Alliance & Leicester (merged)

kcmatt79

Hi,

Has anyone contacted Watchdog?? I'm sure they would be interested in this, considering they had quite a few programmes about bank charges this year. I really think we might be able to get something done about them hiding behind the OFT case.

If not, let's hope it finds in our favour - A&L will have some SERIOUS paying out to do!!

cymroc

Last month i went £2.53 over my overdraft limit. That's £2.53 not £253!
Due to the wonders of internet banking I could see that i was about to be charged £50 (2 x £25) in a few days time.

Being charged £50 for going over my overdraft by £2.53 seems totally unjust so I contacted A&L to see if they could waive the charges in this instance as it was a simple mistake and the sums in question were so tiny. Please bear in mind that the charge hadn't been enforced at this stage i was just notified of it when i logged on to check my balance.

After holding for 20 mins i finally got through to a customer service adviser and i explained the situation to her. I asked if, as a goodwill gesture, they would be prepared to waive the charge in this instance. She replied that, due to the test case which was on going, they are unable to pay back any charges on the advise of the FSA. I replied saying that as the payment hadn't been taken from my account i wasn't actually attempting to reclaim a bank charge but avoid one but she was adamant that due to the test case they were not permitted to make any goodwill gestures where bank charges are concerned!

Please can someone tell me if this is correct? I argued til i was blue in the face that she was wrong because I wasn't asking to reclaim but she would not budge!

Any advice gratefully received:beer:

lilmoi1985lm

Im currently sitting in tears after receiveing mail from alliance and leicester informing me I have been charged £5 per day for every day I have been overdraugn.

I decided to take u the online account after hearing good word that they can meet your existing overdraught and a lower rate. So I was all for switching. Filled in the forms, asked to reinstate my direct debits with them etc etc and received wonderful letters about how my account was going to be marvelous! They never contacted my employer to switch over my bank details which they stated they had so I contacted them and was told they had done this and due to postal strikes it may have ben delayed. two weeks still nothing received so I called again and they informed me they would send out another letter with the request. This never turned up either.

I then received a letter stating they wouldnt give me an overdraught as I was overdraugn on the statement that I sent them!! When I rang to discuss they told me I had to stay out of my overdraught for 14 days in order for them to give me an overdraught. I told them if they couldnt match it now as they had agreed in all the previous letters that i would like to close the account. Which they agreed.

Next month. Direct debits coming out and being returned as now money in the account. Was told that I would need to pay the charges that had occured before I could close the account - EVEN THOUGH THESE CAME OUT AFTER I CLOSED IT! I told them in nicer terms fo F Off!

And now ive logged onto my online account ive seen that the old charge of uncleared direct debit has shot up as they are still trying to take direct debtis out even though they are cleaning through my old Abbey account!

And to top the lot of I cant find my phone pin to ring the !!!!!!s up so im going to have to take a day of work tomorow and go into the branch and probably kill the manager.

This is just so unfair as they shouldnt be taking direct debits out if ive cancelled them and if they've never asked to transfer my wages into here or inform me to close my old account.

Any advice what I can say to the sods tomorrow? politely?

BLISSFUL2

I am still waiting to hear about the test case , but like everyone else i suppose in time we will all hear something, just a quick note i opened up a parachute account and today i got an amended terms and conditions leaflet and in the small print it clearly states that charges will be £15 ( this is a halifax account ) i hope this sends a glimmer of hope to everyone

smitchy73

Yeah roll on January to see what happens with the test case, I think everyone is hoping that the banks drop a load and decide to drop the case if they have to justify the charges, and hopefully the judicial system will grow a set of [EMAIL="b@lls"]b*lls[/EMAIL] against them and ask them to justify it, and why they are changing the overdraft fee etc and now call them 'service charges' when it's a service no one has asked for, but the bank feels it 'has' to offer, of course they 'have' to charge for this service!! Makes no sense, maybe if it didn't take 5 days to cash a bloody cheque less people would go overdrawn, or if switch payments went through instantly, etc etc.

marleycat

Hi

I have just discovered that an old Alliance & Leicester account has not been cancelled from last year, and that I was £3.40 over drawn. Due to changes to over draft charges they have charged £5 per day from 26/10!!!!
I called CS, very nice lady, who advised that there was nothing she could do as A&L have frozen any authority to refund bank charges, regardless of circumstances, pending the outcome of the recent court case for unfair bank charges, and that I now owe £279 in charges to date. She acknowledged that hey had received my letter to cancel the account, and advised that A&L had written to me re the £3.40 owing - I received no such letter.
If I do not pay this now I will incur a further £5 per day. All this for £3.40!!!
It must have cost more than this amount to process the charges, and issue the letter!!!!
The CS advisor went on to say that all bank queries will be dealt with once the court case has been finalised but there is no guarantee of getting the charges refunded.
I just cannot believe this.
I have written off larger amounts than this due to not being cost effective to chase!
The irony is I have only recently opened another account of the same type - they did not mention my old account, and I have more than enough money in my new account to cover the £3.40, but they will not even consider this.
What a complete joke.....I am sooooo angry.
My partner even works for the jobs worths!!!!

dbelle

I joined alliance and leicester because I was fed up of Nationwide's charging policy and I have to say they are just as bad.

Am currently really not very happy because a couple of direct debits failed on Tuesday, as soon as I saw I paid in money to cover how much I had gone overdrawn by, so I was overdrawn for about 3hours.

I thought maybe they had some kind of grace period but it seems that is not the case at all, both DD's got returned and they put the charges on straight away - 2 x £25.

I called them and all I got was a standard response about the test case and a promise that she would refer it to the 'charges team' = automated letter printer, who would write to me.

With the test case going on is there still a chance I can reclaim these (and some past charges) - I've swallowed a few sets of charges because of the test case but reading other parts of this section shows me that people are still having success.

I'm a bit fed up because I've lost £50 which is really handy at this time of year.

JR19

Due to the late receipt of some funds, Alliance and Leicester increased my od limit. I then noticed that I had a payment 'pending' with the bank through my Paypal ac (don't know how this happened, as I'm always careful to select the 'pay by credit card' option). I telephoned to ask for a further 'temporary' increase to cover this payment, a mere £100, but they refused. I managed to find some funds, paid the cash in on the way home in order to stay within the limit. THEN Vodafone took their DD payment of £35.00 out a day earlier than usual, which took me over the agreed od and I've been charged £25.00. Thankful that I've kept my LloydsTSB account open, so will be moving my main account back (will keep some in A&L so that I can have the free travel insurance).

Josie64

yesterday me and hubby had a letter from A & L saying a DD had bounced

but when we checked the account online we could see there was enough funds in the account and they had even taken out the 25.00 charge before bouncing the DD!

we phoned up and went to the branch and spoke to someone called Neil who agreed yes, it was a mistake.
the account was £-214.19 od and the dd was 16.18 which made the account then 230.37 od which was within our limit of 250

has this happened to anyone else? did you get your money back?

PhatDad

Hi, I'm sorry if it's covered already but I have had a search and the closest I have found is not quite the same.

I have noticed since everyone has been reclaiming their charges that the banks have now be taking the opportunity to show us how good they are by dropping the price from £25-£35 a day overdrawn to something more manageable like Alliance and Leicesters £5 a day.

I opened an A&L account to do the matched betting and take advantage of their introduction offers and cashback. I made quite a nice amount of money from the matched betting but time became an issue so I stopped doing it and withdrew almost all of the cash. However I did leave a small buffer amount in there so I could keep it open in case I wished to use the account for other things.

Anyway, I stopped using the account and was unaware that either when my main account card expired amazon charged my A&L account or I unknowingly used this account to pay for goods. Anyway, the payment was made and this left me £1.33 overdrawn in November. I didn't know about this until I received my statement this morning and they are going to charge me £130 in charges at £5 per day I was overdrawn.

My question and possible word of warning is, are banks now dropping the amount they charge for going overdrawn but putting in policies now where people aren't informed that they are overdrawn and therefore accruing large charges.

If this is the case then people reclaiming their charges don't stand a chance as they can now say they are charging a resonable amount for admin costs and it is down to the customer to ensure they check their accounts regularly?

As far as I was aware, over the 15 or more years I've had bank accounts I have always received a letter within a day or two to inform me I have gone overdrawn. Has anyone else noticed from the banks that have dropped their charge amounts whether they are receiving notification or not?

It would be a travesty for this site and others like it if the banks stopped charging so much but then screwed us over by charging us reasonable rates but not informing us of this until they are making loads off of us.

Anyway, I spoke to them and asked for them to waive the payment and the charging team will get back to me. The person who answered the phone put her boss on as requested and he said he would request the charge be dropped so fingers crossed.

However if they don't then they've picked the wrong person here as I told them I have no debt, no mortgage, no assets or anything to lose if I take them to court so any advice greatly received.