Alliance & Leicester - Overdraft Charges

Dom85

Hi all,

Apologies if this is in the incorrect place, this is my first posting.

I am confused about A&C's overdraft charge system, and this confusion has now cost me £120 and could potentially be more - please help!!

Apparently, in March, I was allowed to spend £1.52 on my debit card even though I did not have anything in the account. This caused me to be overdrawn without an overdraft facility. I was never sent a letter informing me of this charge.

I was then told that this was in small print at the bottom of my statement and that this informed me I would be charged on the 20th April. In was not aware this would come out as I had never been sent a letter, so got charged for being overdrawn on an overdraft charge.

They have now said I was overdrawn by 50p in April, so would have a £90 charge for that, and again I will be charged if the money is not there on 20th May. They sent me a letter for this charge.

My question is, why did they only send one letter for one of the charges? Is it standard practice to pick and choose when to inform you - if I had been told in March I could have sorted this out.

The charges also seem extortionate - £5 per day for a matter of 50p!

I have been told by the bank this is not their problem and basically tough. Is there any way I can complain at not having been informed of the problem straight away? They took 3 weeks to send me a letter about 1 of the charges!

slipthru

This has happened to my brother also due to benefits messing up his payment date, he had two direct debits come out today which incur two £25 charges plus £5 charges every day till it's paid, by the time his payment comes through it will eat up his entire payment and he will have no money at all to live on for the next two weeks.

This could really mess up a lot of people if they are not aware of this.

Intergalactic_Floozie

It's a disgrace. You ring to complain and you speak to some poor sod in CUstomer Services. You ask to speak to a manager who just says "no, no, no" and you go round in circles. You're told you need to speak to someone in the charges department, so you ask to speak to them and are told you can't, they don't take phone calls, so you ask them to ring you back. They don't ring you back. You ask for an address to e-mail, or to fax a letter to - they don't accept e-mails or faxes. You write to them, and they don't bother to reply even though you know they have got your letter because you sent it recorded delivery! They are just legalised robbers.