PLEASE HELP!! Unfair charge - Alliance&Leicester

zppp

Anarane wrote: »

I haven't been backed into a corner about the charges - I've had the rug taken from under me! Have you ever been *just* clinging on and then through no real fault of your own, been pushed over the edge? That's what has happened here - I was just about getting by, and then they charged me for being overdrawn when in fact, the end of the day ended in credit! As a result, I am now no longer 'getting by' - I have been pushed over into 'unable to cope' and it wasn't REALLY my fault. As I've said, up until now, theis has never happened, so I had no reason to need to watch out for such a thing happening - I didn't know things like that ever happened!

But thank you for the link - I will have a look.

I'm not denying you are in hardship or going to suffer financially, what I am trying to ask you was what response you were expecting from them? The bank haven't charged you because they believe you are in financial hardship, neither is the person on the phone who you were trying to back into a corner. I think you need to ask yourself this question honestly before sending a letter in.

Anarane

zppp wrote: »

I'm not denying you are in hardship or going to suffer financially, what I am trying to ask you was what response you were expecting from them?

I already answered this - I wanted him to get either so annoyed or so bored with me that he would pass the issue on to a supervisor. Besides, he should never have responded in such a manner - he's supposed to be a professional, and in the past when I have done the same type of job (I worked for a phone company call centre, dealing with customer complaints), if I had responded in a similar manner I would have been severely reprimanded. I am disgusted with the fact that he replied in this way - he could have just said 'I'll pass you to my supervisor' or 'I'm sorry I don't know, I'll see if I can find someone else to help you'.

'Yeah, pretty much' is not a good enough reply to any question, but especially not to such a loaded question- I asked out of despair - he replied without any real emotion invested in the situation and therefore should have held the higher moral ground - as it was, he decided to take the other route.

d3mon4ngel

Anarane wrote: »

I never said it was their fault I struggle - but it IS their fault that I now no longer struggle, but instead can't manage. If they hadn't applied the unfair charge, I wouldn't have been overdrawn, and therefore wouldn't have to pay an extra £5 per day for it either!

I don't expect them to hold my hand - I expect them to deal fairly with my finances - and they haven't.

And 'unfortunate' - doesn't even cover it. I don't even have enough money to EAT this week now. I am going to have to rely on the very small amount of food in my cupboard and the kindness of my local shop to possibly set up a tab - and although they USED to do this, I don't think they do it any more!

I can totally understand your frustrations, and I have been in this position before, and spent at least 3 months firmly caught in the bank charge spiral in the past too.

I have learned the hard way that banks are not there to help you when you need it. I asked for an additional £50 on my overdraft for just one month (I knew it was going to be tight that month and wanted an extra bit of safety net), but they said no and I then got charged for a rejected payment. A year and a half later, when I was back on my feet and didn't need it, they increased my overdraft by £600 without me asking for it!

zppp

Well, if you feel you want to make a complaint and get them to do a transcript of the call, write in. I think it doesn't have any bearing on your charges though.

Anarane

d3mon4ngel wrote: »

I can totally understand your frustrations, and I have been in this position before, and spent at least 3 months firmly caught in the bank charge spiral in the past too.

I have learned the hard way that banks are not there to help you when you need it. I asked for an additional £50 on my overdraft for just one month (I knew it was going to be tight that month and wanted an extra bit of safety net), but they said no and I then got charged for a rejected payment. A year and a half later, when I was back on my feet and didn't need it, they increased my overdraft by £600 without me asking for it!

I'm glad that I'm not the only one who seems to be in a catch-22 with my bank - I'm not glad that you struggled of course, but it's nice to see that someone else was in that position and that once you got out of it, things got better.

It must be nice to have an increase - doesn't mean you can go mad spending it, but it's at least a cushion of when things go a little awry (as things have a nasty habit of doing!)

Was it difficult to get to that position or did things just work out? What kind of plan did you use to fix the problem?

pippitypip_2

I DO think you have grounds for sufficient complaints to have the charges refunded (that doesn't mean they will, but more that I think you should stand your ground and speak to a manager/ keep pursuing this).

You say this is all as normal, so why are they applying charges this month when they have not done in the past? Have they changed their terms and conditions and not informed you? You need to know why this has happened and it's not actually your fault you have incurred these charges if you are conducting your account in your usual manner and haven't been charged in the past for this exact same situation.

I'd be pretty insistent on speaking to someone senior and or following their complaints procedure about both, 1) the charges and 2) the customer service you received. Stand your ground!

It's also worth knowing that even at basic level - A&L low level CS reps have the power to refund one goodwill gesture charge per year (year from last charge refund), so that's £25 before you've gone anywhere. Still worth pursuing for the rest even so.

hth,
pippitypip

Kaleidoscope27

I have an account with A+L. When I was in uni, my parents were giving me money each month to cover living costs (food, travel, books for my course, socialing etc.) It was a standing order from my dad's account into mine. It always went into my account on the 1st of each month but wasn't cleared until the next working day. I once bought something from the Internet on the 1st but because the money hadn't cleared, I went overdrawn and they charged me for it. I rung up and argued it out with the woman I spoke to and she refunded me half that back. It was worth complaining.

Now I understand that my story was partly my own fault because I should've known by then that it takes a day to clear into my account (one of those "You have X funds but can only access X funds" situations.) But I still felt it was unfair since the money had gone in, just the bank couldn't clear it on the same day for some reason.

I say complain. You don't lose anything by it (and if you can email a complaint - you don't even have to pay for the stamp) and you never know, you might get some of the charges cancelled. Suggest you'll be switching to a more sympathetic bank. The thought of losing a customer sometimes helps in these situations.

Good luck.

pmduk

It's always been the case that banks won't give loans/overdrafts to the people that need them. Run your account in credit and you'll get all of the loans and overdrafts that you don't need.

fozmcfc

Anarane wrote: »

All this wouldn't be a huge problem if something hadn't already left my account on Tuesday that there weren't enough funds for, so I am now looking at £50 in payment review charges.

Possibly this has something to do with it also. Maybe the bank wouldn't have charged you £25 for going overdrawn for such a short time on Thursday, if you had had enough in your account on the Tuesday for this debit.

Hopefully by now you have done a SOA, clearly you can't afford to live like this.

Good Luck.

Olipro

frankly, Alliance & Leicester's clearing system is a joke, I don't know of any other banks that do this sort of ridiculous convoluted settlement and I would reasonably assert their system has been setup like this deliberately in order to maximise profits from people; there is absolutely no technical reason why they couldn't either swap the processing of debits and credits or do what other banks do and simply calculate penalties the following day based on the closing balance of the previous day. The fact they don't do RTGS between their own accounts (for free at least, no doubt they'll happily charge you 20-30 quid odd for a CHAPS transfer that will never see the light of CHAPSco) is yet another insult and no doubt something they do simply to maximise their interest benefit.

Unless you are with A&L for some sort of perks that they give, they're one of the worst choices for banking.