Round in circles with Alliance and Leicester

Princess_Jane

RESULT!

Sent A&L an absolutely stinking letter - in a calm, controlled and legally accurate manner - and got a callback yesterday from a nice lady called Carol.

£25 charges refunded, £25 goodwill gesture, problem account closed down, very sorry.

Was sooo nice to speak to someone human who acknowledged I had a problem and was not mad for expecting response to queries and polite callhandlers.

MarkyMarkD

PrincessJane I'm glad that you have got things sorted, but like a lot of people who post moaning about banks, you need to think again about what happened here.

1. You applied to open a Premier Direct account and got downgraded to a basic bank account for which you were issued with a cheque book.

2. You applied (later) to open a Premier account. You didn't ask them to upgrade your basic account - which they would have - but asked for another account (for no apparent reason). So at this stage, you have two accounts and two cheque books.

3. You wrote a cheque using the wrong cheque book, because you had not closed the basic account nor had you upgraded the basic account (in which case, you would only have had one cheque book in any case).

The error was yours.

You are moaning on about A&L doing things wrong. They didn't.

You wrote a cheque on the wrong account, because you had unnecessarily ended up with two A&L accounts and you got them confused.

None of this is to negate what you've said about polite callhandlers, etc., but maybe if you appreciated that it was entirely your error in the first place, and approached the problem from a position of contrition, things might have gone a bit more smoothly.

jonathon

how did you get a cheque book for a basic bank account ?

MarkyMarkD

Some basic bank accounts do have cheque books, but not guarantee cards, I believe?

Princess_Jane

Hello,

just to clarify.

I wasn't aware A&L had opened the basic bank account for me.

The welcome pack was sent to an address I no longer lived at.

The cheque book was sent in error by A&L to my new address - no, I don't know why either.

When I applied for a Premier Account again in Dec, no-one mentioned my basic bank account because it was registered to a completely different address.

Neither myself or A&L made the link until the cheques bounced.

But it was the company's handling of the situation after this that made the problem worse.

So I would have to dispute it was entirely my error.

The only place I slipped up is not comparing the details on my cheque book with my account card, but I had no reason to assume they would be incorrect.

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

PrincessJane I'm glad that you have got things sorted, but like a lot of people who post moaning about banks, you need to think again about what happened here.

1. You applied to open a Premier Direct account and got downgraded to a basic bank account for which you were issued with a cheque book.

2. You applied (later) to open a Premier account. You didn't ask them to upgrade your basic account - which they would have - but asked for another account (for no apparent reason). So at this stage, you have two accounts and two cheque books.

3. You wrote a cheque using the wrong cheque book, because you had not closed the basic account nor had you upgraded the basic account (in which case, you would only have had one cheque book in any case).

The error was yours.

You are moaning on about A&L doing things wrong. They didn't.

You wrote a cheque on the wrong account, because you had unnecessarily ended up with two A&L accounts and you got them confused.

None of this is to negate what you've said about polite callhandlers, etc., but maybe if you appreciated that it was entirely your error in the first place, and approached the problem from a position of contrition, things might have gone a bit more smoothly.

PROLIANT

DGJsaver wrote: »

That doesnt work at self service petrol stations OR the train station

And thats just the places i know of...

Wrong, some other banks 3 in 1 cards dont work ref the above either, VISA debits are all the same except that old propritory merchant machines ln train stations and garages need upgrading...fact

doire_2

Princess_Jane wrote: »

Hello,

just to clarify.

I wasn't aware A&L had opened the basic bank account for me.

The welcome pack was sent to an address I no longer lived at.

The cheque book was sent in error by A&L to my new address - no, I don't know why either.

When I applied for a Premier Account again in Dec, no-one mentioned my basic bank account because it was registered to a completely different address.

Neither myself or A&L made the link until the cheques bounced.

But it was the company's handling of the situation after this that made the problem worse.

So I would have to dispute it was entirely my error.

The only place I slipped up is not comparing the details on my cheque book with my account card, but I had no reason to assume they would be incorrect.

You didn'nt know A&L opened a bank account for you? Strange

I thought you have to sign certain documents then post them back before an account is opened?

jonathon

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

Some basic bank accounts do have cheque books, but not guarantee cards, I believe?

but not A&L

MarkyMarkD

I think there's a difference between a "basic bank account" (meaning the government definition of it) and a type of current account which A&L offer to people who apply for a Premier account but get downgraded.

The downgraded account gets you a cheque book but not a Visa Delta debit card or an overdraft.

If you get downgraded, you get an acceptance letter but it says "you haven't qualified for Premier, here's a standard bank account instead". Following that, you'd get issued with a cheque book and ATM card.

Others have posted about this downgrade process. They've also posted about getting these standard bank accounts upgraded to Premier after providing additional evidence of their status or whatever to A&L.

So, I'm very surprised by PrincessJane's comments that she wasn't aware the standard bank account had been opened for her.

The only way a cheque book could be sent to a new address is if someone told A&L that the address had changed. That could have been through notifying A&L in respect of another type of account - obviously they aren't stupid and the accounts are linked and all records updated if you tell them in respect of one. But they wouldn't issue a new cheque book unless you'd used up the old one - or if the move of address was immediately following the original account application.

Honestly, PJ, are you saying that you opened the second account and THEN received a cheque book for the first one, and then used it in error?

PrincessJane wrote:

When I applied for a Premier Account again in Dec, no-one mentioned my basic bank account because it was registered to a completely different address.

When you apply for any bank account with any bank, you have to give your address history. How did you not mention the address you had lived at only a few months earlier?

The details on your cheque book weren't "incorrect" as you put it. You had two accounts and just didn't seem to realise it, even though you've stated that you received a welcome pack for the first account.

DGJsaver

PROLIANT wrote: »

Wrong, some other banks 3 in 1 cards dont work ref the above either, VISA debits are all the same except that old propritory merchant machines ln train stations and garages need upgrading...fact

You say FACT yet the ASDA in milton keynes is BRAND NEW i doubt its got old equipment

and VISA debit cards are NOT all the same , if you care to search this very website for confirmation

so some FACT ie source would be good..
Otherwise fella , you are WRONG