unplanned overdraft Lloyds

MnemonicCarrier

To the OP:

In answer to your original question, I think you're pretty much stuck. You probably (hopefully) have already resolved this issue by now. For anyone else who finds themselves in a similar situation, I would recommend the following:

a) Beg, borrow or steal the money from somewhere to retire the overdraft and prevent yourself from haemorrhaging money. If that fails, call your bank and explain to them you are suffering from financial hardships at the moment, they may be able to help in some way.

b) As others have mentioned above, Lloyds TSB have a free "Text Alert" service you can activate on your account. It will SMS you in the morning if you're over your limit, giving you time (about 5 hours) to rectify the problem (see (a) above).

c) Consider "downgrading" to a Cash Account. This has no overdraft facility and is a very basic account (read the T&Cs first, there's certain things you can't do with this account, like make withdrawals from an ATM abroad etc).

Banks stigmatize cash accounts, even though they are sufficient for the banking requirements of many customers (it's because debit/credit cards make the banks a lot more money - for example, about £3 billion in fees last financial year). Not many people realize cash accounts even exist. This is perhaps something banks should look to improve when issuing accounts (honest appraisal of the customer's banking requirements).