Alliance & Leicester - online payments

samizdat

OK, so I am really confused now.

I recently opened an Online Saver Issue 5 and also a Premier Current Account, to take advantage of the £20 Quidco offer on the Saver and the £100 switching incentive and £50 Topcashback offer on the Premier Current Account.

I know I have to deposit £500/month and use the A&L switching service to qualify for the £100 incentive. I also know I must make an initial deposit of £1000 to the Online Saver.

So I decide to kill two birds with one stone. I transfer £1000 into the Premier account by Faster Payment. This worked! Then I expect to be able to make an internal transfer from the Premier account to the Online Saver. It was obviously stupid of me to expect to be able to do this and I should have researched the question.

Never mind, I say to myself. I will just set up a payment from the Premier account to the Online Saver. I happen to know there is a Faster Payment limit of £250 for outbound payments from A&L so, although the money is just going into a different pocket at A&L, I figure I will set up the first payment for that amount in case they try to send me round a BACS cycle. If it works, I figure I can just make three more £250 payments to get me to £1000. So, my current account is duly debited £250. I then wait impatiently to see if the money will arrive in the Online Saver by Faster Payment. But actually what happens is the money seems to have gone back into the current account without any explanation (my balance reads £1000 again).

So, did this happen because:
1) I had to make a £1000 opening deposit to the Online Saver, not £250; or
2) because I cannot pay money in to the Online Saver from my Premier account, even by setting things up as a payment; or
3) for some other reason?

And can I trust A&L when they say I have £1000 in my current account. i.e. If I now set up a payment for £1000 to the Online Saver, will I subsequently discover they have reinstated the first payment as well as making the second payment, thus making me go overdrawn?

What should I do from here? I have sent A&L a secure message because I don't want to ring their premium rate phone line but I am hoping you guys may know better than A&L how these things work.

noh

I have done the same as you.
Set up a Premier account and an online saver via Quidco.
I was able to transfer £1200 from the Premier (£1200 being my free overdraft limit) to the online saver immediately using the drop down quick transfer function on the left side of the screen.

Did you try transferring the £1k on the same day as it arrived in the Premier account? A+L usually need a day before money deposited is available for transfer.
I suspect your £250 was bounced back because, as you say, the minimum initial deposit need to be £1000

exel1966

You can get A&L FREE on 0800 0688 638, option 2, then option 1 for Current a/c's or option 2 for savings a/c's.

samizdat

Thanks a lot, guys, useful info here. Yes, maybe I just need to wait until tomorrow before attempting the transfer. A bit confusing though because the balance appeared to be available as soon as it arrived by Faster Payment ("Available Balance" was £1000.) Also, my Online Saver did not appear in the dropdown box for Quick Transfers until after I set up the abortive £250 payment, whereupon the details I entered did appear (i.e. the payee is as I named it).

Perhaps I will try to call them on the 0800 number if I have an hour to waste! Thanks again.

samizdat

Somewhat to my surprise, I have received a very helpful reply to my secure message, which answers all my questions. Don't know if they're the right answers but even receiving answers is very rare these days.

The reply (edited):

1) You may only transfer funds between your Online Saver and the nominated account that you quoted when the Online Saver was opened. In your case you have opened the account providing us with a third party bank account. As an account, other than your Premier Current Account, was provided when the Online Saver was opened then this cannot now be changed. Instead you will have to transfer funds from the third party account into your Online Saver.

2) To make ad hoc payments from your Premier Current Account to your Online Saver simply choose the bill payment option when you access your account online. The details you require are as follows:

Sort Code: 725810
Account: 99999999
Reference: Your savings account, quoted as consecutive digits. For example, if your account is 12-34567-0090, then this should be quoted as 12345670090.

Your payment of £250 on was rejected as the Online Saver account number was not quoted as consecutive digits.

3) You can make several payments to the Online Saver 5 to reach the £1,000 initial deposit threshold.

noh

Yes thats right.
With the direct saver you can only transfer funds to and from the nominated account.
I had nominated my A+L Premier current account so thats why it was in the drop down list.

flutterbyuk25

I left A&L after a year cos I found that what was shown in your available balance never matched the payments that had gone out or in my account. I found it really frustrating that it always had a time lag in updating

x

samizdat

That sounds intolerable. I certainly don't have very high hopes for service levels from A&L. Yesterday, I made two payments, one after the other, to two different accounts at the same bank. One has arrived today, the other hasn't. A bit strange!

noh

samizdat wrote: »

That sounds intolerable. I certainly don't have very high hopes for service levels from A&L. Yesterday, I made two payments, one after the other, to two different accounts at the same bank. One has arrived today, the other hasn't. A bit strange!

A+L have implemented faster payments but at present seem to have a maximum outbound limit of £250.
So maybe one of your payments was over £250?
Their faster payments are fairly random though sometimes payments of less than £250 will go by BACS.

harj1185

I recently opened mt A&L account, and got online access on tuesday. I transferred £500 into the account via FP on the tuesday, and immediately transferred it back out to Halifax (didn't know about the £250 limit!).

Anyway, checked yesterday and my balance was £0, and none of the transactions had appeared on the account!

Called them up, and they said that as the transactions took place after 5pm on Tuesday, they won't be picked up until the following day clearing cycle (5pm Weds) and will show up on Thursday! I thought this was ridiculous! Does this happen all the time?!

samizdat

noh wrote: »

A+L have implemented faster payments but at present seem to have a maximum outbound limit of £250.
So maybe one of your payments was over £250?
Their faster payments are fairly random though sometimes payments of less than £250 will go by BACS.

Both payments were for £250. The second payment arrived a day after the first. A bit of a mystery.