Alliance and Leicester

masonic

emc wrote: »

Incorrect posting and reordering of statements and unfair charging of customers are directly the fault of Alliance & Leicester, not 'computer glitches'.

These sort of things may well be avoidable, but I'm fairly sure A&L haven't deliberately made them happen as you seem to be suggesting.

masonic

noah271007 wrote: »

Can anyone confirm if A&L are strict in their criteria when people apply for their bank accounts/credit cards?

Or are they relatively easy to have an bank account with them?

You need to be on the electoral register at your current address, and have evidence in your credit file that you've been resident in the UK for the past 3 years or so. Otherwise, A&L seems relatively relaxed in their criteria.

never-in-doubt

masonic wrote: »

Otherwise, A&L seems relatively relaxed in their criteria.

Yes but remember A&L like Nationwide are the main subscribers to N Hunter & Cifas meaning if there are a few irregularities since your last credit application you may get an adverse marker so bear that in mind - easy to get removed but they are strict with policing fraud (a good thing sometimes)!

The reason they are relaxed speaks for itself - the service reflects the criteria maybe?

emc

masonic wrote: »

emc wrote:

Incorrect posting and reordering of statements and unfair charging of customers are directly the fault of Alliance & Leicester, not 'computer glitches'.

These sort of things may well be avoidable, but I'm fairly sure A&L haven't deliberately made them happen as you seem to be suggesting.

Alliance & Leicester made such things happen through their business rules, and ensure that these things continue to happen by not changing those rules despite all the criticism from customers. That is very deliberate in my view.

If as you say 'these sort of things may well be avoidable', how do you justify A&L not changing their systems to avoid them?

masonic

emc wrote: »

Alliance & Leicester made such things happen through their business rules, and ensure that these things continue to happen by not changing those rules despite all the criticism from customers. That is very deliberate in my view.

There's a difference between A&L's systems making a mistake (which seems to have happened in your case), and customers not liking some of A&L's T&Cs. Everyone who opens an account has to agree to the T&Cs. Customers should not agree to do things they aren't willing to do.

If as you say 'these sort of things may well be avoidable', how do you justify A&L not changing their systems to avoid them?

They were about to. Then they got bought up by Santander and apparently the project's been scrapped.

emc

masonic wrote: »

emc wrote:

Alliance & Leicester made such things happen through their business rules, and ensure that these things continue to happen by not changing those rules despite all the criticism from customers. That is very deliberate in my view.

There's a difference between A&L's systems making a mistake (which seems to have happened in your case), and customers not liking some of A&L's T&Cs. Everyone who opens an account has to agree to the T&Cs. Customers should not agree to do things they aren't willing to do.

emc wrote:

If as you say 'these sort of things may well be avoidable', how do you justify A&L not changing their systems to avoid them?

They were about to. Then they got bought up by Santander and apparently the project's been scrapped.

Some, but by no means all, aspects of Alliance & Leicester's extremely poor customer service may covered in their terms & conditions, but that does not make it right, for example, to reorder transactions from what was shown to the customer online, and to impose clearance periods in excess of other banks. (I had taken the t&c into account in suggesting that people check their statements for the available balance when they make a complaint about unfair overdraft charges.)

You say that A&L accepted that their systems are wrong, and planned to correct the systems but the Santander takeover prevent the corrections. Can you give a link to the official information on this, which would confirm what you say and which may help people stung by A&L's unfair systems to get some redress?

never-in-doubt

One ponders is masonic an employee of A&L?

MarkyMarkD

emc's comments about reordering transactions are simply missing the point.

The order of transactions on a particular day does not matter.

Under A&L's terms and conditions, you are required to have money in your account by close of business on the previous working day, to support any payments out.

So it is irrelevant if you pay cash in at (say) 9am and then complain because your cheque gets bounced. The payment of cash in was too late.

If emc can supply a situation where reordering the transactions has made any difference, taking account of the Ts & Cs as I've described above, I'd like to hear it. Because I don't believe it exists.

As for emc's view that it's unacceptable for A&L to (say) take longer to clear cheque deposits, or payments in via ATMs, that is rubbish. Banks can take as long to do any transaction as they like. If you don't like their terms of business, use a different bank.

I do not believe the comment about salary credits not being processed on the correct day. In my experience as a 12-year A&L customer, salary credits are ALWAYS processed before any other transaction and I have never been charged for other payments leaving my account on the day my salary is credited - even though the credit should be there a day earlier according to the Ts & Cs.

The order in which transactions are processed is quite fair. Salary and other credits are credited first. Direct debits and cheques being paid are processed second. Transactions which actually take place during the working day are processed last.

The only circumstance where this causes problems is where people ignore the Ts & Cs requirement about funding the day before a debit transaction goes out. This is NOT unique to A&L, although not all banks follow it.

The comments about A&L having 99% implemented a new banking system and then throwing it away because of the Santander takeover were mine, and they are true. I have not seen anything "official" about it. But even if there were "evidence" of this - so what? The changes were to improve the service, and at that stage any necessary changes in the Ts & Cs (to the customers' benefit) would have been made. But you cannot get some regulatory redress simply because an improvement project didn't take place.

masonic

never-in-doubt wrote: »

One ponders is masonic an employee of A&L?

Oh no, I don't think I could suffer a job in the banking industry.

The reason I seem to know so much about the way things work at A&L is that I have been a customer on and off for quite some time, and when I was first considering whether or not to open an account there I made an effort to understand what is required of me before jumping in with both feet. Sadly, it seems a lot of people don't do that and inevitably some of them end up posting here, confused as to why they've got into difficulties.

never-in-doubt

masonic wrote: »

Oh no, I don't think I could suffer a job in the banking industry.

The reason I seem to know so much about the way things work at A&L is that I have been a customer on and off for quite some time, and when I was first considering whether or not to open an account there I made an effort to understand what is required of me before jumping in with both feet. Sadly, it seems a lot of people don't do that and inevitably some of them end up posting here, confused as to why they've got into difficulties.

Thanks - explains why you know so much..... logical reasoning as well. I understand what you mean mate, why moan if you had a chance to cancel/close account beforehand.

I never used to read the bumph - I make sure I do now, word for word!

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