A&L charges on charges!

TashSmith1988

Hi, I really need some help and advice!

I opened an account with Alliance and Leicester early 2010 - the account ran well the first few months until they allowed a transaction to go through when there were insufficient funds in my account. As a customer, I know that i should be aware of the balance at all times, however, it is a banks responsibility to decline a transaction if there are no funds available ... this came at a cost of £25.00!

I have been very short on money the past year due to break up with parter, operation on my hips which have seen me out of work for quite a few weeks; only just able to make ends meet with the money i earn.

As my monthly wage had already all been accounted for with bills ect, this £25.00 charge went unpaid until i received my next workpay was received ... at a daily interest rate of £5.00 my balance then accrued to over £150.00 in ONLY charges!!

I raised this dispute with A&L, explaining my situation however they only agreed to remove the £25.00 as a gesture of goodwill.

For the next 6 months, I received the same £5.00 daily interest charges equating to over £100.00 each month placing me further and further into financial hardship - i was already there before the fee's were applied!

I wrote to A&L, told them my situation, but no such luck. I stopped using the account but now the balance, soley made up of fee's is £505.00 ... and increasing! :mad: I already paid around £350.00 when they were taking the fee's straight out of my pay each month.

Please, if anyone can advise me of where i should go from here that would be much appreciated, I have no idea what to do.

Financial Ombudsman have advised they will raise a case but they won't ask for the money to be repaid/written off ... is this usual for FOS to do??

Kind Regards

izools

You could send them a formal written complaint and if they don't sort it out then refer the matter to the FOS yes.

However I must say, your opening statement:

it is a banks responsibility to decline a transaction if there are no funds available

Is untrue.

The terms that you signed and agreed to when opening the account clearly state that if you choose to request a payment be made on your account where insufficient funds are available, that you are, by doing this, making a formal request for an overdraft.

The bank decides, based on your income and expenditure on the account, whether or not to grant you the facility you requested by making this transaction. If approved, you will be charged fees in line with the contract you agreed to.

This may be an arrangement fee in the case of the bank providing you with an arranged overdraft to cover the transaction, or other fees in the case of the bank providing you with an unarranged overdraft. They make it clear whether the transaction went into authorised or unauthorised overdraft and it is your responsibility to bring the account back into credit (or within an authorised overdraft limit) to avoid futher charges - as detailed in your agreement with the bank.

Good luck :beer:

Mrs_Ryan

OH had this problem - charges on top of charges until it came to a head on Friday when they took his entire wages in charges leaving us with nothing :eek:

We went into branch where I spent an hour on the phone speaking to quite frankly an obnoxious person in their 'complaints' department who basically said 'tough, not our problem.' (This was the same person who I had to explain their own terms and conditions to :eek: Ex Santander staff here luckily ) Luckily the branch staff were more switched on and they arranged a temporary overdraft which covered OH's benefit money they had stolen to finance their charges. :mad:
They also froze the charges and now OH will pay them back £50 per month. Might be worth asking them if they can do the same with a payment plan...

Loughton_Monkey

TashSmith1988 wrote: »

... however, it is a banks responsibility to decline a transaction if there are no funds available ... this came at a cost of £25.00!

No it's not. It is 100% your responsibility not to spend more than you have.

TashSmith1988 wrote: »

I have been very short on money the past year due to break up with parter, operation on my hips which have seen me out of work for quite a few weeks; only just able to make ends meet with the money i earn.

This is very regrettable. But you need to understand that banks have terms & conditions, and charges.... I have never seen any of these that provide more favourable terms for those who have come across bad luck.

TashSmith1988 wrote: »

As my monthly wage had already all been accounted for with bills ect, this £25.00 charge went unpaid until i received my next workpay was received ... at a daily interest rate of £5.00 my balance then accrued to over £150.00 in ONLY charges!!

I raised this dispute with A&L, explaining my situation however they only agreed to remove the £25.00 as a gesture of goodwill.

For the next 6 months, I received the same £5.00 daily interest charges equating to over £100.00 each month placing me further and further into financial hardship - i was already there before the fee's were applied!

Totally and utterly according to the terms of the account that you accepted. The £25 was a bonus.

TashSmith1988 wrote: »

Financial Ombudsman have advised they will raise a case but they won't ask for the money to be repaid/written off ... is this usual for FOS to do??

The FOS will investigate, but if A&L have acted according to the terms and conditions, they will award in their favour.

TashSmith1988

I understand that I should be aware of my account balance and it is my responsibility, however, when i first represented my concerns to A&L regarding the total of £150.00 charges they had applied, explaining my situation of hardship, they chose to ignore this. In accordance with FOS, the charges are applied as per the T's and C's of the account (even stated in my own letter I was responsilble and accepted these) but customers have to be dealt with Fairly and banks to take into consideration any hardship/financial difficulies a customer may be experiencing.

A&L never supported me by offering any suitable solution or guidance as to what steps I could take to pay back the charges in way that helped me out ... they are supposed to offer this to every customer as part of the 'Responsible Lending Code' which all banks are to adhere to. (Like 'Mrs_Ryan', I am a current Santander employee - for the Cards side, not banking division - but have had to point out a few things to Santander UK Plc when discussing this matter)

Hopefully FOS will be able to get a better response from A&L - even if it is a repayment plan but that takes into account my situation

BarclaysCollectionsStaff

I managed to go 16p overdrawn a couple of years ago, and started incurring £5/day charges.

I fought tooth and nail to get the £170 total charges that had accrued, even getting my MP to write to Alliance & Leicester (I copied in the Daily Mail with all my correspondence too )

In the end I got them to agree to refund everything, but they took a few days in refunding the second month's worth of charges, which meant I incurred another £35. Bear in mind this was accrued on charges they'd agreed to refund.

Cue another round of letters back and forth, which ultimately resulted in the charge being refunded. When I reviewed my credit file, it showed 1 month of the account being overdrawn, with a balance of £35DR. This resulted in yet another complaint, with the end result of them sending me a cheque for £20 as compensation for all the upset!

So, in the end, I WON!

Nobody ever seems to win against A&L whatever they do, so I recommend copying in a national newspaper and asking your MP for help at the outset as its the only way you can get anywhere!

(BTW, just so you all know, I despise the daily mail with a passion, buit it seemed like a good idea at the time :rotfl:)

JuicyJesus

I do hope Barclays are OK with one of their staff (albeit one who is not endorsed by them, although who uses their name) trumpeting bank charge refunds and encouraging people to copy in national press to get their way.