A&L's Shocking Creative Accountancy

IJJoseph

I have recently opened an A&L premier plus account because of the 12 month interest free overdraft and high in credit interest rate. I'm beginning to think I might have made a mistake!

Recently I went over my overdraft limit by a couple of pounds (easy to do when your company pay your expenses into the wrong account :mad: ). I realise I'll be charged an overlimit transaction fee for this but my company have agreed to reimburse me for this charge and any interest.

Anyway I then made a cash payment over the counter during my lunchbreak to bring the account back inside the limit and so that I could pay a bill online. I got back to my office (about 45 minutes later) logged in and say the money credited in my account. No problems. I paid the bill and stayed inside my limit. :A

I have now been informed that I will be charged TWO overlimit transaction fees. :eek:

Having checked my statement online I see that A&L's creative accountancy software has placed my debit before my credit even though the credit was at least 45 minutes before the debit. :mad:

I have written to the thieving toerags and told them if they don't withdraw the charge that i'll be closing the account. We'll see what their response is. I'm even considering closing the account with -£25 and letting them chase me for the money. :think:

tinalives

Ha ha ha, they've done exactly the same thing to me on several occasions, but I rang and complained the first time and since then they've 'juggled' the order of transactions to their advantage but not actually charged me??

They know they're in the wrong.

DilbertJones

why do they always do the debit before the credit???


I had £1000 deposited into my barlcays account at about 13:15 then at 14:40 i transfered it to my isa, checked my statements today, and at one point i was £800 odd overdrawn, if they try & charge me interest on the OD the will regret doing it!!!!!

realaledrinker

Every bank will have its own way of doing things. I always keep my smile current account just in credit and move cash to/from a smile savings account on a daily basis. On several occasions I have been 'overdrawn' by a couple of thousand when I log in on the first of the month, but then go into the black again by means of an immediate account transfer.

I have never been charged interest or charges.

Get yourself a decent bank!

MarkyMarkD

The Premier Account Ts & Cs say that, whilst cash paid in is cleared the same day, you must not make bill payments, direct debit payments, standing order payments or cheques against that cash until the next working day. The same also applies if you transfer money from the linked savings account.

This reiterates the general advice, for any bank, which is to make sure money is in your account to meet any payment by close of business the working day before the payment is due. This is the best way to consistently avoid charges.

As an alternative, with A&L or any bank, make sure that you have an authorised overdraft limit which is as large as possible. Then, if you pay in money and make payments on the same day, the money comes out of the authorised overdraft (notionally) and is then paid off from the deposit - all actually on the same day, so no o/d interest is charged.

Transactions aren't posted on a real time basis and the Ts & Cs state that the order of transactions can't be guaranteed.

IJJoseph

Whilst I can understand that for cheques, deposits to a cash machine or even possibly transfers between accounts it is clearly not acceptable for cash handed over the counter.

The money is in. It shows as credit on the account. You are therefore able to draw on it!!!

At the end of the day it's another example of the bank trying to make money in a completely unethical way. There is no way they can justify it or hide behind their T&Cs. :mad:

captainsensible_3

You're lucky you can get to your money! - I have just opened a current account with A&L and stuffed it full of funds to find I cannot move any money out to pay bills or whatever using their internet site because there is a "security issue " at the moment. I have been told to use cheques instead, but I had already told them I have not received a cheque book yet! I can however, move money from the current account to my savings account and back again - which is really useful. BAH!

MarkyMarkD

IJJoseph wrote:

Whilst I can understand that for cheques, deposits to a cash machine or even possibly transfers between accounts it is clearly not acceptable for cash handed over the counter.

The money is in. It shows as credit on the account. You are therefore able to draw on it!!!

At the end of the day it's another example of the bank trying to make money in a completely unethical way. There is no way they can justify it or hide behind their T&Cs. :mad:

I understand your thinking on this, but it's in the Ts & Cs because that's the way the bank's systems work, not just to make more money for them.

As I understand it, the main banking system is not the same as the system used for online banking and ATMs. So if you credit cash, the ATM and online banking system is updated straight away and the money shows as available - and indeed, it is available for cash withdrawals. But the actual processing on the main banking system occurs in batches, not real time, and the batch for bill payments may occur before the batch for branch transactions like deposits or withdrawals.

So, when the bill payment batch goes through, the money isn't in the account - and either the payment doesn't go through, or it does go through and a paid item charge is levied. Then 30 minutes later the cash does appear in the account (on the same day, according to your statement) and it appears ludicrous that you have been charged.

The charge is levied by the bill payment batch finding there are insufficient funds - it's not levied at a later point in time and therefore it's not easy for it to not be charged where the funds are later in place.

At the end of the day, any bank can charge you for anything it likes, if it makes it clear in its Ts & Cs. If you don't read the Ts & Cs, and then get caught out, saying "the Ts & Cs suck" might be how you feel, but it's not the bank being unfair but applying its Ts & Cs.

@captainsensible - as I understand it from the website, you can't set up new bill payments online, because of the security issue, but you can do so over the phone and then make the payment online in the normal way (or complete the whole thing over the phone). If this isn't the case, I'd be interested to hear about it.

mary

I had a similar situation with Barclays. Fearful that we would incur charges I inquired the day after the current account appeared to have been overdrawn for a period during one day by a couple of hundred. What happened as you say, the debits were registered first and the credits second, despite the fact that they had actually happened the other way round. What the bank woman said was, provided that at the close of business on that day it was in the positive (which it was), we would not be charged. That's the bank practice. True enough, we were not charged.

realaledrinker

A&L - a building society masquerading as a bank.

I sat in a presentation a while back where one of their senior financial systems guys had us in stiches as he related the problems they've had over the years trying to bring together systems from the businesses A&L grew out of - Alliance BS, Leicester BS, Girobank et al.

Get yourself a decent bank with decent systems.

Walletwatch

MarkyMarkD wrote:

I understand your thinking on this, but it's in the Ts & Cs because that's the way the bank's systems work, not just to make more money for them.

As I understand it, the main banking system is not the same as the system used for online banking and ATMs. So if you credit cash, the ATM and online banking system is updated straight away and the money shows as available - and indeed, it is available for cash withdrawals. But the actual processing on the main banking system occurs in batches, not real time, and the batch for bill payments may occur before the batch for branch transactions like deposits or withdrawals.

So, when the bill payment batch goes through, the money isn't in the account - and either the payment doesn't go through, or it does go through and a paid item charge is levied. Then 30 minutes later the cash does appear in the account (on the same day, according to your statement) and it appears ludicrous that you have been charged.

The charge is levied by the bill payment batch finding there are insufficient funds - it's not levied at a later point in time and therefore it's not easy for it to not be charged where the funds are later in place.

At the end of the day, any bank can charge you for anything it likes, if it makes it clear in its Ts & Cs. If you don't read the Ts & Cs, and then get caught out, saying "the Ts & Cs suck" might be how you feel, but it's not the bank being unfair but applying its Ts & Cs.

Marky

While I agree that one signs up to T&Cs and cannot complain about it, I also think it is a shame if cash handed in over the counter cannot update any of the bank's system online. I also fully endorse your view that if one is expecting a debit on a particular date, he should either fund the account the previous working day, or have an authorised overdraft to cover the debit, should he decide to fund it on the same day. But it is unheard of that updation of cash deposited over the counter at a bank happens as part of a batch process. Having worked with a bank, and currently working in the architecture / implementation of banking solutions, I must say, if such a practice is prevalent in the industry of not updating balances online for cash deposits, it has to be a miniscule minority at best.

To the OP, I suggest you ask the Bank to explain how exactly they believe the account to have gone over limit. The best thing would be if you have the counterfoil of the cash deposit, which will hopefully have the timestamp of the deposit, and challenge the bank with a covering letter and a copy of such a receipt.