Alliance & Leicester - New Charges

butterfly72

I logged on yesterday and have the 'underfunding' fee despite putting 1K in during July and having a running balance of 2.5K.

I phoned and was told that the fee was for August and that I should have funded the account before the 4th of the month!!! What about everyone that gets paid at the end of the month?!?!? Bonkers.

They reckon they sent me a Santander booklet explaining this. I don't think so!!! I'm gonig to complain.

Oh and also, the fast payments are no longer fast. Transfers to my Halifax account normally take 2 hrs. The one I did last week took 4 days. When I phoned them they said that it was because the 'platform was changing to santander' (what?) and I was informed in the booklet. No mention of this online when I did the transaction!!

I think I might just close this account. I only use it for the 6% interest, not as my main account, but I'm not sure I can be doing with the hassle anymore.

UPDATE:
Right, I've just called A&L (armed with terms and conditions) and was told that the £500 can go in at ANY time during the month. they apologised for the misinformation I was previously given. The fee has now been removed. Oh and I've taken the assistants name and time of call in case I need to ring next month!!! As for the fast payment.. it shouldn't happen again, and in anycase they can't guantee a FP and any payment could take upto 5 working days.

londoner1998

Wednesday wrote: »

With the Premier account you always had to pay in at least £500 a month - if you don't, you are charged the underfunding fee - that's not a new charge.

I am in the same situation- the minimum amount to be piad in was 500- but this month I got the 5 pounds charge for 'underfunding' even thought that was was required amount- checking out Santander's account, all of them require at least 1,000 minimum paying-in a month. My partner has the same account and gets his salary paid n- over 1,000... and he hasn't been charged- it seems they have raised the minimum fudning amount but nobody has told us...
I am not impressed...

jb66

jules1972 wrote: »

I swapped to A&L in March this year and haven't been very happy so far.
Last paper statement I got date 29th June says I've been charged £5 for an underfunding fee. The statement ran from 29th May to 29th June. I get my wages (more than £500) the last working day of the month which was 28th May and 30th June. This just seems like an enormous money making racket for them, I pay in more than the required amount every calander month. I'm loath to ring the "helpline" as the last time I did this to sort out a duplicate direct debit I got a shock when I got my phone bill and noticed they were charging national rate for calls. I've sent 3 secure emails from my account on 8th July, 13th July and this morning and got bott all response. I think their customer service is pants and I feel I'm now going to have to ring them and get the run around on their excessively complicated menu helpline. This must be happening to loads of people and I'm a civil servant and we all get paid on the same date. I know it's not much money but it stinks. Thanks

This has happened to me too, they suggested i remove £500 from my account then put it back in, bit of hassle though

Ibliss

I read of the mysterious underfunding charge on this forum and sure enough last week I it appeared on my A&L account as being due on the 16th August.

I phoned up and explained that I thought it was a mistake, the guy on the phone put me on hold for about 50 seconds while he took care of it and everything is now sorted - the charge was reversed.

It now doesn't show up on my account but I will be keeping an eye on it.

kerri_gt

Consumerist wrote: »

From A&L's Ts&Cs A year ago, these paragraphs were probably in sections 32.2 & 32.2.1 of the Ts&Cs at that time.

Blimey! sorry, didn't mean to mis-lead anyone. Guess I didn't read that far ...:o

With regard to the faster payments, previously before the migration I was told that you could make one FP per day, anything else would take 3 working days, and that the current max was £250 (though this could change, and no they weren't able to put this max amount for a FP clearly on their website to avoid any confusion). :mad:

However, I did one 'FP' last week...took 3 days, one this week to the same account...was instant.

aarhus_2

Received my statement through the post and the Under Funding Fee had been applied. Called up and the (very nice and helpful) lady in the call centre said "hmm, looks like it's an error - you have to fund £500 pounds a month - I can see you have put in more than that so I will remove the charge from your account".

Looks like they have sorted the internal comms out at least!

Consumerist

kerri_gt wrote: »

Blimey! sorry, didn't mean to mis-lead anyone. Guess I didn't read that far . . .

One thing A&L/Santader's customers must be prepared to do is read their Ts&Cs from start to finish even though they are helpfully spread over a number of documents, non of which are dated so you know which set is currently in force.

I have learned this lesson over the last year and have all but quit A&L - just waiting for the free overdraft period to expire. New current account already up and running. Luckily, I seem to have missed the fallout from the Santander migration fiasco - but only just, I think. We'll see.

jask86

The same has just happened to me. I was RAGING. So called A&L and they have refunded the £5 charge and as it has put me into my overdraft I have told them I am going to need the charges for that reversed as well. I am going to need to phone back at the end of the month. To which I have told them that I will be phoning back and they will refund me the charges and the charge for the phone call and my time.

To anyone else who has the same problem make sure they give you extra for wasting your time.

exel1966

In late July I noticed a charge of 50p due to come out of my account on 11th Aug for a 'daily arranged overdraft fee'. I called them to query it as my account has never been overdrawn. The CSA agreed to refund the charge and credit my account with £5 for the telephone call.

11th August came and I was charged the 50p so rang them again and unsurprisngly they couldn't see why I'd been charged. This time they did take action and re-credited the 50p and gave me 2 x £5 for the two telephone calls.

I omitted to tell them I'd called on a FREEFONE number

Consumerist

exel1966 wrote: »

I omitted to tell them I'd called on a FREEFONE number

Unfortunately, you also omitted to tell us all what that FREEFONE number is. The only numbers publicly available seem to be 0844 numbers (10p + 5p/min).