alliance and leicester sharp practice?

phoebe03cat

No I'm not accusing, just worried and questioning. Applied for premier plus a/c in branch on Frid. Too late for result,but rang head office on Sat and told verbally it had been refused-we had been allotted standard current a/c. We would receive a letter. Rang underwriters Mon. We were old husband had a £12 default on experian as reason for refusal. We knew nothing about this and can only assume it was a hangover from when we changed fuel suppliers last in 2003. Certainly no red bills and not informed on o/s debt. Anyway we could appeal decision with underwriters which would take a couple of weeks. Today we receive current a/c pins and phone bank pin from a/l but nothing to tell us it is not for the premier plus we applied for. Had we not made the call ourselves over the weekend we would have assumed that these pins were indeed for what we had applied. No welcome letter/explanation they were for an electron a/c which we had NOT applied for,and nothing to tell us we had been refused the p.p.a/c for which we had applied. :mad: We have now cancelled this a/c and are putting in a complaint. Any comments really welcome.

SimplyAUser

I had problems with A&L too.

I applied for the premier account and received regular account details for which I was asked to call and confirm to activate.

Since I did not like the regular account, I did not call. After a while received a followup from A&L. I told them I was not interested. 3 days after received another followup. I told them again I did not want the regular account. Went quiet for couple of days.... but there it went again. Follow up call. I was absolutely furious... and sent them a written letter to cancel.

Haven't heard from them since.... but what a tracking !!

jonnyenglish

Since I did not like the regular account, I did not call. After a while received a followup from A&L. I told them I was not interested. 3 days after received another followup. I told them again I did not want the regular account. Went quiet for couple of days.... but there it went again. Follow up call. I was absolutely furious... and sent them a written letter to cancel.

I am surprised that you got a call at all! It has been my experience that they get you to ring them to save costs. I got a letter from A and L requesting that I contact them urgently as they had made several attempts to contact me by phone and had failed. You can imagine the first thing I could think of was I.D fraud so i rang them immediately. However, I found the situation strange since no missed or unanswered calls had been registered on my phone. I rang them and the calltaker could only show one logged call made to me in the past few weeks about a trivial matter; the £25 incentive( hardly urgent!). I queried the content and tone of the letter which she admitted was a bog standard one. When I questioned the motive behind it ( to get customers to ring them in a panic to save A and L money) she did not know what to say and tried to end the call. As far as I am concerned I will stay with the A and L until they reduce the 5% interest then will be going to another bank with a decent level of customer service. My advice to anyone who gets a similar letter from them, ignore it and they will ring you if it is important.

ioscorpio

I was also refused a Premier account as they said I had a £30 default on my credit file that I knew nothing about, then I received a letter from a debt recovery agency for the debt, so I paid it to clear my credit rating, I wrote to the underwriter who then issued me with Premier account. After 6 months I applied for a Premier Plus account and was refused as the underwriter said that I now had a default for £100 put onto my credit file in May but relates to a default from 2002, another one that I know nothing about, no-one is chasing me for payment. I'm reluctant to pay £2 for my credit file and then £100 for debt just to upgrade my bank account, as I transfer my salary except for a couple of hundred pound to cover bills , into my onliner saver account, so I'm still getting 5% interest on the majority of my money.

The letter you get stating they have given you a current account is on Premier Plus Account letterhead so it is confusing.
IT STATES
Your application for a Premier Plus Current Account (in an orange square)
Dear Mrs ....
Thank you for applying for a Premier Plus Current Account.
I am sorry, but we are unable to ofer you a Premier Plus Current account and credit card at this time. We would, however, like to offer you a Current account, with all the benefits of a cheque book and Visa Electron card which you can use at any cash machine in the UK.

As I did not sign and return the agreement, about a month later I received another letter saying that the account had now been cancelled.

phoebe03cat

Thanx for the post. Have you seen Martin's last but one tips mailing? Tells you how to see your credit file without paying. Works really well as I did it for myself and husband. ***law says I did it the wrong way round for us both with experian and equifax. BUT might be just worth having a look at under the free trial and then cancelling. Doesn't cost you anything. At least you will know who it is and you can challenge it if it shouldn't be there! :eek:

phoebe03cat

PS - We didn't get the letter at all saying what type of account we had been given. Only the pins. So of course we assummed it was the one we had applied for! Think I'll go through the internal complaints system and report to the FSA. We could have been in the position where we had moved dd's etc and then discovered we had the wrong account!

Laurs

We had the same experience - yesterday we received a letter advising us our application for a premier joint account was not accepted. My new husband had forgotten to tell me about a CCJ! However this is on the register as satisifed, and we are more confused about why they are concerned about your credit rating for a current account - we do not want credit. Can they not leave the credit card and any overdrafts off the account?

200RJH250

I signed up with A&L Premier Plus a/c last February and also had the cashback credit card, followed all their rules, had my £25 incentive for joining them but after using the credit card should have receive a further £25 incentive but todate I have not.
I've phone numerous times to them and the card company but to no avail, the card company wont talk to A&L on my behalf and vise versa!!!
I was told to go into my local branch which I did, six weeks ago, been in to them twice plus phoned them, just phone the branch today and they still cannot sort this out so got to wait a few more days.
Also to top it all I've been charged £25 for going O/D so they say, I transfered money from my A/L online saver a/c on the 21st August for a debit to be taken out on 22nd August.
There is no where on the transfer page to tell me the DAY, only the date, the 21st was a Sunday which I did not realize 3 weeks earlier when making the request, so my transfer did not take place till the next working day, Monday 22nd,
They took my debit out BEFORE crediting my a/c ON THE SAME DAY but for that privelege they have charged me £25

Scotty_3

I've had similar problems. First incentive paid ok but customer services say they didn't have a deal offering 2nd £25 for credit card and wont pay up!!

I was also charged £25 for arranging a bill payment 3 days after paying a cheque in. Seems the funds hadn't cleared at that stage and so I was charged £25 (even though the payment causing the problem didn't reach it's destination until several days later).

I'm now in process of closing account.

sportbeth

Laurs wrote:

We had the same experience - yesterday we received a letter advising us our application for a premier joint account was not accepted. My new husband had forgotten to tell me about a CCJ! However this is on the register as satisifed, and we are more confused about why they are concerned about your credit rating for a current account - we do not want credit. Can they not leave the credit card and any overdrafts off the account?

I know exactly what you mean, having hauled myself out of debt twice I am in no hurry to have an overdraft, credit card or cheque guarantee card and I am probably more careful now than your average "credit newbee". But I have been turned down for accounts with credit scoring where all I want is online facilities to pay bills, no overdraft and a debit card and cheque book. THEN I CANT SPEND WHAT I DONT HAVE!!!

It's madness. No CCJ's but a few defaults for the next 6 years and no-one will touch me for allowing me to use my own money!

sportbeth

Laurs wrote:

We had the same experience - yesterday we received a letter advising us our application for a premier joint account was not accepted. My new husband had forgotten to tell me about a CCJ! However this is on the register as satisifed, and we are more confused about why they are concerned about your credit rating for a current account - we do not want credit. Can they not leave the credit card and any overdrafts off the account?

I know exactly what you mean, having hauled myself out of debt twice I am in no hurry to have an overdraft, credit card or cheque guarantee card and I am probably more careful now than your average "credit newbee". But I have been turned down for accounts with credit scoring where all I want is online facilities to pay bills, no overdraft and a debit card and cheque book. THEN I CANT SPEND WHAT I DONT HAVE!!!

It's madness. No CCJ's but a few defaults for the next 6 years and no-one will touch me for allowing me to use my own money!

I have a basic account with Natwest with no cheque book and no online banking. All I want to do is make regular payments to creditors with those two facilities to clear my debt, but they won't let me have it!