A&L charges - but I had the money!

wannabedebtfree_2

This has happened to me a couple of times, where DD and my wages go in and out on the same day, and it takes me over my overdraft, as long as the account is in credit at the end of the same day, even though my running balance shows me going over my overdraft I haven't been charged by them, I have an Alliance and Leicester Premier direct account - so rely on online banking - if its says you are going to be charged ring and explain they will probably refund you.

jimbo_the_jetset

Lets face it the A&L online banking is rubbish.

But here's the point, if you have Premier Direct Account you do all your banking online, no paper statements etc. So how can the information that you see online be incorrect? And if it is A&L are even more incompetent than I thought!! A&L are either wrong for taking charges when money is in the account or they are providing their customers with false information (e.g. available balance apparently is not the available balance right then and there). They can't have it both ways!!!!!!!

masonic

Can you give an example of when you were charged for withdrawing/transferring money that was showing up in your available balance?

I've been banking with them for a couple of years and have never encountered anything like that.

realaledrinker

Co-op & smile will not charge in these circumstances either - I check my account daily & move an amount over from a savings account to take my c/a out of the red. Never had a problem even though I agree T&Cs do say you need to have cleared funds available at end of previous day to cover payments out on the next day.

Stephen_Leak

As advised, they do debits before credits. However, they actually re-sort the transactions, if a credit arrived on the system before a debit on the same day.

Milarky

A&L is !!!!!! - literally.

Unlike other banks they need a whole day with the cash you pay in the account for their system (ex post-office pneumatic tubes, no doubt) to capture the credit before they will release that money for the purpose of making payments.

Let me stress, we are not talking about scheduled payments that have to leave the account first thing in the morning here, we are talking about a payment made by a customer from their bank a few hours after giving their bank the 'cash' to pay for them. They literally have to move the order of payments around retrospectively to make it appear that they couldn't honour these payments because they had not received the funds. If I or you tried that too often we'd have to answer to a judge.

What bank can't manage transactions of this simplicity? Well, Alliance and Leicester 'bank' that's who. And jimbo_the_jetset makes an excellent point re. their online-only product. Of course A&L does have an out on that one - today's transactions don't appear for 24 hours - you only get the running balance.

PBA

KTF wrote: »

Most banks process debits before credits so the money you took out yesterday would have been added on to the overdraft before the wages were credited.

Isn't this a bit ridiculous. Fair enough, banks will process debits before credits in their overnight batch processing, but to claim you made a cash withdrawal in the afternoon before a salary credit overnight the previous night is ridiculous. A&L is effectively adding a day on to the clearing of your credit, and making matters worse by showing it as available funds if they're going to charge you unauthorised overdraft fees for using it.

To add to the list of banks, Abbey wouldn't have charged you, and the transactions would show on your statement in the order you made them.

noh

From my experience A+L would not have charged in the circumstances outlined. If there is an available balance showing it can be used.
The original poster has not come back and confirmed that he has actually been charged. He may well have assumed he would be charged as his running balance during the day showed that he had exceeded his overdraft due to the reordering to show debits before credits.

Nigel

masonic

Ok, a few points that seem to be escaping some people:

Running balance <> Available balance
Charges are incurred when your Available balance drops below zero; your running balance at the time is irrelevant.
Your Available balance is not listed beside each transaction in your statement; that's your Running balance (which is irrelevant).

Q: What happens if money is credited to your account during the day and you withdraw it during the same day?
A: You can end up with a large negative Running balance, but not get charged for it.

Q: What happens if a cheque is credited to your account and you withdraw the funds before they have cleared?
A: You can have a positive Running balance and still get charged.

ajaxgeezer

sav4it wrote: »

Am I correct in thinking that funds also take 4 days to reach external places unlike 3 with other banks? So you would have to wait an extra day at the beginning to instigate a transaction and a day longer to reach the destination.

.. this was certainly my experience when I banked with them. I suspected it seemed a little slower than Natwest so one Monday morning I set up two transfers for £5 each.... one A&L -> Natwest and one Natwest -> A&L.

The Natwest -> A&L one appeared Thursday morning
The A&L -> Natwest one appeared Friday morning.

Guess it's the price you pay for 6.1% over 0.1%.



OP, I'm guessing you've found out by now that you wont be charged? I never was in these circumstances, when cleared payment arrived before debits but hadn't appeared on the system yet. YorkshireBoy, Milarkey and others are spot on.