Abbey National Scam - Current Account

keithbythesea

Well it goes like this :

ANBS give you an overdraft . . . fine. No charge.

However if you use the facility - ANBS do charge you - a varying amount that they cannot explain - EVEN IF AT THE END OF THE BANKING DAY your account is NOT overdrawn because you have transferred funds from your E-Saver (Abbey Account - INSTANT TRANSFER), or by cash into your current account, bringing the balance to ZERO or POSITIVE in your current account.

This never happened until August last year, when they introduced an "ADVANCE OVERDRAFT INTEREST" charge.

This charge occurs because their computer processes DEBITS before it processes CREDITS and if the account has insufficient funds before it processes the CREDITS, you, the customer is charged an "ADVANCED OVERDRAFT INTEREST". This seems to be a variable amount.

Effectively this means they are departing from the principle that has been in operation for many year which is that at the close of business, if an account has a positive or zero balance then no "REGULAR OVERDRAFT INTEREST" can be charged.

Apparently they advised customers of this change in a document called "The Abbey Personal Bank Account - Key Features and Price List"

It was covered apparently in the section "Advance Overdrafts" - which does NOT explain their actions at all !!

BEWARE - CONSIDER CHANGING YOUR BANK NOW - it's cost me a lot over the last few months and no one could explain to me what was happening until now.

Biggles

Aren't most banks doing this now?

BTW, who are ANBS?

baileysbattlebus

nationwide do something similar - my daughter found out the hard way - money going in (wages/tax credit/childbenefit) and out on the same day (direct debits) the debits were processed first and the credist processed a few hours later and although they could see the money waiting to be credited she incurred bank charges. Stinks, I know, but I guess the "poor" banks have to make their money any way they can !!!!

MPH80

Biggles wrote: »

BTW, who are ANBS?

Abbey National Building Society.

Rafter

Abbey National have not been a building society for 10 years.

They were initially privatised (for which members at the time got a windfall) and more recently bought by Sandander - a large Spanish Bank Group.

As such they are more interested in making money for shareholders than offering a good deal to customers through either price or service.

They have also spotted that customers who incur overdraft charges like this make more money for them and have less options about where else to bank.

If you want to switch to a real building society try Nationwide who are about the only one who offer full banking services.

If you want a bank that doesnt use this nasty trick to make more fees try HSBC who do all the sums each day rather than adding up the negatives, then charging before applying any income to your account.

R.

rail.link

Rafter wrote: »

Abbey National have not been a building society for 10 years.



R.

Perhaps they should have remained a building society.

chuckley

never happened to me, and i bank with abbey. if i go over my OD with a D/D as long as i pay the amount back in, in cash on the same day i dont get charged.

dunstonh

I cant see any scam here. The charging structure reflects the increasing use or real time banking instead of overnight banking.

Most banks are heading in that direction if they are not there already. This is why you see banks stating that money should be in the day before in their T&Cs.

deepnews

Another Abbey SCAM

I have a Monthly Saver account with Abbey. When the interest rate increased by .25% this was not passed on - the most recent increase they gave was .10%. Now that the interest rates have gone down by .25% I find that Abbey has put them down by .35%!! Surely this is not correct

dunstonh

Surely this is not correct

Why not? You may criticise this but the net interest charge from the banks is at a low point and has been closing in recent times due to the required funding changes for mortgages.

It's not a scam. Its just you not understanding the mechanics of how the rates are set.

dealyboy

Hi Keithbythesea,

I am informed by the Charges and Payments team that this is being caused by a system fault and Abbey will write to the few customers affected when it is fixed. The symptom is a small unexplained debit of a few pence on a current account which appears as ‘Advance Overdraft Interest’ on a current account statement.

It sounds like I operate my current account in a similar way to you, ensuring that the balance is always in credit at the end of the business day. A payment or direct-debit may cause my account to be ‘overdrawn’ within my ‘advance overdraft’ on a particular date and I will transfer funds from my e-saver or cash ISA typically around midday the same date. This should incur no charge as “Interest will be calculated daily on any outstanding overdrawn balance.” according to the last line of statement page 1 and there has been no communication of a change in the method of calculation of interest. The method is not in the Abbey Current Account Terms and Conditions (ref. BANK 0042 MAY 07 DS).

I first detected the problem in December and I have had a charge of a different amount under 10p each month since. I spoke to a member of the charges team in December, January and yesterday (a different member each time) and have had the December, January and February charges refunded. Whereas the team member needed to consult somebody else for five minutes during the first two calls, yesterday the team member already knew of the problem. I should say that I have had no problem at all with members of the charges team; they have been most helpful, they have not disputed my understanding of interest charging and have been open about the system fault. This is in stark contrast to my experience with telephone banking and in branch advisors.

I hope this helps.