Alliance and Leicester charges rip-off

mmike

My wife and I set up a joint premier direct account with A&L after reading the best bank accounts advice last year. This is a decent account however you should be aware of the potential downsides which aren't included in these reviews. One of them being their charges policy.

I have found A&L charging policy and setup of their online banking site to deliberately be ambiguous as to what your balance is and what debits have been applied to your account.

I have been charged previously for going over my overdraft limit after paying a number of cheques in and transferring the money to my A&L savings account once they appeared in my current account. This was because after paying a cheque in, although it appears on your online statement and your balance, A&L won't count it as cleared until after 3 working days (or more, depending on when you pay it in and A&L ridiculously convoluted terms and conditions). So unintentionally, it is possible to go overdrawn even though your online balance shows you have the money in your account. No other bank I know of presents information in this way, and I can't see any reason for it other than to be deliberately misleading. If I pay a cheque into my HSBC account for example it won't appear on my statement, or balance, until it has cleared, simple. However, with A&L's system you are expected to note down each cheque you have paid in and when, then work out when it will actually clear into your account regardless of what your online balance shows. Maybe easy for one cheque, but not for many paid in on different days. As a penalty for transferring these cheques into my linked savings account once they appeared on my statement, I was charged £75! Due to 3 payment review fees for direct debit transactions due to insufficient balance on the current account.

Only this week, I have had the same problem with A&L charging policy. I saw that there wasn't enough money in the account to cover direct debits that were due to go out that day, so I transferred money in which is in the account within minutes. However, once again I received a £25 payment review fee even though there was enough balance on the account to cover the direct debits. After speaking to customer service I was told that this is because they work on a start of day balance. So it's possible to incur one of these charges even if your account never actually goes over your overdraft limit. To make this worse I was told that there was actually enough funds in my account without me transferring extra money in, but a debit card charge was made 2 days before but didn't appear on the account until the middle of the day 2 days later. So even though my start of day balance was enough to cover my direct debit payments, a debit card transaction cleared later that day and was retrospectively taken off my start of day balance. My credit into the account to avoid being charged isn't counted though, even though it is actually credited to my account before any debits were deducted!

Again, this all appears to be designed to cream money off charges, even if no actual cost is incurred by the bank and even if you never actually physically exceed your overdraft!

In my opinion, if you don't utilise your overdraft, fine. However, if you do make use of your overdraft then avoid A&L, it's just not worth it!

Dave_save

Agree with all you say. I've had this argument with them time and time again. Their online banking is poor and deceives the account holder. If you have a lot of transactions going in and out the balances are confusing and you end up with charges. That's why I'm moving to another bank.

earlofbarrett

I second everything you say, A&L are without doubt THE worst bank I've ever had the misfortune to deal with! I actually closed my on-line account with them in credit and 6 weeks later they send me a letter saying they applied a pending £20 late fee charge some 2 days later, and because it took them this long to inform me it was now £290!!!!

Obviously I haven't paid this cos it's their made up 'paper' money not mine, but I am taking them through the FSA (or court if needs be) for a resolution. My back up plan is to get the free £100 via a few friends and relatives to off set it though if things don't go my way.

16squash

Can anyone offer me any advise about my A&L bank charges, I'm so worried.

This is my fault for not sorting this earlier, but I have ended up with £500 worth of charges. Let me explain.

I opened a current account last year to get the £100 incentive, which I paid off my credit card, as I am trying to clear my debts. I had to have one direct debit set in my A&L account which I did, but my salary was still being paid in to my old account, so I was transferring money over each month. I was paid on the 16th July and my salary went in to my old account and my direct debit came out of my new account on the 17th. I transferred half of my salary to my new account on the 16th, but it takes 3 days to clear in to my A&L account. I was tied up at work so I couldn't get to my nearest branch (3 miles away) and I really didn't know at the time that you could deposit money in the post office. I thought I would just have to take the charge. The direct was for £40. The money in my account cleared. I was charged £25 which I paid straight away. What I really did not know was that I was charged £5 per day for being overdrawn (the 3 days that my salary was clearing). I didn't read my statement therefore the £15 came out of my account and took me overdrawn again! The first I realised that I was still be charged per day the charges were up to £50.

I phoned A&L and said I couldn't pay the charges, they weren't interested. I wasn't rude to them, but just said that I can't afford to pay these charges, they said okay and hung up on me.

It's a really poor excuse but I have just been so busy I still haven't sorted this and I now owe them £500. They have also said that they will be passing my debt on to a debt recovery agency. I spoke to them last week and they have said they will take £25 off. I just don't have the money to pay this. I just don't know what to do, can anyone help?