Abbey Overdraft Fee.... £95!

muchacho

I was gobsmacked to see this morning that Abbey (I'll call them their latest name when they can get my name right!) charged me £95.00 for going overdrawn by 23p earlier this month.

I called them and they said it could not be refunded.

Needless to say I'm closing the account as soon as possible and moving banks.

The question is, which bank thieve the least amount from their customers? Natwest and Abbey are no option and I'm currently with Lloyds, who aren't all that either.

Pretty p1ssed off that they can legally get away with it.

timbstoke

They're all pretty much as bad as each other! First Direct have generally been OK with me - they still charge, but seem human enough to recognise when something's clearly just being silly - in your case they'd probably still charge the initial charge (£30?) but refund any additional ones that stemmed from the same fee. They also send you a statement of charges, rather than just immediately applying it.

As for Abbey...don't give up so easy. Write them a letter raising a formal complaint about the charges - it might get to someone with a brain cell when its done by post.

opinions4u

Lloyds and Halifax have a £10 buffer that means you won't be charged for an error of 32p.

If you go over that £10 figure, Halifax have text alerts on their Reward account that warn you and give you the chance to fund same day. If you miss out, the charge is £5 a day. So cheap if you act fast, expensive if you fail to act. Lloyds also have some sort of text alert option.

I'd always suggest having an authorised overdraft limit in place, with no intention of using it. That way you invariably avoid charges (or the likes of Halifax / Santander charge £1 / 50p a day).

pmduk

You'll probably find that most of that charge has amassed by ignoring the fact that you are overdrawn. I believe they charge something like £5 per day for this.

Whichever bank you go to is likely to charge you if you spend their money without prior agreement. So take this as a wake-up call to control your money better.

muchacho

pmduk wrote: »

You'll probably find that most of that charge has amassed by ignoring the fact that you are overdrawn. I believe they charge something like £5 per day for this.

Nah, it's certainly not the case with me. It was overdrawn by a matter of hours.

muchacho

pmduk wrote: »

Whichever bank you go to is likely to charge you if you spend their money without prior agreement. So take this as a wake-up call to control your money better.

*shakes head*

money_maker_2

So they charged you £95 for going overdrawn by £0.23 for a few hours? I dont believe that!
I have heard (like a previous poster said) that they charge an initial charge of £25-£30? (sumthing like that, for actually going overdrawn) and then something rediculous like £5 a day, that you are overdrawn. So this suggests that you were overdrawn for not just a few hours.
What does your statment say?

daveyjp

I'd like to know more - breakdown of charges please OP.

drdmt

Thats horrifying, i'm with barclays and get a £12.50 buffer. If I go over my o'd limit i get charged £8.00, which isn't often, plus, theres only one branch in ABZ so they cant tell me to go to another branch to do something like lloyds used to:D

Naf

http://www.santander.co.uk/csgs/Satellite?appID=abbey.internet.Abbeycom&c=Page&canal=CABBEYCOM&cid=1237880423035&empr=Abbeycom&leng=en_GB&pagename=Abbeycom%2FPage%2FWC_ACOM_TemplateG#%20What%20are%20the%20new%20fees?
OK: unarranged overdrafts are £5 per day, capped at 20 days IRRESPECTIVE OF THE AMOUNT. On top of this you would be charged for any other transactions that took or would have taken you overdrawn (this sometimes includes card payments that were accepted even though they would have taken you overdrawn had they been taken from your account immediately, but not for declined card payments).
HOWEVER; if it is less than £10 pounds that you were overdrawn in the whole statement period, pretty much all charges relating to being overdrawn can be refunded if you pop into your local branch (there's one type of charge that's excluded from this, but I forget if that's paid or unpaid item fees off the top of my head).
Yes, a breakdown of what these charges were specifically, either from your statement transactions or from the bit at the bottom that tells you just about the charges, would be useful to help explaining exactly what has happened.

When you compare, for the most part Santander's charges are pretty low compared to any of the other banks... And that's from personal experience of other banks and their massive, unrealistic charges.

opinions4u

When you compare, for the most part Santander's charges are pretty low compared to any of the other banks... And that's from personal experience of other banks and their massive, unrealistic charges.

Even when you throw in the unpaid item fees as well?

Sorry, they're as bad as the rest.