Alliance and Leicester Savings Product Changes

miller

twhitehead wrote:

I have the letter, next stop Financial Ombudsman.

My complaint over those charges is already there ;-).

shelagh

We have recently opened an A&l Premier Plus account. We have had lots of problems with it however, last month we had a dd sent back to our son's school for his fees. We paid the fees by cheque and asked them to re- submit the dd for the June fees. The fees were due on 15th. May and June. The school sent the cheque in two days early and we incurred a 34 pound fee, since the fees money is not transferred until the day it is due. We accepted this but the dd was returned again this month. I contacted the customer service dept. and they confirmed that the dd had been set up. They said that they had no note of the school contacting them for payment. There is no way that the scool would not try to collect the fees, trust me! I sent in a cheque, this time post dated to the school, they submitted it immediately and A& L paid it. The funds had not been transferred and we were charged 25 pounds transaction fee. I am particularly annoyed because we had paid in a cheque for 2,250 7 days before but it didn't clear until 14th. June. We have contacted A&L but they say that the have acted appropriately and they will not refund the 25 pound. I have yet to contact the school. Any ideas about what we could do ?

shelagh

I'm sorry to post this here but I don't know where else to post it. I have already posted it on the consumer forum but I don't know if that's appropriate also! I'm fairly new to this and my son has just informed me that its not the done thing to post the same message in two places! sorry

jimclark1967

Don't worry about it - everyone's new at some point

As for A&L I'm not sure what you can do other than vote with your feet. Post dating cheques doesn't always make a difference as the date often isn't checked for amounts below a certain level. The problems with the DD are not good and A&L should be doing better.

Sadly a market leading acount in terms of interest rate often goes hand in hand with questionable service - often because they can't cope with demand.

JC

mary

shelagh wrote:

I sent in a cheque, this time post dated to the school, they submitted it immediately and A& L paid it. The funds had not been transferred and we were charged 25 pounds transaction fee. ?

The moral of the story, sorry, is post dated cheques count for nothing.
If you pay it in at a bank, it will go through.

MarkyMarkD

miller wrote:

A&L have recently agrravated me over a charges of a few quid for a Travelex transaction on my Current Account.

That's not an A&L specific issue - it applies to any bank. VISA debit/credit card transactions incur cash advance charges. Full stop. It applies to Nationwide too (in case anyone suggests otherwise).

MarkyMarkD

shelagh wrote:

We have recently opened an A&l Premier Plus account. We have had lots of problems with it however, last month we had a dd sent back to our son's school for his fees. We paid the fees by cheque and asked them to re- submit the dd for the June fees. The fees were due on 15th. May and June. The school sent the cheque in two days early and we incurred a 34 pound fee, since the fees money is not transferred until the day it is due. We accepted this but the dd was returned again this month. I contacted the customer service dept. and they confirmed that the dd had been set up. They said that they had no note of the school contacting them for payment. There is no way that the scool would not try to collect the fees, trust me! I sent in a cheque, this time post dated to the school, they submitted it immediately and A& L paid it. The funds had not been transferred and we were charged 25 pounds transaction fee. I am particularly annoyed because we had paid in a cheque for 2,250 7 days before but it didn't clear until 14th. June. We have contacted A&L but they say that the have acted appropriately and they will not refund the 25 pound. I have yet to contact the school. Any ideas about what we could do ?

Shelagh

It's not very clear from your post what went wrong here.

But a few points stand out.

The school sent the cheque in two days early and we incurred a 34 pound fee, since the fees money is not transferred until the day it is due.

If you transfer the money into the A&L current account (or any current account) ON the day the DD is due to collect, the DD will always bounce. You need the money to be there by close of business on the day prior to the DD being collected as DDs are processed overnight first thing in the morning. I suspect this is why your original DD bounced.

I sent in a cheque, this time post dated to the school, they submitted it immediately and A& L paid it.

It is a breach of the terms and conditions of most current accounts (and A&L's is no exception) to write post dated cheques. All such banks are entitled to, and will, clear cheques even prior to their date. DO NOT write post dated cheques unless you already have the money in the account, or you trust the person you are paying (in which case, why post date in any case).

I am particularly annoyed because we had paid in a cheque for 2,250 7 days before but it didn't clear until 14th. June.

Cheques don't take 7 days to clear with A&L. I don't think that you paid the cheque in 7 days before the date the school chose to clear your cheque.

the dd was returned again this month

You can check using Internet Banking if the DD has been set up. If it has, and the school attempted to collect against the DD, only two things would happen:

(1) the funds are there, and the DD is collected; or
(2) the funds are not there, the DD is bounced, and you get notified and charged.

If you didn't get notified that the DD had bounced, and charged, I don't believe the school DID attempt to collect against the DD OR the DD was not in place when the school attempted to collect against it.

Alfie_E

MarkyMarkD wrote:

That's not an A&L specific issue - it applies to any bank. VISA debit/credit card transactions incur cash advance charges. Full stop. It applies to Nationwide too (in case anyone suggests otherwise).

Has something changed? Using Nationwide's debit card to buy foreign currency didn't used to incur a cash advance fee. Admittedly, the last time I used Travelex was in September 2002.

scottmartin

Fear not all, the Direct ISA & Online Saver are due to be relaunched in mid-July, however with revised interest rates.

purplefirth

jimclark1967 wrote:

All existing customers are now down to 5% I'm afraid. Interest is paid annually on 1st September.

JC

Thanks JC seems a bit of a con considering the only reason I started the online saver was because of the higher interest rate and now I'm never going to receive it, don't quite understand why if you enter into a contract with a bank they can suddenly change the rules. Think I might have to change banks again just on principal.