Please help appauling situation with abbey moving money without permission...

LaydeeNina

:mad:

O.k to put a long story short, my boyfriend banks with Abbey and has a current account with them with an overdraft, the current account had direct debits taken out of it when there was no money using it's instant overdraft which of course then incurred extensive bank charges, that kept adding and building up over time, to a point where it became a total joke.

So as a result he opened another separate account with abbey with no overdraft, to have his wages paid into so that he could pay off the overdraft bit by bit...alls well, he set up payments to be put into the overdrawn account weekly to help reduce it but it was still £400 pounds over the overdraft limit.

Last week I paid a cheque that he had recieved from a car crash into his savings account of approx £2500, which was for him to buy a new car as his other car had been totally written off,
so last night we checked his savings account online to find that abbey had taken it upon themselves to take £400 from the savings account and pay it directly into the overdrawn account to pay the outstanding charges!!!!

We were well and truly horrified, and have been to the branch on the phone tonight for over 3 hours only to be told that there is absolutely nothing they can do about it, also where we found the transaction online last night it said that it had been transferred by my boyfriend!!!!!

How can they have the audacity to put his name on the transaction to make it look as though he did it!!! If it wasn't for these scandalous bank charges in the first place he wouldn't have been charged, and they wouldnt have taken his money without consent!!!!

We are going to go to the main branch on saturday but at this moment in time i literally feel like killing them, as in my eyes it is STEALING!!!!!!

I cant get over how banks can charge you for being charged???? How can they do this to hardworking normal people, me and my boyfriend are only in our 20's, he is just qualified as an electrician and I am at university, we struggle to live some weeks and eat, and yet multi billion pound banks can just take and steal however much they like!!!! it makes me SICK!!!!!!!!

Pleas help as any advice would be very much appreciated, and what do we say on saturday when we go into branch to ensure we get the money back??!!:mad:

natweststaffmember

The Right of set off appears to be what has been done(I have only read the title of the thread) so I will have a look in more detail and post again.

LaydeeNina

Bump bump anything is helpful!

natweststaffmember

It is the right of set off. The bank can off set overdrawn accounts from other accounts within the same bank. He should have opened the account with a bank not connected with Abbey.


http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/40/40_setoff.htm

The link above explains what I have been saying I hope

LaydeeNina

natweststaffmember wrote: »

It is the right of set off. The bank can off set overdrawn accounts from other accounts within the same bank. He should have opened the account with a bank not connected with Abbey.

The link above explains what I have been saying I hope

Thankyou, is there anyway of getting the charges reversed or the £400 back do you know, and also if this is the case why did they make it look as though the transaction was made by my boyfriend on the statement, saying money transferred by ... and then his name. Surely they should have put by abbey, because this is just not right!

natweststaffmember

LaydeeNina wrote: »

Thankyou, is there anyway of getting the charges reversed or the £400 back do you know, and also if this is the case why did they make it look as though the transaction was made by my boyfriend on the statement, saying money transferred by ... and then his name. Surely they should have put by abbey, because this is just not right!

The likelihood is that the name is on there to denote that it has gone to him and not any random person. I think you need to keep your eye on the forums with regards to the reclaiming situation.

LaydeeNina

Bevers1978 wrote: »

Hi

Same thing happened to my bfriend with the Halifax. They off-set the debt, taking his money out of one to pay his debt on the other account, leaving him £50 in his current account.....he still had to pay his rent, utility bills etc!!. We went in the bank and had to take proof in of his direct debits etc and they transfered this amount back into his current account to cover these, but he has had to go 3 weeks without a penny until his wages go in this monday. It has left him in financial hardship. He has had to make an arrangement plan to pay off the outstanding amount he owes, but even though he cannot use this account he still has to pay the monthly charge of £12 which came with the account when he opened it!!

It is more than annoying, if I went into a bank and took money without consent i'd be arrested. They will say it is in their terms and conditions, but terms and conditions go out of the window when you are left penniless and with no money to keep a roof over your head.
We intend to do exactly what your boyfriend has done, with proof of what the cheque was for, because of a car crash, because without his car, he can not work, and without work he simply can't earn money to pay these people! It is as simple as that, I only hope that when we go in on saturday to try and sort this mess out, they can refund the charges etc.
The other thing that annoys me is that my boyfriend had been paying this overdraft off weekly as he had set up a standing order, to pay it off because they offered him a set payment plan, who were they to decide that the cheque was enough to clear his debts, when in actual fact it was for the sole purpose of buying a new car!!!!

willo65

LaydeeNina wrote: »

It is more than annoying, if I went into a bank and took money without consent i'd be arrested. They will say it is in their terms and conditions, but terms and conditions go out of the window when you are left penniless and with no money to keep a roof over your head.
We intend to do exactly what your boyfriend has done, with proof of what the cheque was for, because of a car crash, because without his car, he can not work, and without work he simply can't earn money to pay these people! It is as simple as that, I only hope that when we go in on saturday to try and sort this mess out, they can refund the charges etc.
The other thing that annoys me is that my boyfriend had been paying this overdraft off weekly as he had set up a standing order, to pay it off because they offered him a set payment plan, who were they to decide that the cheque was enough to clear his debts, when in actual fact it was for the sole purpose of buying a new car!!!!

£2000 isn't exactly pennyless. He could by a slightly cheaper car.

LaydeeNina

willo65 wrote: »

£2000 isn't exactly pennyless. He could by a slightly cheaper car.

well technically £1600 now, but he could buy a cheaper car, but he has had cheaper cars in the past that have cost him horrendous amounts of money in repairs, so its not like he hasn't been down the road of old cars before.

BankReclaimRebel

I would be inclined to get advice from the FOS regarding this, especially when you already had an arrangement plan in place.

I have had the same problems as your boyfriend where I owed Abbey £500.00 for an overdraft. I opened another current account with Natwest, had my wages going there sorted out all DD's with Natwest. I then spoke with Abbey and arranged a payment plan to pay off the £500.00. It wasn't all plain sailing though, they tried charging me for things when I already agreed with people over the phone on payment plans etc.

Make sure you write down people's names and times and dates when ringing, this has helped me in the past...I have also had to threaten Abbey with FSA & FOS, they normally back down from my experience.

tamarto

So if you class what the bank did as stealing surely that's what you BF did in the first place to be in this situation? He allowed DDs to come out of an account where he hadn't put any money in.

It really isn't the banks problem that he will have to buy a car worth £400 less than he'd have liked, and this is from someone who had similar happen but with 3 kids to feed!