Alliance & Leicester (merged)

tony_ack

Smasher wrote: »

You can send in a subject access request & a cheque/PO for £10 and they are obliged to send you every piece of data they hold about you within 40 days whether the account is open or closed. This data will include all your statements..

Thanks, I appreciate that the statements are available via an subject access request (I'm currently trying to get my statements from Capital One with little success - see my earlier thread), and one will be sent immediately to A&L if/when the stay is lifted, and we can claim back charges again.

DGJsaver

See my problems below

Its NOT the AMOUNT of the charges , it`s how they get there ...

I hate A&L and actively discourage ANYONE i can from using them

Im still waiting for a response to a special delivery letter , they are trying to palm it off as me being unhappy with the amount , which im not , im unhappy with their incompetence...


If its interesting i have attached them..

1ST LETTER

09/02/0/8
Further to your letter dated 05/02/08 ref PREM38/GOODWILL

I have learned today from my statement that I will be charged £70 for being in an unauthorised overdraft, at £5 a day.
To try and summarise for yourselves…
On the 23/01/08 I rang and spoke to a lady called Donna, I explained that my work had incorrectly paid me in to my Natwest account even though I gave them my A&L details on the 2<SUP>nd of Jan!
I fully understand and appreciate that it is not your fault in anyway, my disappointment is due to the fact on the 23/01/08 Donna informed me that she would apply a refund of the £25 charge for the failed standing order, and that this would be the only time in a 12 month period that this would happen, that was absolutely fine I assured her, I was annoyed, but annoyed with my Employers NOT the bank and told Donna this.
The part where I start getting annoyed with the bank is over 10 days later when I call again to query why the charge is still on my account, the gentlemen who answered the call this time informed me that Donna was not authorised to grant a refund of charges, but that he would, on this occasion apply the refund, for which, again, I was grateful, this was until I get my statement today and you are charging me £5 a day for 14 days being overdrawn!
Surely, if I had of know that Donna could not authorise the refund I would have put £25 into the account myself much much sooner thus avoiding such a charge? In the worst-case scenario I would have only been charged £10, as I would have put the money in ASAP, within two days certainly!
Instead, I sit, safe in the knowledge (I thought!) that it had all been sorted and once work pay me into the correct account I could then proceed to run our account in a good and responsible fashion.
We even applied and were granted a small £100 overdraft, just so that this couldn’t happen again!
I then called again today, 09/02/08 and spoke to rather a curt lady who informed me that the people who deal with refunds etc are very busy and they perhaps didn’t get round to it until a few days had passed, now I am not being rude, but at £5 a day I really expect a little more than that answer!

Either way, all this has left a bad taste in the mouth and I don’t feel that so far the relationship between ourselves and the bank has got off to the best start all because my payroll dept didn’t pay full attention and caused all this trouble, especially when myself and Helen are looking to take our custom away from Natwest and Barclays respectively and bring it to yourselves

In finishing we would be very greatful if you could see your way to cancelling the £70 charges so that myself and Helen can get on with paying our wages into your bank, and using your service as happy and contented customers.


Yours Respectfully



2ND LETTER

Dear Sir/Madame




Many thanks for your reply in relation to our ongoing complaint

We were very disappointed to note that you seem to have brushed the matter under the carpet and assumed we are unhappy with the amount of the fees which is clearly NOT the case
We would urge you to read through the first letter again (see enclosed) it CLEARLY states that we are unhappy at the amount of time from being promised that the original £25 fee would be refunded by Donna on the 23/01/08 and to well over ten days later to us having to phone and chase the refund up and being told that Donna was incorrect to say that she would apply the refund!
Thus causing 14 days of charges rather than a maximum of a couple, Again I have NO problems with the scale of the charges rather the administrative error that HAS occurred.
To reiterate we have NO problem with the amount of your charges, banks have to do what they have to do, we have a problem with the administrative side of the issue, we believe we have been penalised by your customer care staff not knowing what they can do for us and what they cant,
Otherwise I would have popped down the bank ASAP and put some money in instead of waiting for the refund to happen as per the first conversation with Donna on the 23/01/08.
Please take this opportunity to keep two customers happy and faithful in the A&L by hopefully applying the relevant refunds to our account that are due on the 21/02/08, As stated in the first letter we plan to bring both our accounts and our direct debits etc etc over to the A&L but we feel we must have total confidence in the bank to do that.

Please take the time to read the first letter thoroughly, we would be very grateful
We await your hopefully, favourable response




As i say , am still waiting for a response , it`s so stresfull speaking to them that i am just going to put it down to me picking an AWFUL bank



</SUP>

nogzy

I'm new! Just a quick question. I want to claim bank charges from Alliance and leicester. I want to pay my overdraft off so they cant charge me any more, then I'd like to close my account. Can i still claim if i close my account? Thanks!

Vans_101

I too had a similar problem. I went overdrawn by £7.18 and then withdrew £10 a few days later which meant I was £17.18 overdrawn. This was just before Christmas so it took me a few days before I notice. They don't send you anything to say you are overdrawn. I was charged £60 for the 12 days that I was overdrawn. I explained that it was the weekend before I noticed and the bank was closed so was unable to make a depoist. Then it was closed over Christmas. I managed to make a deposit on the 31st which cleared the debt. I was told it would be passed to the charges dept but heard nothing. I sent a letter explaining all this and how my account has never been overdrawn before but I just got a letter about the bank charge case and that I would need to wait for the outcome. I am off next week so I may just phone them every day to complain. They had the cheek to offer me an interest free overdraft after they had charged me £60. Why did they not call me when I was overdrawn!!! No wonder people hate banks so much.

buglawton

I ma coming ot the conclusion that it is mad to have a current acct that has Direct Debits on it (or where you write Cheques often) with no overdraft limit agreed. My son thinks it is smart to have no OD facility on his, but then he only ever uses a cash machine and has no DDs, so it is (supposed to be) physically not possible for him to go overdrawn.

LilDevil

I got charged £45 for going 76p overdrawn - all down to them really! Usually if there are insufficient funds to cover a DD, they will bounce it - but because the DD was for £3, they honoured it instead - presumably so they could get the charges from me - swines!!

Still, when the test case is all sorted, I'll be reclaiming them back plus the ones that I incurred last year when my previous company changed the date that my wages went in - the contract I signed didn't state what date it was effective from, so I set up loads of bill payments and they bounced as the new payment date was effective from the next month!

Am now stuck with A&L. I wanted to change to Coventry as the joint account is with them and transfers are instentanious (sp) but because they wouldn't give me a card (I shop online and need a card), they suggested that I stay put.

I have now set up a seperate bills account with A&L (so I now have 2 accounts with them) but only found out that it takes 24 hours for transfers to clear from one account to the other

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will not affect any of the DDs that I've set up (I don't think they will, but one company told me that the next payment was due on 31st, so I called back after I found out about the 24 hour thing and they said that was incorrect and it would be approximately 7-10 days after I receive the statement, so a bit worried about that)

LilDevil

Yes you can, you can claim on any account up to six years previously. At least, I claimed back on accounts going back to 2001 (I started my claims last year)!!

welsh_cake

Hope this is in the right place.

I would be grateful for some advice please.
I have a current account with A&L and also a premier account. Until a few months ago i was having £40.00 a month being transferred from my premier to my current (the £40.00 was for me to put petrol in the car and the odd bits and bobs) to try and save some money. Anyway, i stopped having the money tranferred, as i was just about back on my feet with my finances and found that i was probably just wasting the £40.00 anyway.

I had a letter yesterday informing me that I was being charged £70.00 (£5 a day for being £14.59 overdrawn on the current account ( I have no overdraft on this, but it looks like they have charged me for an unauthorised one) Can they do this? I must have used the wrong card at some point and paid £14.59 for something, but didn't mean to use it. They are now saying i have to pay £70.00 charges. I had no warning of the £5 a day charge and if i had known i was 14.59 overdrawn i obviously would have paid it.

Please, can anyone tell me where i stand on this.

autismmum

go in branch and talk to the manager, when this happened to me, they reversed it and changed my savings account card to a solo, which doesnt let you go overdrawn... hope you get some help.

dblblb

Sorry if this question has been asked before, but I am new to this site, not very 'technically adept', and can't find any reference to what I am looking for.

Basically I logged my Claim for reclaim my babk charges in March 2007. The bank concerned (Alliance & Leicester) made me an offer (less than half of the value of the Claim) which I rejected, and so it progressed to the court.
We had a court date for November 2007, but just a couple of weeks before I was due to attend I received a notice from the court that A&L had applied for a suspension until the outcome of the OFT's test case, and the court had granted the suspension.
I contacted the court and they said I could appeal against the suspension, but that A&L would probably re-apply if the suspension was lifted and that this would probably go on longer than the test case.

Somewhere though on the Main Site of MoneySavingExpert.com I'm sure I saw reference to these suspensions and that they could only apply to case lodged post August 2007.
I don't know exactly where I saw it, and as I said I'm not very good with sites like these and can't find it again.

Can someone confirm the following for me please;
Are these suspensions only applicable for claims post August 2007?
If so, and mine was made prior ro that, would the best move for me to be to apply to get the suspension lifted and the case heard?
What would be my chances of getting the suspension lifted, or should I just wait for the test case verdict?

Thanks for your help.