Alliance and Leicester and it's stupid payment system

williham

I set up a transfer from my A&L savings to my A&L current account for a date 2 weeks ahead. I then set up a payment from my current account to a credit card to pay it off.

As this is how it works with every other bank I use, I thought this would be fine. I was then given a £25 fee for them making the payment before the money had gone in from the savings.

I rang up and they refunded the £25 out of 'goodwill' but said a £5 overdraft fee would be applied because their £25 fee put me in an overdraft I didn't have.

I rang their complaints line to get this £5 reversed but she said it wasn't showing so she couldn't take it off.

I saw it showing on my account today so I rang them up and they said they don't refund the £5, so I rang the complaints line again and he again said that they don't refund the £5 and that there is a previous closed complaint on the account showing that I agreed to the £25 and paying the £5 when I didn't.. I asked how I could complain about the £5 as soon as they told me about it.

He said he would re-open the complaint but they would 'probably just say no again'. Surely the complaints line should deal with complaints, not just pass it to someone else to deal with and say that they probably wouldn't do anything.

I do know about alliance and leicester's stupid payment policy but I normally make both payments myself and this doesn't incur a charge.

If I do it myself it works but the account shows the next day like this:

Credit card payment £250 Account balance -£250
Savings-Current acc £250 Account balance £0

When I manually paid the money in before transferring it to the credit card and made sure it showed up.

I would close down my accounts but the savings account is 3.15% so it would be cutting off my nose.

BTW I think fees are necessary etc. but they shouldn't have a different way of applying payments to the rest of the industry.

edit:sorry I didn't know this was so long..

Equaliser123

A&L are utter rubbish at this sort of thing. Their online system is dire - often showing inaccurate "balance available" information.

I've made 3 complaints to them. Eventually they admit it and refund any charges incurred but they are hugely pathetic.

knightstyle

Don't even start to try to transfer money from one A&L account to another. it takes 5 working days MINIMUM! Sometimes over a week if there is a bank holiday! How can anyone work with this.

inca_2

What a pain, can you set up the credit card payment for a day later next time to make sure it goes out after it has come in? I know that doesn't help your complaint at all but might make it easier for you next time?

BandJB

knightstyle wrote: »

Don't even start to try to transfer money from one A&L account to another. it takes 5 working days MINIMUM! Sometimes over a week if there is a bank holiday! How can anyone work with this.

Total rubbish!

I do transfers several times a month, to and from my current account and Online Saver account. The transfer is instantaneous and I can print off the updated Online Saver statement immediately; the current account 'available' amount changes immediately and the transaction detail shows up on that account's statement by the next day.

As it happens, I made a transfer just this morning, exactly as described.
I've never had any problem with A&L in the 3 years I've been with them. Maybe I've been lucky, and I worry about what may happen with the future changes to Santander, but I can only speak as I find. Blatently false statements such as the one quoted above help no-one to make objective decisions.

inca_2

I would have thought it would have been instant too. I have a few account current/DD/savings all with Natwest and whenever I transfer money between any of them or into my OH's it goes through immediately whether it's a working day or not?

williham

The payments appear to be instant, but on your statement they go through after any payments made.

This was a problem with scheduling two payments though -
They appear to send payments before doing any interaccount transfers which obviously is stupid.

Any other bank doesn't care as long as it's the same day.

TurkishDelight

knightstyle wrote: »

Don't even start to try to transfer money from one A&L account to another. it takes 5 working days MINIMUM! Sometimes over a week if there is a bank holiday! How can anyone work with this.

Current account to current account is dire, but this is different- you can see them both on the same screen and it happens quickly.

inca wrote: »

I would have thought it would have been instant too. I have a few account current/DD/savings all with Natwest and whenever I transfer money between any of them or into my OH's it goes through immediately whether it's a working day or not?

They are probably part of the faster payments scheme. A+L sadly aren't.

BandJB

TurkishDelight wrote: »

They are probably part of the faster payments scheme. A+L sadly aren't.

They are, actually, and have been for nearly a year. I used it a couple of times last August. Rather paltry £250 limit AFAIK, however.

williham

Yeah they are in the faster payments scheme but that doesn't affect transfers inside the same bank!

BandJB

williham wrote: »

Yeah they are in the faster payments scheme but that doesn't affect transfers inside the same bank!

True, but the presentation of the day's transactions on the statement has nothing to do with how those debits and credits are managed on a daily basis. When I log onto my account at 6.30am any direct debits payable that day have already been deducted from the closing balance from the previous day. That's why A&L (and every other bank I've ever dealt with) state in their T&Cs that credits meant to meet payments should be paid into the account on the working day before the payment will be made.

If you fail to do that then you, effectively, start the day with an overdraft and the bank has to make a decision as to whether or not to honour the payment. You can't expect them to know that you're going to turn up at the branch at 3pm carrying a bag of cash to cover the bill that arrived during the previous night. As another poster has said, manual reviews may have to be made during the course of the day - starting at around mid-day - to decide whether to allow the payment or reject it. You're putting the bank into the position where they've got to decide if you should get into problems for either: (a) running an unauthorised overdraft or, (b) not paying your bills. It's not their job to decide whether you should be in the frying pan or the fire - it's your job to avoid getting into either of them.

It's my understanding that the banks have to meet two different deadlines every day. The earlier one is to process inter-bank transactions (your payments) and notify the central clearing system whether the payment request has been met or refused. This has to be done soon after close of business for the day.
The second obligation is to gather all the transactions relevant to your account for that day and have them listed ready for when you log in early the next day (and the order they actually list them is irrelevant). This is purely an internal matter for the bank: some do it by the early hours of the morning, some do it 'by 9am' or somesuch convenient time (convenient to them, that is!).
Counting and checking the bag of cash you handed in at 3pm, or processing the transfer you made some time during the day, is part of the second stage. It's too late to affect the inter-bank movements.

I have a very simple system to avoid this same-day debit-followed-by-credit problem: get an overdraft facility. If, as happened to me yesterday, an unexpected payment is requested then the overdraft will cover it and the payment will be made. If I spot the situation during the day then I transfer funds to meet it from my Online Saver (instantly, knightstyle!) and by the time the end-of-day account reconciliation is made by the bank I'm not in an overdraft situation, so I don't get charged interest. If I miss it then I'll just get a minor interest charge, not a stiff penalty for going overdrawn without permission. Works for me.