Alliance & Leicester (merged)

feefeegabor

I've finally had a reply from A & L to my recent claim for a refund of Bank charges.

It says - "The Office of Fair Trading has commented that theyconsider the level of late payment charges to be unfair, however they were actually referring to late payment fees for credit card payments, which are quite distinct from a bank's charge on current accounts.

As yet, the OFT have not entered into any discussions with the banking industry rearding current accounts ...".

Am I going mad or is this totally wrong? Anyone have any advice at all? Anything would be appreciated - I don't really know whether to go back to them again and tell them they are talking rubbish or just issue the Court proceedings.

Thanks.

nickmack

feefeegabor wrote:

I've finally had a reply from A & L to my recent claim for a refund of Bank charges.

It says - "The Office of Fair Trading has commented that theyconsider the level of late payment charges to be unfair, however they were actually referring to late payment fees for credit card payments, which are quite distinct from a bank's charge on current accounts.

As yet, the OFT have not entered into any discussions with the banking industry rearding current accounts ...".

Am I going mad or is this totally wrong? Anyone have any advice at all? Anything would be appreciated - I don't really know whether to go back to them again and tell them they are talking rubbish or just issue the Court proceedings.

They are correct but this doesn't mean their charges are in any way fair.

If that was your Letter Before Action, don't bother to correspond again, just file the claim.

feefeegabor

Thanks nickmack - I appreciate your response. Perhaps they will think again after tonight's The Money Programme?!

bolo

got the same response as feefeegabor. They have offered a goodwill gesture of £25 already refunded into my account. I will press on with the court action then...

feefeegabor

Good luck with yours, bolo.

mathsology

I opened an account with Alliance and Licester just to get the money from reccommend a friend. Which I got. It was nice.

I didnt really use the account. All I was doing was putting £500 in and taking £500 through automated direct debits each month.

For some reason or another I changed the dates for the in-coming and out-going direct debits. Which left me overdrawn by about £500 for about 6 days.

So they charged me £25 for paying out the outgoing direct debit- i think they called it 'paid transaction charge'.

I called customer service and they agreed to pay back £12.50. They did.

I wrote to customer service and they refunded the remaining £12.50. I was delighted. Got my money back I though.

When I got my next bank statement, on it they said they would charge me £25 go going overdrawn. And a further £25 for staying overdrawn for for than 5 days.

I write to customer servicem, BEFORE the charges were actually applied and asked them not to take my money. But they took it anyway.

Today I recieved the reply to my letter. It basically said that they were right to charge me and the charges were in line with what other institutions charge.

They didnt say anything about whether they considered they charges to be legal or not. In my initial letter I mentioned that I was asking them not to take my money as I belived them to be illegal.

Anyway......


So here I am £50 short.

What shall I do next.......

Paulxo

Very similar to me, thought, oh great deal, 10% savings etc.

However on 1 occasion I didn't have the money in my account for a direct debit that was going straight to ....me. To my A and L savings account. So they charged me £34.00.

Have written, usual response as above.

Have sent LBA.

In the process of all this, charges have risen to £118. So claiming all of that back thank you v much.

Otherwise, A and L are very good i think, although they employ weird staff!

Just kidding folks, no lawsuits please.

Rosehip_01

I bought my first house in April and opened a new account (as per Martin's advice) - the A&L Premier Direct account with a £1000 o/draft which I desparately needed.

So we all know what an expense it is to get on the housing ladder, and I've incurred £547 worth of overdraft charges and failed DD default charges between May and October 2006.

I've opened a new account, sent my two letters to A&L, received their standard responses (as others have noted) so I have now claimed my money online with Moneyclaim.

I'll keep you posted as there seems to be a distinct lack of people that have claimed from A&L and I'm certainly anxious!

bolo

This may seem like a simple question, but which court do i put in the template letter. I don't want to do something stupid and put the highest court in the land or something just for a £75 refund!!!

kforshaw

I apologise for jumping onto this thread but I'm positively fuming at A&L at the moment.
My (A&L) mortgage goes (out of my A&L Premier current account) on the 18th of each month, yesterday was no exception.
I get paid on the 15th so most times I have to withdraw funds and pay into the Post Office as transferring from my first direct account would take me past the 18th direct debit date for my mortgage.
Yesterday, my funds were paid in - and my direct debit was bounced for my mortgage.
My A&L online statement shows in fact that the funds were there which took me over and above my available £500 overdraft (ie more than enough to cover my mortgage) then the direct debit comes - they bounce it and then charge me £34 for doing so.
Having just upset myself speaking to an advisor on the phone - he says that money has to be there the day before a direct debit is taken.
My arguement is that the funds were there on the same working day as the direct debit was attempted.
Speaking the mortgage side, it doesn't yet show their end as having bounced - but I will get charged £30 by them for having my mortgage bounced - however she did say they have until midnight on the day of collection to take the funds.
So - it appears to be a position of timing that I'm being charge £64 in total for having my mortgage bounced.

How would I stand on claiming these charges back? The current account advisor says he can refund half (£17) I said I'd think about that - the mortgage side says write in - but no promises.

Any further advice?

Thanks Karen

PS Also uploaded a screen shot (including previous dates to show in which order things happened on my account)
http://www.karenforshaw.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/all.jpg