Alliance and Leicester - Overdrafts on new accounts

ianianian_2

I recently tried to join Alliance and Leicester....

the whole process seemed to go wrong at every possible turn, however here is my main complaint....

1/ in my case it looks like you only get an overdraft if there is no chance of you using it
2/ they do not tell you any information regarding this until you ve signed up

(taken from my complaint letter)
".....Soon after applying I received an email stating I was not accepted for the stated overdraft, however I would soon be informed of how I could attain the overdraft provided by my current account.

I then received a form informing me that you were ready to switch my direct debits etc, but nothing regarding my overdraft. I therefore had to ring up again to speak to customer services. I was told I should have received a letter to detail the process in gaining a new overdraft (I should send a statement in demonstrating I was not using my current overdraft for at least half of the month). Once again this information had not reached me!
I have now had to cancel the account, because I have not quite been in credit for half of the month. After recently moving jobs, cities and house twice I feel that being just £100 into my overdraft to be an achievement and expect to be clear soon.

I have absoultely no problem in being declined an overdraft, I appreciate that you do not consider personal issues, hower if I had not taken the initiative, you would have transferred -£100 into my new account and started to charge me without ever notifying me of the above process."

Milarky

I don't understand what you are saying (going by what you quote from your letter)

The letter about supplying statements as evidence (etc) could have been sent out around the same time and just not arrived when you phoned A&L (I'll grant that if it never arrived thereafter then you didn't get a letter...)

It's not clear what if any overdraft A&L did give you

The £100 you mention has nothing to do with the account transfer process either - unless you asked A&L (and they agreed) to transfer £100. But in practice you'd draw the cash from A&L yourself (drawing on your authorised A&L overdraft) or just send a bill payment to settle your old account.

It appears as though you were relying on the offer of at least a matching overdraft from A&L to make it worthwhile using them as your bank.

sss555s

I also recently opened a "premier" account.

I did mine in branch and i agree that it's a bit concerning that you have to open it before they tell you if they are going to match your existing overdraft.

I didn't have proof of my other overdraft on me at the time but she said wait n see what they offer you then if it's not enough then bring in proof of your current O/D limit.

I told her my current was £2700 which kinda shocked her a bit and she said she hadn't seen anyone get more than £2500 :rolleyes:

Anyway, they offered me £700 and i took in a copy of my online account details which said how much credit i was in and how much available credit, which was my only proof of my overdraft limit and they matched it :T

Even though it's a pain they cant tell you there and then, i do think they have to have a good reason not to match your current O/D limit as they claim they will.

I found out what they were gonna offer me before they started to transfer my D/D's from my old account so i could have told them to shove it if it wasn't enough