A&L disgraceful charges

lea

Hello

I have a Premier Direct Current account with Alliance and Leicester. I have a £2,500 overdraft with them, Last week I went £2.52 over my overdraft limit and they have charged me £50 in bank charges! They say £25 'paid item charge', and £25 unathorised overdraft fee.
I can't believe it! My partner and I pay approx £2,500 a month into this account, and only went over our overdraft limit because we are getting married next week and had to pay more out than we usually do.

Is there anything I can do???

Lea
xxx

Sillychuckie

Reclaim the money obviously. Call them to ask, if they say no, then go through the letter writing motions as per usual.

oh, and try to manage your finances better.

Plutos_2

I got the impression that A&L were not *this* bad with charges. As I'm leaving Natwest (ASAP when overdraft paid off) is there ANY bank out there that doesn't behave in this appalling manner?

As Silly says above, basically approach them with what you've said in this post - that you are a good customer, that you thought they were one of the more reputable banks, that you're disgusted and you've never had charges before.

If they don't refund them, write the standard letter telling them they are illegal and you want to be paid back. Register with consumeractiongroup.co.uk forums to see the tempalates you need to use. You know the charges, so you don't need to send the data protection act request.

Plutos

in_my_wellies

A&L charged my DH £100 for being over his limit for 2 days in March. They refunded £50 but were not prepared to refund the rest as he 'didn't ask soon enough'. He was in hospital having a major operation for 12 days but that was still not a good enough reason.

asandwhen

try nationwide they seem a little better than most but will still charge.

lea

Thanks for your replies.

I rang A&L straight away on Thursday, explained why I had gone over the overdraft limit and that its not happened before, etc, but they said that I had gone over my limit and the charges were sticking. I asked them how they could justify £50 worth of charges for £2.52, the lady just said its in the terms and conditions etc.

Obviously I didnt mean to go over the overdraft limit, but unfortunately sometimes in life these things happens, and I'm not sure how a bank can justify such huge charges for such a small amount. If they had charged one lot of £25, I wouldn't have been happy, but probably not complained. But £50 really is disgusting.

I will write a letter after the wedding and see what happens.

Thanks
Lea
xxx

M_Thomson

lea wrote:

Thanks for your replies.

I rang A&L straight away on Thursday, explained why I had gone over the overdraft limit and that its not happened before, etc, but they said that I had gone over my limit and the charges were sticking. I asked them how they could justify £50 worth of charges for £2.52, the lady just said its in the terms and conditions etc.

Obviously I didnt mean to go over the overdraft limit, but unfortunately sometimes in life these things happens, and I'm not sure how a bank can justify such huge charges for such a small amount. If they had charged one lot of £25, I wouldn't have been happy, but probably not complained. But £50 really is disgusting.

I will write a letter after the wedding and see what happens.

Thanks
Lea
xxx

You should have just said I have gone over my limit and as I have been a good customer can you refund my charges? Rather than asking how they can justify the amount of the charge. That probably got her back up. Remember the person on the other end of the phone doesn't decide the level of charges. If you approach it without getting annoyed and providing you are a good customer who doesn't do it all the time they will 9 times out of 10 refund the charges.

MarkyMarkD

A limit's a limit's a limit. All of these "it was only £2.52" discussions are missing the point - you already had a £2,500 limit, for goodness's sake, and managed to be £2,502.52 overdrawn - not exactly a pittance IMHO.

Rallya

I went 74p over my £350 overdraft limit with A&L and ended up being charged a total of £75 in charges. £25 for paid item charge, £25 unauthorised overdraft fee, and because it was overdrawn for 2 days which coincided with the date of the monthly statement date another £25 unauthorised overdraft fee for the next "month".

Needless to say I wasnt happy I am in the process now of opening a new bank account and will then change over all the DD and SO. After this I am going to claim back the £134 A&L owe me in bank charges. A&Lclose your account when you do that but I dont care!

bengal-stripe

M_Thomson wrote:

You should have just said I have gone over my limit and as I have been a good customer can you refund my charges? Rather than asking how they can justify the amount of the charge.

This reminds me of a ‘fly-on-the-wall’ TV documentary I saw some years ago, about the routines at a car pound.

Irate driver: “How can you justify a charge of £ 80.00?”
Cashier: “Sir, I’m not here to justify it. I’m here to take the money.”

lea

Thanks for all your comments. I'm annoyed at myself for going over the limit- my brain has been all over the place over the last few weeks because of my wedding on Saturday!

M Thomson-I tried the nice approach first, I work in customer services so know from experience that people are much more likely to help you if you are nice to them! But when it was obvious she wasnt going to budge, I have to admit thats when I went into the 'I cannot believe its £50 for going over by £2.52' etc. Probably didnt help my case but hey.

I do feel that MarkyMarkD's remark earlier-"you already had a £2,500 limit, for goodness's sake, and managed to be £2,502.52 overdrawn" isn't being fair. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the purpose of an overdraft, but I have made an agreement with my bank, and pay a large amount of interest each month, for having the benefit of this overdraft. Therefore whether I have a £2,500 overdraft or a £50 overdraft is really not the point.
I agree that its my fault that I went over the agreed limit, but the point of my thread was, and still is, I really cannot understand how anyone can think £50 of charges is a fair amount to pay.

So yes, I have learnt my lesson, and will try and manage my finances better in the future! But it doesnt mean that I approve of the way A&L treat their customers.

Thanks once again for everyone's advice,
Lea
xxx