Can I dispute a bank charge with A&L?

tomstickland

I've got an A&L premier direct account.
Because of delays with the BACS system my monthly payment of £500 from my LTSB account arrived 2 days after they debited £250 into the regular saver. So my account went £250 overdrawn for 2 days. I've been charged a £25 fee for this.

A friend at work told me one of his mates used to work for a big bank and I'd have about a 60% chance of getting the charge refunded if I phoned up and disputed it. Is this correct?

littlejaffa

it takes some cheek but call and dispute, and if it comes to it threaten to close the account. I've only tried this with credit cards where the payments been missed and is entirely my fault, but i've claimed it's their fault as i never recevied the statement (i did actually but am really disorganised!) and every time (3 with different cards) they've refunded the fee. if a&l won't bite try lltsb or whoever is really responsible.

tomstickland

OK, I'll try on Monday. I think something along the lines of " the bank holiday caused a delay with the transfer and it was outside my control".

Come to think of it, whilst I don't really want to close the account, it would be useful because it'd allow access to the £1250 of reg saver money which could come in handy.

Sillychuckie

But you wouldn't be getting the high reg saver interest.
There is no doubt a penalty for withdrawing before the end of the fixed term.

In fact, A&L could argue that had they not covered the £250 transfer for you, you would have broken the terms of your regular saver. They would have then had to close that, and you wouldn't have got anywhere near the 10%.
The £25 charge might be the lesser of 2 evils as i'm sure you wouldn't have liked the alternative either. Just something to think about, as that might be their argument.

tomstickland

Yes, in the absolute then I'm happy to leave it as a lesson learn, since I broke their T&C. However, I'm also prepared to have a try at appearing all hurt and seeing if I can get it refunded.

robert_harper_2000

I helped my brother and by using https://www.consumeractiongroup.com and reading everything I have got all my well his fines back along with 8% interest I charged them! haha

It is really easy and I did it and succesfully it can be done. infact no-one has lost!

Check it out everyone is really helpful

tomstickland

Great, thanks for the link, I'm off to read that now.

mancitychick

I bounced a cheque on my A&L account back in December (had transfered money from my plus saver a/c, but forgot to do it in time.) Anyway they charged me £34. I phoned up customer services and asked if they could do anything about the charge as a gesture of goodwill, as I have always conducted the a/c properly and not done this before.

The cust svc lady I spoke to said that she would refund half as a goodwill gesture, so I thanked her as I thought £17 was better than nothing. When I checked my a/c the next day, they had refunded the full £34 :T

Hope they do the same for you.

tomstickland

OK, thanks, I will be persuing two claims tomorrow.
£35 from A&L
£25 from LTSB.

M_Thomson

Not wishing to sound controversial, but you say you will use the excuse that the bank holiday caused the delay, but was it not your responsibility to set up the payment for a few days earlier so it got there on time?? If I was the agent on the other end of the phone and you said but it is Bank Holiday so it was outside of my control I would find it hard to have much sympathy I am afraid.

tomstickland

No need to be afraid on my behalf, A&L are refunding half of the charge. - they offered it as soon as I mentioned it.