Alliance and Leicester

Brigid26

I agree with comments on this site about A&L can take a long time for things to show up and that you don't really get full live online banking system from them as you do with competitors.

I also have had other issues with them on online banking and wonder if any others have also had this. I have had experience that when I go to their online log in page it differs from normal. This has happened on a couple of occasions. Last time I called them to report this my account was immediately suspended until I sent them a screen shot from my pc showing that I did not have a virus on my lap top. I explained to the operator that I had anti virus software on my machine and that it updated on a regular basis. Anyway to cut a long(ish) story short. I sent A&L a screen shot of virus scans which showed that I did not have a virus on my machine and I also carried out an audit on the page that was coming up and is indicated that this was indeed an A&L page that the page that was pointing to the Alliance & Leicester servers and even showed a valid certificate issued to Alliance & Leicester by Verisign. I sent screen shots and narrative to A&L with this but have not heard anything back from them. After a couple of days the problem disappeared and all has been ok for the past couple of weeks however it has now come back and before I re-report to A&L again and have my access yet again cut off are any other users experiencing these kind of problems?


Frustrated!!!

masonic

Baldur wrote: »

The OP on the thread to which you linked appears to be complaining about HBOS, rather than HSBC?

Yes, you're right. There were a few mentions of HSBC later in the thread that seem to have got me confused as to which bank it was. Funnily enough, Halifax is another bank I've held accounts with for some time and am generally happy with their services. It just goes to show YMMV...

acc

Brigid26 wrote: »

I agree with comments on this site about A&L can take a long time for things to show up and that you don't really get full live online banking system from them as you do with competitors.

I also have had other issues with them on online banking and wonder if any others have also had this. I have had experience that when I go to their online log in page it differs from normal... are any other users experiencing these kind of problems?

I use Firefox for the internet, and find that the Alliance & Leicester IT staff have not validated their website properly, so that for example it is impossible to create a standing order, because the Payment Start Date on that page has been set one line lower than it should be, so that the day, month and year drop downs are half covered by the Amount to Pay box in the line below and so the values cannot be selected. I therefore have to log out of the A&L website on Firefox, because their stupidly short time-out will cut the session anyway, and start up Internet Explorer, which I rarely use, just to log into the A&L website for the sole purpose of creating a standing order, then log out, close Internet Explorer, and resume using Firefox.

The competence of the A&L IT staff is a match for the competence of their branch staff. Maybe A&L should swap the two around and see whether that makes any difference to the service provided to customers. The swap cannot make the service any worse.

masonic

acc wrote: »

I use Firefox for the internet, and find that the Alliance & Leicester IT staff have not validated their website properly, so that for example it is impossible to create a standing order, because the Payment Start Date on that page has been set one line lower than it should be, so that the day, month and year drop downs are half covered by the Amount to Pay box in the line below and so the values cannot be selected. I therefore have to log out of the A&L website on Firefox, because their stupidly short time-out will cut the session anyway, and start up Internet Explorer, which I rarely use, just to log into the A&L website for the sole purpose of creating a standing order, then log out, close Internet Explorer, and resume using Firefox.

Yuck, I see what you mean! It wasn't very long ago I last set up a standing order and it wasn't like that then. I can put up with A&L inserting an extra day into their clearing cycle, but I'm not prepared to do any online banking using IE.

Sportbilly_2

I had that as well, along with some other parts of the website not rendered properly with Firefox. You'd think they would test it on other browsers, it's not exactly as if Firefox is something obscure. I'm also always slightly wary of any site that's been written in 'classic' asp, given the horrendous mess a lot of them were/ are, and coupled with the rendering problems, it gives off a very poor impression. I always thought RBS was a bit clunky, but it's much better than A&L. Once I've had the £100 bonus and the Quidco payment, I think I'll move anything important back to RBS and stooze off the free A&L overdraft.

liddyloo

I recently became a victim of internet fruad, although A&L stopped my card and account immediately and never really quieried any of the money taken they didnt call me to inform me. I found out when i went to buy my lunch one day and could use my card in the shop or any cash machines, i did recieve a letter telling me.....3 days later. I was told the fruad department would be intouch in 7 - 10 days,i got a letter today (a month later) just asking me to sign a form to say an amount i had queried wasnt spend by me. I got an email from Orange to say an order id placed hadnt gone through, so i called them and explained it wasnt me, but asked if they had an address for the delievery, they did and confirmed it wasnt mine. Obviously they couldnt tell me what the address was but when i called the bank to tell them they didnt care and told me to go to the police. The police werent terribly impressed by this as they no longer deal with it, A&L have to and then report it to them. So some little !!!!!! has gotten away with it to do it again to others!
Other than that they are er ok ish.

Brigid26

acc wrote: »

I use Firefox for the internet, and find that the Alliance & Leicester IT staff have not validated their website properly, so that for example it is impossible to create a standing order, because the Payment Start Date on that page has.

I am an IE user and the problem that I have is foxing me. When I go to their Log In page intermiddently a page appears with additional fields to what is on the standard log in page i.e. on the standard log in page you get asked for Customer ID. On the latest 'strange' page that I have it asks for Customer ID, Place of Birth and Transfer Password. The fields to enter Place of Birth & Transfer Password are not aligned properly on the page and I have never heard of a Transfer Password. When I checked links and security certs it indicates that it is an A&L site. I have reported this to A&L but no feedback. I have not followed any links on emails ever and have cleared out all my history files, checked that there are no virus on the machine and this still occurs. Has anyone any thoughts to why this is happening?

masonic

Brigid26 wrote: »

Has anyone any thoughts to why this is happening?

The first time you log in A&L's login page asks for extra information. It then places a cookie on your machine. The next time you log in, you only need to enter a customer ID and PIN. If you are getting asked for the full information every time, it probably means that your browser is rejecting A&L's cookie, or it is getting deleted by something (usually some piece of privacy software).

The transfer password (I think) is the password they ask you for when setting up a bank transfer to a new payee. They never used to ask for that at login, even for the first time, but it's been a very long time since I've seen the "full" login page, so it might have changed... then again, it's exactly what a fraudster would need to make any use of your other details and A&L never usually ask for it in full.

Edit: No, I just checked and I get asked for only Place of Birth when I attempt to log in from a different machine.
Check the security certificate fingerprint. It should be: 4b f2 c8 fb e7 5e 7f 83 e6 93 74 78 2a fe 6a 36 72 d9 65 17

scubaangel

Anyone know how long it should take to transfer funds from an A&L account in to an RBS one?
I'm probably looking in the wrong place but cant see any information on the websites.

blueberrypie

scubaangel wrote: »

Anyone know how long it should take to transfer funds from an A&L account in to an RBS one?
I'm probably looking in the wrong place but cant see any information on the websites.

Depends on the amount and whether your RBS account is enabled for Faster Payments. If it is, and you're transferring less than £250, it will probably take minutes. If you're transferring more than that, or if the receiving account isn't FP-enabled, it will go by BACS and take about three days. If it's more than £10k, you won't be able to do it all in one go.