Abbey National screwed up again.

regularsaver1

Yeah A&L will not touch the funds in your Abbey account at all

Abbey should be refunding you and the charges as a result

Sagaris

They should be refunding our charges - but they are dragging their heels over the whole sorry affair. I know we will still be a bit in our overdraft when everything is transferred over but hopefully we will be allowed to pay that off and they won't want the whole lot back in one go?

Sagaris

Well, just a quick update!
We got the first written communication from Abbey this morning regarding this affair..........saying that a DD has bounced and attracted a £30 fee for the priviledge!
Our statement also turned up, it looks like they have refunded most of the fees they have charged us for breaching our overdraft limit........but we'll have to go through it with a fine toothed comb to make sure they haven't missed anything (which given their current level of competence is likely).
Apart from that we've had no other communication from them, no apology, and no idea of what they are doing - I'm not going into a branch to find out as their level of patronising talk is likely to drive me to hit someone (and I'm really not an aggressive person) and the call centre is a waste of space.
I have written a 'stern' letter and sent it together with a copy of the original letter I took to the branch last Tuesday, and sent it to the nice man who demanded re-payment of our overdraft in full as we had gone over the limit! :rotfl:
Honestly, you couldn't make this stuff up! :mad:

freebird65

OP - I really feel for you as I had a similar problem with Abbey. I had two massive fraudulent withdrawals on my account, which smashed me through my overdraft limit (but they still allowed them). Despite promising to make sure they weren't, all my DDs started bouncing and I incurred hundreds in charges. To say Abbey's customer service and complaints departments were incompetent would be an understatement. It took 7 months to get my account straightened out and all the money back. The charges incurred were never refunded (am now going via bank charge reclaim route) and I've never had so much as an apology.

I now bank with A&L.

I wish you good luck with this mess - be strong!

Sagaris

freebird65 wrote: »

OP - I really feel for you as I had a similar problem with Abbey. I had two massive fraudulent withdrawals on my account, which smashed me through my overdraft limit (but they still allowed them). Despite promising to make sure they weren't, all my DDs started bouncing and I incurred hundreds in charges. To say Abbey's customer service and complaints departments were incompetent would be an understatement. It took 7 months to get my account straightened out and all the money back. The charges incurred were never refunded (am now going via bank charge reclaim route) and I've never had so much as an apology.

I now bank with A&L.

I wish you good luck with this mess - be strong!

That's just what I was afraid of - them charging us for going overdrawn and not refunding the money. What makes it so galling is that for 10 years I've had a large overdraft facility on this account, which I've only slightly dipped into for the past few months - expensive time of year for us - and now it's THEIR glaring errors that have put us in this situation.
Even when my girls were small and I was seriously short of money, my account was always in the black and I managed somehow.

sav4it wrote:

Yep keep writing those letters and staple previous letters to newest one. That's what I'm doing with LloydsTSB at the mo as EPA for someone.

Thank you - I was wondering if that was a good idea or not - I'm going to need some large heavy duty envelopes for the serious amount of paper Abbey will be getting from me until this is resolved! :rotfl:

exel1966

Abbey c/cards always used to be operated by MBNA, but that may have changed since Santander took Abbey over.

Sagaris

Got a letter from Abbey this morning, starting with 'I am sorry that you have been so unhappy that you have felt you must complain'. :rotfl:
They have also been 'kind' enough to send a copy of their complaints leaflet, which I already had and isn't worth the paper it's printed on as the 'Complaints Helpline' is permanently engaged whenever I ring and cuts off after 10 seconds! :mad:
I think I feel another stroppy letter coming on!
This episode has been good for my weight loss programme though - 4 lbs since last week!

Wyndham

Sagaris wrote: »

Got a letter from Abbey this morning, starting with 'I am sorry that you have been so unhappy that you have felt you must complain'. :rotfl:
They have also been 'kind' enough to send a copy of their complaints leaflet, which I already had and isn't worth the paper it's printed on as the 'Complaints Helpline' is permanently engaged whenever I ring and cuts off after 10 seconds! :mad:
I think I feel another stroppy letter coming on!
This episode has been good for my weight loss programme though - 4 lbs since last week!

I completely sympathise, and I'm so sorry you've had this trouble. I left Abbey 3 years ago after a 16 year relationship with them because they screwed up so many simple things. Nothing like this, which must be awful, but enough to make me leave.

The last straw was when they sent me some flowers to say sorry, and got my name wrong!

I wish you luck - but move. I'm now with Nationwide and really happy!

Sagaris

Update: Just had a call frm Abbey to say they have traced the error - and it was them not Visa, who they were blaming!
Evidently the £815.45 was taken from our account twice (which we knew all along), seems that a batch of transactions was run twice and that's the reason for the error. It was showing on our account but not their system as well, which doesn't really fill me with confidence either.
So - thank you to everyone who has posted so helpfully, I'm now waiting for the paperwork to come through from A&L as now I wouldn't stay with Abbey if they were the last bank on Earth.
I'm still waiting to see what they say about the £400 of charges and interest they've added and DD's they've bounced - will I incur a penalty from the companies I should have been paying or do they re-submit the request for payment? I know I could ring Abbey, but I never get an answer from them about anything!
I'm not compansation minded, but for the sheer embarrassment and inconvenience this has caused us, and all the time, visits to the branch and phone call's I've had to make, I think they should offer something?

Wyndham

Sagaris wrote: »

I'm not compansation minded, but for the sheer embarrassment and inconvenience this has caused us, and all the time, visits to the branch and phone call's I've had to make, I think they should offer something?

They should, but they may not do so. You need to pursue it. Write a letter to head office saying what has happened and that you want compensation - and state the amount. Claim for the charges, but also put in a claim for phone calls, letters, time etc. Give them 14 days to reply, and say that if you do not get a satisfactory answer you will go to the ombundsman. Then do that if they haven't.

Also, don't let them get away with 'we will deal with this but need time' - be firm with them, they have had time and have seriously inconvenienced you so should resolve this as a matter of urgency.

Good luck - let us know what happens.