dared to complain... they havent bothered removing the information) I fought for ages just to get a basic account which is not even any use to me as I had to go on a DMP so I lost my credit card and needed to keep my Visa Debit.... so Im still unfortunately with this pathetic excuse for a bank!

mrcol1000

I opened an on-line savings account and apart from their bizarre personal picture security measure they have been great. I also got £20 cash back for opening it!

missile

Mrs_Ryan wrote: »

If anyone has seen any of my past posts, I have made it clear just how awful A&L are. They have messed up my account so badly it is untrue. And I cant even move accounts as they put so much false information (they admit it is false, and it shouldnt be there, FOS have ordered them to remove it and rapped them for the mess they've made of my accounts - after this happened they actually threatened to close my account because I dared to complain... they havent bothered removing the information) I fought for ages just to get a basic account which is not even any use to me as I had to go on a DMP so I lost my credit card and needed to keep my Visa Debit.... so Im still unfortunately with this pathetic excuse for a bank!

I don't understand why? Even if you have poor credit rating, I would have thought it would be easy to open an account with a.n.other bank.

hoyles10

mrcol1000 wrote: »

I opened an on-line savings account and apart from their bizarre personal picture security measure they have been great. I also got £20 cash back for opening it!

The picture thing is quite odd.

I got £25 from the 'refer a friend' scheme then a further £100 for swapping banks.

Natwest were really bad with us which is why we changed but A and L have been brilliant. I would highly recommend then to anyone.

davidlizard

I have used them for the last few years without any problems whatsoever. I did however see (on here) a few warnings concerning the account switching service so did most of that myself. Needless to say, the few DDs that they transferred they made a total pigs ear of, but they were able to sort it out before I lost my rag with them.

The only complaint I have about them is the amount of junk mail they send me (loans, savings accounts etc), despite me asking them to stop.

The picture thing is quite good I think - each user has their own picture, which makes it very difficult to present a spoof website to attempt to capture log in details.

dmg24

I have my mortgage and a current account with A&L. No problems in three years.