Alliance & Leicester (merged)

Edinburghlass_2

bushey wrote: »

Hi there,

just a quick question...A&L charges its customers £5 a day for every single day your account is overdrawn. For instance I was overdrawn by 15p (!!!) for about 14days and had to pay £120 for their crazy charge. Is there any way to try and reclaim that money or that also includes the case going on at the moment, so that kind of thing is on hold as well?

I would really appreciate your help and advice in that matter.

Many thanks in advance.

Regards,
Jacob

Read Martin's article and start your claim

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/bank-charges

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/oft-bank-charges

Amethyst30

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

doodlez1612 You don't just get an online statement, you get an e-mail telling you that the online statement has been produced at the time that the fees are advance warned. So there's never any reason to go overdrawn because of unexpected charges.

Amazing Ive had an online account with them for two years and never once had an email from them with regards to charges or that my online statement has been "produced"

doodlez1612

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

doodlez1612 You don't just get an online statement, you get an e-mail telling you that the online statement has been produced at the time that the fees are advance warned. So there's never any reason to go overdrawn because of unexpected charges.

Really? I've had my account for nearly a year and have never had anything. The first time I rang up to complain about a charge they said i should have got a letter so it would be refunded but then the next time i rang i was told i shouldnt get one cos i had an online account and would online see warnings when i logged in. I asked them at the time if i shouldn't at least get an email and they said no.

Not that it really matters now tho cos I am watching the account like a hawk and as soon as my charges are refunded i'm gonna close the account and go elsewhere. I'm sick of arguing with their 'customer service' team who say a different thing every time.

moneysavingchicken

I've had an alliance Premier Direct online current account with the bog standard £250 overdraft facility. Suddenly without prior notice they billed a £5 'overdraft usage fee' that I never had before and was unaware would be charged. That fiver took me 1 pound and a few pence over the £250 limit and they now plan to charge another £20 (a fiver per day until I discovered it and put back a few quid to get it under the £250.
There's no way that 20 quid for being 1.30 over limit for four days is fair, while their five pound overdraft usage fee took it over the limit; and what is that overdraft usage fee???
On phoning their internet banking, their system seems out of order as it's not accepting my pin and their security help team are all engaged and not answering.
Waht can I do? Also, re the £20 they plan to charge they won't even say when so it's as though they have taken it now as we have to set aside 20 quids of that overdraft (for which we are now paying a fiver per month) although we don't known when they will make the charge to the account.

doodlez1612

moneysavingchicken wrote: »

Also, re the £20 they plan to charge they won't even say when so it's as though they have taken it now as we have to set aside 20 quids of that overdraft (for which we are now paying a fiver per month) although we don't known when they will make the charge to the account.

If you log in to your online banking thingy and select the account (so you get to the statement page) up the top near your details it says "charges" or something similar. Click that and it comes up saying how much they will charge you and when.

'Fraid I can't help on the other stuff mind.

moneysavingchicken

doodlez1612 wrote: »

If you log in to your online banking thingy and select the account (so you get to the statement page) up the top near your details it says "charges" or something similar. Click that and it comes up saying how much they will charge you and when.

'Fraid I can't help on the other stuff mind.

No, friend. It lists the charges and the 'due date' field is BLANK.

Also, a friendly branch person explained that the 5 pound overdraft charge is between .50p and 5 quid but they give you no way of calculating or knowing how much the charge will be. Also, until recently they charged a percentage after the 1 year free overdraft facility ran out. Now it's this .50-5.00 amount but they don't tell you how much. Not very reliable.

MarkyMarkD

Sorry, msc, but you're wrong (and so, apparently, was the branch person you spoke to).

The overdraft charge is 50p per day for authorised and £5 per day for unauthorised. There's no "between x and x", both amounts are fixed and exact.

On your statementing date, you get an e-mail saying "look at your statement". If you do so, at this time you will see if any charges are due and when they will be charged. In any case, there is a notice period (16 days, I think) before the charges are levied.

So:

(1) Your initial £5 overdraft usage was either 1 day at £5 (unauthorised) or 10 days (the maximum in a statement month) at 50p = £5; you would have had 10 days' notice before this was charged; and
(2) The second charge was for being over £250 overdrawn due to the charge which you actually would have known about had you read your online statement when it was raised.

The change in charging system was notified by both letter and e-mail.

I'm guessing you don't read your e-mails, or ignore ones about your bank account, as you seem to have missed several relevant ones to get into your current situation?





I've never seen the due date missing, and as you can see it isn't blank on my statement.

borgbaiter

hi

sorry to disagree but since being with A&L i have not had any emails of any sort from A&L.

been with them since last may. i have kept a close eye on my account but due to changes in payment order i have still been caught once buy a fictional exceeding overdraft charge, by the payments out before payments in bizarreness. only once and now im aware of it i keep an even closer eye.

needless to say i wont be with A&L any longer than necessary.


Borgbaiter

MarkyMarkD

Either you don't have a Premier Direct account (in which case you'll get paper statements, and don't need the e-mails) or you are getting the e-mails and some over-zealous junk mail filter is binning them for you.

Do tell more about your "fictional exceeding overdraft charge", but make sure you detail the dates of the transactions before and after.

"Payments out before payments in" is rubbish - you have to fund one business day before any payments out for A&L as for nearly every other bank, so the order of payments on a particular day is irrelevant.

moneysavingchicken

I did not get any emails or any other notifications discussed above. Also, I ahve a printout showing that my Due Date of pending charges is blank so don't say it can't be because it is!

If the bank is both organized/reliable in its scheduled postings and acting in good faith regarding the over-limit charges, then how can this occur:

On the day before the bank charged it's £5.00 Overdraft Usage Fee for the privelage of having a £250 overdraft, I withdrew £10 from a cash machine which took my balance to 246.xx in overdraft - still within the agreed limit. Next day the £5.00 UAF fee hit the account taking the balance to the 251.30 (surpassing the overdraft by a sinful £1.30) and igniting the £5.00/per day stealth bombardment of penalty. There was no notification that the limit was exceeded and if I would not have checked 4 days later I might never know.

Now, if the bank's automated systems were aware that the £5.00 fee was scheduled and able to be charged the next day then why did it allow me to take the £10 out of the cash machine instead of reducing my available balance by a fiver to ensure the provision of available funds to cover the account? When you pay by debit card banks will reduce your balance in advance of the charge actually reaching your account, to set the money aside as it were.