Lloyds Tsb letter of complaint help?

PrettyGritty

Hi all,

I hope I have posted in the right area and not being too forward but would anyone mind having a quick scan of this letter before I send it off? My grammar and wording can be a bit dizzy sometimes.

Lloyds Tsb
2 Brindley Place
Birmingham
B12AB
Friday 13th May, 2011

RE: Formal letter of complaint. Account No: ********** Sort code: *******

Dear Sir/Madam

I write to you with regards to my account which is with the collections department at the moment.


During the month of February 2011, I setup a payment plan to pay off my arrears on an outstanding overdraft. I offered £70 per month which was accepted.


The problems started to occur during the month of April when I received a phone call stating that my overdraft had gone over the limit to my dismay. I asked the agent how this was possible, as I have made full payments on time since the agreement. To this day, I still haven’t been given an answer but I can only surmise that the agent I dealt with calculated the payment for April wrongly, and not all charges were covered when I made payment for that month. As my records show, I have made an effort to pay the full amount, on time for the past year.


After speaking to collections during April, I was told I would be refunded the £80 charge and accepted the agent’s apology. When I checked my account during the month of May, I was astounded to find that the refund had not been made. I called collections once again on the 6th of May to find out why I was not refunded, only for the agent to accuse me of not setting up my payment plan within the agreed period. I knew this was not the case and went through all correspondence from Lloyds TSB to find that I had made the payment plan within the agreed period. I received a letter dated the 2nd of February requiring me to setup a payment plan within 30 days. I contacted collections on the 15th of February to start a new payment plan.


Once again, I called collections on the 10th of May to voice my concerns and ask why I haven’t been given a refund? The agent, once again apologised and stated a refund would be issued within two working days. On the 13th of May, I noticed that a refund was not issued to my account and called again on the same day. I was then told that a payment would be made within 2-3 working days without reason. I tried to make a complaint over the phone and the agent become flustered and I found him hard to undertand. I then told him that I will make a complaint Via letter instead.

Since this mistake has occurred, I have spent a lot of money on phone calls, £10 on one occasion as a mobile phone is the only means of communication I have. I have also had to take a day off work because I couldn’t sleep through worry. Not only do I find it unacceptable, it’s incompetent.
I hope you can look into my complaint as soon as possible.

Yours Faithfully

Annisele

Since nobody else has bitten, I'll have a go.

I don't think there's anything dizzy about your spelling and grammar; it's fine. I might be tempted to edit a bit out of it - but I know that I'm sometimes a bit terse!

Reading your letter, I'm not 100% sure what happened. I'm slightly confused by the fact that "the problems started to occur during the month of April", but then you go on to talk about things that happened during February. I'm also not quite sure where and when the £80 charge first appeared.

Sometimes it's easier to write this sort of thing as a timeline, eg:

2 February 2011 - Lloyds wrote to me requesting that I set up a payment plan within the next 30 days.

15 February 2011 - Lloyds agreed to my proposal to pay £70 per month towards my overdraft. I have made all of those payments on time as agreed and I will continue to do so.

April 2011 - Lloyds telephoned me to say my overdraft had gone over the limit and I had been charged £80. The agent [or possibly another one; I'm not sure] agreed that I had been charged in error, and agreed to refund me.

6 May 2011 - I checked my statements and found that the £80 had not yet been refunded. I called Lloyds, and was - wrongly - accused of not setting up a payment plan within an agreed period.

10 May 2011 - I called Lloyds again to ask why I had not received the £80 refund. The agent apologised and promised the refund would be issued within two working days.

13 May 2011 - Still without my refund, I telephoned Lloyds and was promised that it would be credited to my account within two to three working days.

I'd also be tempted to change your last line - my guess is that you don't really want Lloyds to look at your complaint. I think companies are more likely to give you want you want if you explicitly ask for it, so:

I'm not sure whether you want Lloyds to pay you £80 or to credit your account with £80. Have you incurred any interest charges because of the £80? If so, ask for those back.

If you want Lloyds to make a contribution towards your phone bills, then you might be better to quantify it - say you want £x rather than "a lot of money". Same with distress and inconvenience; my own opinion is that it's better to put a separate sentence or paragraph to explain your distress instead of mixing up the emotional effect with the facts of the case.

TheLostSheep

Try complaining straight to Lloyds TSB Collections rather thanthe address in Brighton.

I've had some joy with that although still plenty examples of the left and right hand doing different things.

Your letter is good - maybe bullet point some main points though as they seem to make assumptions when they reply.

MichaelCR

PrettyGritty wrote: »

Hi all,

I hope I have posted in the right area and not being too forward but would anyone mind having a quick scan of this letter before I send it off? My grammar and wording can be a bit dizzy sometimes.

Lloyds Tsb
2 Brindley Place
Birmingham
B12AB
Friday 13th May, 2011

RE: Formal letter of complaint. Account No: ********** Sort code: *******

Dear Sir/Madam

I write to you with regards to my account which is with the collections department at the moment.


During the month of February 2011, I setup a payment plan to pay off my arrears on an outstanding overdraft. I offered £70 per month which was accepted.


The problems started to occur during the month of April when I received a phone call stating that my overdraft had gone over the limit to my dismay. I asked the agent how this was possible, as I have made full payments on time since the agreement. To this day, I still haven’t been given an answer but I can only surmise that the agent I dealt with calculated the payment for April wrongly, and not all charges were covered when I made payment for that month. As my records show, I have made an effort to pay the full amount, on time for the past year.


After speaking to collections during April, I was told I would be refunded the £80 charge and accepted the agent’s apology. When I checked my account during the month of May, I was astounded to find that the refund had not been made. I called collections once again on the 6th of May to find out why I was not refunded, only for the agent to accuse me of not setting up my payment plan within the agreed period. I knew this was not the case and went through all correspondence from Lloyds TSB to find that I had made the payment plan within the agreed period. I received a letter dated the 2nd of February requiring me to setup a payment plan within 30 days. I contacted collections on the 15th of February to start a new payment plan.


Once again, I called collections on the 10th of May to voice my concerns and ask why I haven’t been given a refund? The agent, once again apologised and stated a refund would be issued within two working days. On the 13th of May, I noticed that a refund was not issued to my account and called again on the same day. I was then told that a payment would be made within 2-3 working days without reason. I tried to make a complaint over the phone and the agent become flustered and I found him hard to undertand. I then told him that I will make a complaint Via letter instead.

Since this mistake has occurred, I have spent a lot of money on phone calls, £10 on one occasion as a mobile phone is the only means of communication I have. I have also had to take a day off work because I couldn’t sleep through worry. Not only do I find it unacceptable, it’s incompetent.
I hope you can look into my complaint as soon as possible.

Yours Faithfully

Best of luck !

I made a complaint a month ago to that address, They where really quick in dealing with the complaint and resolving it + Compensation.

PrettyGritty

Thanks guys. TSB got back to me Monday, they have cleared £700 remaining from my overdraft and sent me a £200 cheque for compensation.

Still no explination as to why they took the charges from my account, but I can live with that :-D

MichaelCR

PrettyGritty wrote: »

Thanks guys. TSB got back to me Monday, they have cleared £700 remaining from my overdraft and sent me a £200 cheque for compensation.

Still no explination as to why they took the charges from my account, but I can live with that :-D

Good resolution to the problem !

A similar thing happened to me with my account last year, I wrote to them and they cleared the charges + Gave me compensation (Which i didn't want or request), There customer service departments really are second to none, They are fantastic at solving problems.

But you have to step up your responsibility from now on and learn to manage your account, Never miss payments, Direct Debits etc, Then you wont incur Charges. Learn to budget your money.

YorkshireBoy

PrettyGritty wrote: »

Thanks guys. TSB got back to me Monday, they have cleared £700 remaining from my overdraft and sent me a £200 cheque for compensation.

So you sent the letter last Friday and the very next working day they wrote off a £700 overdraft and gave you an extra £200 for your trouble?

jambosans

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

So you sent the letter last Friday and the very next working day they wrote off a £700 overdraft and gave you an extra £200 for your trouble?

I smell it too.