Alliance & Leicester change overdraft policy

presto

Like many others here the 50p a day charge will make me worse off than I was under the old structure. I am a light user of my overdraft and when I was charged interest on it never paid as much as £1 per month, but now I'm looking at paying £5 for being as little as 1p overdrawn for 10 days!! I don't accept that this is just simply something I should pay for Alliance and Leicester makes a lot of money out of me (mortgage). Does anyone know of a better current account which allows use of overdraft for less than £5 per month?? I've looked at Martin's article on this but it's out of date.

Grade_A_Reject

bookbuyer wrote: »

This seems like an excellent idea, keep it in the higher paying account and transfer enough in to stop you going into an unauthorised amount, knowing you can only be charged a maximum of £5.00 can be made to work against them.

On the surface it does but it would be quite high maintenance constantly keeping the current account maxed and transferring funds from the savings account back to stop it going into an unauthorised overdraft. One arbitrary slipup and the whole years worth of gains could be wiped out by the daily unauthorised overdraft fee.

I've looked at other alternative current accounts and am staying put. As my overdraft usage was very minor (despite having £3000 available) I'm just going to make sure I don't use the overdraft. The A&L interest rate on credit balances is pretty good.

The way I'm looking at my overdraft is that it's £3000 worth of instantly available credit which if I do need it will only cost me a maximum of £5 a month. This could be quite useful in such circumstances as changing car where I might need to buy the new one before selling the old one so it would make a nice cheap bridging loan.

SuiDreams

I will be moving my account else where this will cost me loads more money

samnsteve

Back on 11th September i put a note on FORUM to suggest everyone keeps a check on charges A&L will launch new charging fees as opposed to % shortly, as far as an unauthorised usage charge goes this has been significantly altered/reduced - but like the majority of people i use mine on occasion and always keep within my limit i will go from paying on average £1 per month to £5 per month now cosiderably more but that makes up for the revenue being lost on unauthorised users (so long as they notice very quickly!)

Anyone any ideas if the rest of the banking mob will follow suit or maybe an alternative with a low apr ?

SuiDreams

Anyone got any ideas of the best place to move account to now?

masonic

SuiDreams wrote: »

Anyone got any ideas of the best place to move account to now?

Well, I'm leaning towards the old Coventry First account. You need to pay in £1000 per month for that, but it pays a decent rate, even after the first 12 months, and they give you £250 of interest free overdraft that doesn't appear to be time-limited.

SuiDreams

masonic wrote: »

Well, I'm leaning towards the old Coventry First account. You need to pay in £1000 per month for that, but it pays a decent rate, even after the first 12 months, and they give you £250 of interest free overdraft that doesn't appear to be time-limited.

Hi had a look at their site but couldn't find answers to the following, can anyone help. Is it possible to have an overdraft above £250? and what are the rates they charge for this?

Thanks

Trying_to_be_good

I have a Coventry First account, but the first year bonus has now run out so I'm switching. I only had the interest-free overdraft, but the website says:
Overdraft facilities
Selected Coventry accounts offer overdraft facilities. If an overdraft is agreed on your account, we will tell you what it is along with details of any fees and charges, and we will give you at least 14 days' notice of how much we charge for standard account services. Overdrafts are subject to status. If we consider you for an overdraft or an increased overdraft limit we may carry out searches with licensed credit reference agencies. You must always stay within your agreed overdraft limit. We may end your overdraft limit at any time and demand that you pay any money you owe us (including any charges) immediately.

This is at http://www.coventrybuildingsociety.co.uk/coventryfirst/importantinfo.aspx#overdraft

I guess it's a fairly standard T&C, and not as scary as it sounds.

masonic

I seem to remember that when the account launched it only came with the £250 overdraft. I don't know whether that's still the case now, or whether you can arrange an overdraft later, but I'd check that out if you're relying on being able to get a larger overdraft.

BenL

I got the official e-mail lastnight with my statement reminder. Must start looking for another new account after the Abbey switching mess.

Probably Coventry for me.

Ben