A&L Be Warned & Help Required

MarkyMarkD

I don't know of any bank at all which details, in its terms and conditions, any set criteria for the granting of overdrafts.

A&L has operated this "pay in twice as much as your overdraft limit" rule for VERY MANY years - it applied to me at least 5 years ago.

I suspect that they are not applying it rigidly to new customers, or they are matching their existing overdraft limits for the first year (during which the overdraft is free), but then applying the standard criteria thereafter.

KTF and mshaw are confusing a number of different things.

£1,000 used to be the minimum monthly credit to be accepted for a Premier account, and this was reduced the £500. Failure to meet either of these criteria (during the time each applied) could lead to an under-funding fee.

Completely separate is the requirement to have sufficient income to qualify for an overdraft. In a nutshell, if you pay in as much as you have stated as your net income, you will qualify for the overdraft you've been offered at least until the time of each annual review. And if your original limit was a standard one (i.e. less than 1/2 your monthly net income) the annual review will be a formality unless your income has fallen.

Michaels seems to be missing the OP's words which state that A&L gave 6 weeks' notice of the reduction in the overdraft limit.

wearside_2

Yorkshire Boy..Surely if the opening balance and closing balance is the same, I have not gone overdrawn. To me being overdrawn is when I have a negative balance at the end of the day! My other internet banks follow my thinking especially on pay day, when numerous standing orders leave my account. Anyway as I say this charge was refunded 2 days later. Its the fact that it took 2 days that caused the overdrawn figure and as the A&L caused that why should they charge me £25!

MarkyMarkD

Your definition of overdrawn is not correct.

With ANY bank, if you don't have enough money in the account at the close of previous day, direct debits and cheques will be bounced as these are processed first thing in the morning (overnight). So with NO bank is it good enough to transfer money in during the day to meet direct debits or cheques due to leave that day.

For SOME banks, internal transfers and outgoing BACS payments are debited to the account either in real time, or at some point late in the day, which MIGHT mean that you could do as you did with your A&L accounts.

But, as YB has pointed out, A&L (and I suspect most other banks except those which post internal transfers in real time) do not guarantee to post transactions in any particular order, and the general requirement (with A&L and most banks) is to have funds in the account by close of play the previous working day before any outgoing payment is due.

Paul_Herring

MarkyMarkD wrote:

I don't know of any bank at all which details, in its terms and conditions, any set criteria for the granting of overdrafts.

Not exactly in the T&C's, but LTSB have a general rule that your overdraft is usually a maximum of 1/2 your monthly net salary if you're applying for it online. (Fortunately I appear to be exempt from that rule as I found out Friday - needed a short term loan, and managed to increase my OD limit to ~3.5 times mine)

MarkyMarkD

So, that's the same as A&L's unwritten rule according to the earlier posts and my experience.

Most banks will exceed their standard policies if you give them a good enough explanation. In the OP's case, if they had negotiated rather than ignoring a letter telling them to pay in more money within 6 weeks or suffer a reduction in their overdraft limit, they probably wouldn't have got into the unauthorised overdraft scenario, at least in the short term.

Paul_Herring

MarkyMarkD wrote:

Most banks will exceed their standard policies if you give them a good enough explanation.

I didn't give them any reason - I just asked for it when I was logged into my account. No reasons were asked for - just amount.

MarkyMarkD

I was talking about the regular overdraft situation. As I've previously said, I'm sure that many banks will vary their general rules for new customers as a means of obtaining their business.