Alliance and Leicester

Surfer

I still maintain that their Internet banking website offers poor service and is absolutely rubbish however if you are prepared to accept poor outdated service that is your perogative as long as you are happy.
Just to recount another episode. This morning we drew £70 from an ATM but later in the day my spouse requried to draw more funds and went to the Post Office to draw £270. Although there were plenty of funds available, she could only draw £200!
We cannot travel to a branch as the nearest one is about 20 miles away. Good job it was not for an emergency and no we could not use the card in these circumstances otherwise we would. Secondlt it takes forever for card paymenst to be reflect on an A & L account that we try and avoid using the debit card.
Roll on the 12/04/08 when we can return to using Nationwide!

PROLIANT

Surfer wrote: »

I still maintain that their Internet banking website offers poor service and is absolutely rubbish however if you are prepared to accept poor outdated service that is your perogative as long as you are happy.
Just to recount another episode. This morning we drew £70 from an ATM but later in the day my spouse requried to draw more funds and went to the Post Office to draw £270. Although there were plenty of funds available, she could only draw £200!
We cannot travel to a branch as the nearest one is about 20 miles away. Good job it was not for an emergency and no we could not use the card in these circumstances otherwise we would. Secondlt it takes forever for card paymenst to be reflect on an A & L account that we try and avoid using the debit card.
Roll on the 12/04/08 when we can return to using Nationwide!

Then why choose a bank that cannot service your needs? Did you not research ATM's and branch location etc before you commited to opening an account? like i said in my previous post, it's your personal choice whom you bank with, everybody has different needs.

MarkyMarkD

Surfer wrote: »

I still maintain that their Internet banking website offers poor service and is absolutely rubbish however if you are prepared to accept poor outdated service that is your perogative as long as you are happy.
Just to recount another episode. This morning we drew £70 from an ATM but later in the day my spouse requried to draw more funds and went to the Post Office to draw £270. Although there were plenty of funds available, she could only draw £200!
We cannot travel to a branch as the nearest one is about 20 miles away. Good job it was not for an emergency and no we could not use the card in these circumstances otherwise we would. Secondlt it takes forever for card paymenst to be reflect on an A & L account that we try and avoid using the debit card.
Roll on the 12/04/08 when we can return to using Nationwide!

If you need more money from a Post Office than the standard withdrawal limit, you can phone A&L and they will authorise it for you.

I am not sure I understand why you could only withdraw £200, but you wouldn't be able to withdraw £270 and shouldn't have expected to be able to. Doubtless the same would apply to other banks who use the Post Office.

If you need more than £250 from a Post Office® branch, please phone our Customer Service Centre to arrange this.
Call 0844 800 9000 and select option 9

reserved

I've been with A&L for several years and have been reasonably happy with all aspects of my Premier Current Account until last month when I was in New Zealand and found I could only withdraw the equivalent of £40 from an ATM at any one time. This was despite me informing them before I travelled. When I queried I got various excuses and it wasn't until I got home again that I discovered that they limit cash withdrawals in different parts of the world to prevent fraudulent activity!
I could obtain cash "over the counter" in bank branches using my debit card but this is not so convenient as using an ATM.

Newly_retired

I started banking with A & L about 7 years ago. Their transfer system worked smoothly. I have no complaints about their phone system, though I rarely use it now since I started online banking. Just once a direct debit that I had cancelled online was still taken, but as soon as I rang them up it was dealt with, refunded and a letter of apology received. Yes, their different balances online are a bit confusing but as I keep pretty good track of money movements myself it has not been a problem. I also read T & Cs, which some posters here seem not to do, judging by some complaints on other threads about the loss of interest when you transfer out of direct saver or e-saver. Just move all the money out on the first day of the month and there is no problem. I have current account, plus saver and online saver for easy transfers, and an e-saver. ( I closed my direct saver and transferred my ISA out with no problems. ) I can pay cheques in at my local post office and get cash there too up to £250. Nothing has gone astray.
Just one strange thing - I went in for an appointment once for a financial review which was quite detailed, but I never received any further recommendations in the post- not that I minded, as I had decided not to proceed with any of the suggestions we talked through. They certainly did not pester me, and I have never encountered any rudeness from either counter staff or customer services.
Hope this helps.

PROLIANT

Keep the post's coming, the more feedback the better. :T

JohalaReewi

I signed up for a premier direct account for the high interest rate and the cashback and it was on Martin's recommended list. I lasted a year with them and had a few problems along the way mainly with customer services who quite often were not helpful at all and a couple of times were rude. There was also the problem that banking transactions took a day longer to complete (compared to proper banks). The website was a source of amusement where the account balance quite often failed to tally with the transactions being shown. When I moved house it took ages to get my address changed and when I wanted a tax certificate of interest paid, it took over 10 days. I wanted to check some bank statements and found that after 6 months, the online statements are deleted. Pretty poor for a paperless online account. Towards the end of my year, A&L introduced new security which meant I couldn't get hold of customer services on the phone because I didn't have a PIN and I could only speak to security who would only issue a new PIN which would take up to 2 weeks to arrive. The final blow was when the interest rate dived to an all time low when it shouldn't have, and A&L introduced their new overdraft fees. So I shut shop and moved to a proper bank not a pretend one.

ackl

I opened an account with A&L about 2-3 weeks ago and will be in the process of closing it. The transfer and standing order time takes too long. I am used to transfers being done on the same day and had assume that this would be the same, found out today that it takes 4 days and now there is a possibility that direct debits from my joint account will bounce because of this.
I tried sending secure messages through my account but it always says that there is a problem and my messages never got sent and I should call up instead! Messages that did manage to go through were not replied till a day later.
I am just really annoyed with them and wished I never bothered switching! Nothing but a waste of time.
Regarding the £100 you are suppose to receive.... mine is apparently being considered!??
Can't wait to get rid of this useless account and return to Natwest!

masonic

I've held various A&L accounts for at least the last 5 years. I've always been happy with them. Customer services has generally been very good (i.e. advisors generally seem to understand the bank's products, which in my experience is rare). My only real issue with them is that they have not yet implemented faster payments properly.

blueberrypie

Have been with A&L since they were Girobank, and have several accounts with them.

I used to recommend them to people, but don't anymore. I've never had problems with their customer service, but the on-line banking is one of the worst I've seen. I have on-line banking with three other banks, and all of them show transfers between accounts immediately. A&L can take *days* for things to show up - for example, last Sunday I made a transfer from my joint current account to a current account in my own name - it didn't show up in the latter until Wednesday.

As others have mentioned, you can't see pending payments - they fall off the pending list the day they get paid, or the day before, and don't show up anywhere else either. So if you're not sure if something got paid, you can either wait and hope, or send the payment again...

Because of all this, you can't rely on what you see on-line with A&L. As most of my banking is now done on-line, that's a biggie.

For example: in one account I'd a balance of £150.09. I transferred £150 to another account - and the balance in the first suddenly changed to -£149.91. I realised I must already have made the transfer previously, so immediately transferred £150 back to the account, less than two minutes later. And got charged 9p interest.

Y'know, it's only 9p...but it's taken me one step closer to leaving A&L altogether.

Faster payments might make a difference, but only if A&L raise their ridiculously-low limit for them.