Alliance & Leicester charging my wife £175 for not using her account?? Please help

keeno

Hi guys and girls.

Just wondering if you can offer some advice on a problem we have been having with Alliance & Leicester.

My wife has not used her account since we both started banking with nationwide under a joint account. She just happened to check the onling banking and seen that she has been charged £175 over the last 2 months.

There was zero balance on the account but she was charged a £5 under funding fee which put her over her overdraft limit, they have then charged an additional £5 per day for this :mad: She does not even have an overdraft with them.

There is no chance we will be paying this as I feel it is completely outrageous, we have never even received a letter to tell us about these fee's. My wife is due to talk to someone from Alliance & Leicester tomorrow, I would be grateful for any advice you can give to help her with the telephone call. If it makes any difference she is currently starting a debt management plan so has no cash to spare.


Thanks in advance.

Keeno

natweststaffmember

I personally think that you should look at arranging a payment plan with the A&L because unless you can show that you have moved the account ie transferred it and that they haven't closed the account then it is difficult to argue a case currently. Once the OFT have decided what they are going to do we might be able to have an argument but the underfunding charges were specific to the account, the rest of the charges might be challengeable soon.

esmerellda

I think its disgusting that this fee has put her in overdraft and they have then charged on it.

She wants to mention BCOBS tomorrow when she speaks to them

BCOBS 5.1.4 01/11/2009 Principle 6 requires a firm to pay due regard to the interests of its customers and to treat them fairly. In particular, a firm should deal fairly with a banking customer whom it has reason to believe is in financial difficulty.

keeno

TBH we would not mind the underfunding charges as they are only £5 per month, but I really don't think its fair to be expected to pay £5 per day when it was them that put us overdrawn.

Should we not have received a letter about this? Would it be worth saying we are happy to pay the underfunding charges but not the charges for being overdrawn?

Thanks for the replies so far.

noh

Did she not receive any statements?
Or was it a a Premier Direct account and she failed to look at the online statements?
The charges would have been notified on the statements.

keeno

It was on-line only as far as I am aware. But surely with this kind of thing a letter would be required?

FazerWizz

Knowing A & L, I'm surprised that they didn't charge you a £25 "review" fee each time they took an extra £5 from your account and possibly even charge you £25 for bouncing them a few times :rolleyes:

I think you have been treated very unfairly, I hope you get some satisfaction.

noh

keeno wrote: »

It was on-line only as far as I am aware. But surely with this kind of thing a letter would be required?

If it was the Premier Direct Account then all statements are online only.
As far as I am aware there is no requirement to inform the customer by letter.
Communication can be by any means.

cornerstone13

We had similar about a year ago. Luckily we noticed it within a few days and A&L waived the fees. They pointed out to us that on the T&Cs of the account, it states about underfunding charges etc - of course, we hadn't noticed this particular clause until we began to get charged. They said there was no requirement to notify us as it is very clearly stated in the T&Cs. That's how they make their money, after all.

Unfortunately, you will probably find that they have every right to charge you as you will either have been sent T&Cs or agreed to them online - and the underfunding clause will be there.

It is worth calling them and asking - but you may have to compromise.

The solution is to check online accounts frequently !!

esmerellda

Funny how they don't bounce their own charges and no consideration whatsoever comes into play. Absolute imbalance of rights and obligations under the contract. 10 years ago the account would have been looked at, ''ooo how come its not being used, if we charge £5 its going to take her over and if we charge her for going over it could compound a difficult situation, so lets give her a call or a letter to see whats going on and work out a solution''.

Just doesnt happen nowadays where the computer makes all the decisions.