How long have you been in your overdraft?

vaporate

As the thread states...

Also, when do banks start to flex their muscles if you have been in the red for 3/6/9/12 months?

Vap.

:money:

Lokolo

I haven't. I had no need for an OD.

PROLIANT

I have a £100 overdraft with the Halifax Bank of Scotland; rarely use it as it is there (as overdrafts should be) for emergencies.
Even if I do dip in to it I will not pay a penny as it is below £300.
Win-win. :beer:

vaporate

I'll add mine.

I have a Natwest graduate Account 3 years interest free.

£500 overdraft, but will reduce it to £100 in February and will only use it if I miscalculate a purchase.

TheEffect

I have £100 with HSBC. I'm only ever in it when waiting for funds to be deposited, such as from PayPal. This month I've been in it for 2 days. Last month I was in it for a day.

My mum has been in her £2000 overdraft with First Direct for over a year now. :rotfl:

vaporate

lol wow 1 year. Longest for me was 6 months straight.

onlypaddy

i have a Graduate account with Lloyds currently £1475 overdrawn with a 0% interest (I think this is over 3 years. The interest free portion in the 1st year is 1500, then down to 1000 in the second and 500 in the third). I've been in this overdraft for nearly 3 years now, it was a student account at first.

Tonnes of charges on it when I was a c@ck with money, but budgeting well now and have an A&L premier acc for my wages and am paying it off monthly. Think its up for review in March, anyone think Lloyds will be mean and recall it all? I pay in every month by standing order and haven't missed a month for 15 months and haven't gone over the limit or been charged for about the same time

vaporate

Best thing to do is cut donw your overdraft facility limit bit by bit every month till you have 100 or 0 left.

Being unemployed its impossible to clear an overdraft unless you spend nothing for weeks on end. That's why I cut my OD limit from £1250 down to £500 without thinking about it.

When do banks start to 'flex their muscles' and start demanding payment of overdue money?

Turkey_Machine

When you don't put any money in. I've been in my overdraft with Nationwide for about the last 3 years, ever since I've been at uni. I was reluctant to use it at first, but it costs me at most about £100 a year in interest, and the few jobs I get in the year are enough to keep Nationwide happy, it seems. Initially it was £100, I wanted £1000 to cover accomodation fees and student loan screwups happening, but they said "no way", and I extended it at every opportunity til it was around £1100. They did reduce my overdraft in March 2009 though by £300, seemingly without telling me, and without notifying me on the online banking either (which should be a default starter for overdraft notifications if you ask me). Unemployment's hard on overdrafts, I wanted to reduce mine by half (£1000 to £500), but it didn't happen with the bills and forced visits to friends and relatives after I got paid in September.

piglet39

I'll add my tuppence!

Banked with Natwest since 2000. £2700 od facility which I was permanently in (i.e. salary credits never bought me temp into the black). O/D increased to £4100 in 2002 - again permanently in. We reduced O/D to £1000 (due to some money coming our way) in 2004. Pretty much almost up to the limit i.e. only in credit for a few days each month. O/D increased by bank to £1500 in Janury 2008 and so permanently using O/D from then until June this year when I decided that we couldn't keep spending the banks money any longer!

Since June we have repaid the O/D :T

In every conversation I have had with Natwest they have never appeared concerned let alone hinting at recalling the o/d (was in debt management depts hands a couple of times in 2007) because the account is 'regularly credited'

Boy it does feel good to have the facility because now we have it as it should be - purely for emergencies.

HTH

Pigletx