Alliance & Leicester - I am LIVID!!!!

billygirl

:mad: Just got a letter from A&L, it is a spare account which I use for internet payments and in certain shops. I put a small amount of money in each month. Last month I checked amount and there was a couple of pounds left in so used it. Then yesterday a month later I got a bill for £57.70 saying I was overdrawn. In a panic I went onto the internet bank to check, I had been £7 overdrawn and they had been charging £5 per day for being overdrawn and there are charges to come. I am fuming that it has taken them nearly a month to tell me I am overdrawn especially when they could have sent me an email the same day. I am now going to pursue for unfair charges because I'm sick of these banks etc taking advantage of us customers.

dawnylou

A&L are terrible for things like this!!
We didn't have an overdraft and we had one wage of around £750 going in on the 1st of each month and then another wage of the same amount going in on the 21st of the month. Every month was the same and the wages were coming from associated A&L accounts.
Anyway one month we were charged £25 review because we didn't have the money to cover one of the DDs but as far as I could see we did as we had never gone into a minus balance.
Apparantly this is because A&L pay all of the bills out of your account and then pay standing orders into your account later that day so although it shows you were never overdrawn it is because of the time they credit/debit payments.
Since this each month has been the same but because of all of the fees being added we are now at the point where the money going in is not enough to pay our bills and all of the fees so every month we fall a little further behind.
Last month we were charged £95 in fees.
It's getting out of hand so we arranged an overdraft - but lo and behold even the day the overdraft was applied we were charged another £30!

I wrote to them with regards to bank charges and got a letter back saying they believe it to be lawful and fair of them to do this. But I can't see how it can be when the money is going into the account the very same day as the money is going out (as it has done ever since the account was opened and so they surely are aware)

I also like how they make no attempt to contact you to inform you if you are overdrawn, they send you a letter a few days later so they can charge you £5 per day as long as they can get away with it!!!
As far as I can see A&L are the friendly bank who once they see drifting down s**t creek jump over and steal your paddle.

And once we get ourselves a bit more organised I will probably look at closing this account and taking one elsewhere!

MarkyMarkD

billygirl You haven't been charged "£5 a day for being overdrawn". You've been charged £5 a day for being overdrawn without an authorised overdraft limit. If you had an authorised overdraft limit, you'd only have been charged £5 in total (at the most - 50p per day capped at £5 per month).

If you choose to operate an unnecessary second account just for occasional use, it's your own fault if you don't bother checking the statement and spend money which you don't have.

dawnylou It's nothing to do with timing of debits and credits. How often do I have to repeat this? Your account Ts & Cs require you to credit funds by close of business on the working day before any DD payment is made. If you pay money in on the same day the DD goes out, it's too late. Once again, if you have an authorised overdraft limit, and the DD is paid from that, you will not be charged anything at all as long as the money is in the account by the same day the DD goes out.

It's completely "lawful and fair" for a bank to require you to have your account in funds by the close of business on the previous working day. Direct debits are processed overnight (first thing) and by the time your money credited your account, the decision to bounce the DD (or pay it) has already been made. Direct credits - salary credits - are posted before direct debits and cheques, so for people paid by normal direct credit the problem you refer to won't occur. By the way you say "the wages were coming from associated A&L accounts" I'm guessing that they are not paid in the usual direct credit way?

Anyone can see if they are overdrawn online at any time, at an ATM at any time, or by phoning up at any time. If you run your account close to your limit, it's your own responsibility to keep an eye on it.


Regarding both posts, A&L are no different (worse or better) in these regards than many other banks.

simpywimpy

I transferred cash into my account on the same day it was due out of my account and was charged after being told I should have put the money in before midnight on that day.

They don't know the meaning of a gesture of goodwill either

MarkyMarkD

Of course you were, simpywimpy. You transferred cash into your account after the payment had already gone or been bounced. Doing things too late doesn't resolve the original problem.

dawnylou

Our wages are paid into our sole A&L accounts and then sent by S/O to the joint account markymark.

Our account did not once show as being overdrawn until just recently because on the online statement it does show our wages going in and then the DDs coming out and so I wasn't even aware that there was a problem for some time.
If only they had made me aware that the funds weren't hitting the account soon enough we wouldn't be in this big mess now.

We were charged a £25 payment review even though we had an overdraft and also charged £5 per day for the next 2 days.

A&L have also advised us it will cost 50p per day for using the overdraft facility too.

YorkshireBoy

dawnylou wrote: »

We were charged a £25 payment review even though we had an overdraft and also charged £5 per day for the next 2 days.

The overdraft facility clearly wasn't large enough to absorb the outgoing payment. That's why you were charged £25 for them reviewing the payment, and then £5 per day because you were in an unauthorised overdraft position.

A&L have also advised us it will cost 50p per day for using the overdraft facility too.

That's for the authorised overdraft usage (and replaces the debit interest they used to charge).

dawnylou

Well we asked for a £1,000 overdraft and BT were paid £39 and they took £25 for a payment review..... so the overdraft should have covered that?

More than anything it has just taken me some time to get my wits together given that until halfway through last month our balance had never shown that we were overdrawn I had no idea that we were.


I also suffer from bad health which does cause me problems when sorting out finances and remaining organised so forgive me if I don't appear to understand the way banks think/work. It is wrong of them to increase the balance to include our wages and then show our bills coming out of that wage if the wage is not actually there yet I just see an account that is in credit and think I am ok.

That is what I meant 50p per day that we use the £1,000 they allowed us?

borgbaiter

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

ea81206 You didn't answer my question about whether you had paid funds into the account on 16/5 or 19/5.

borgbaiter It's NOT true that A&L "always process debits before credits" or that any other bank does so. Direct credits are processed before anything else. But transactions made on the day are always processed after direct debits or cheques clear, precisely because those direct debits and cheques are processed overnight and that's why account terms and conditions require funds to be there by close of business on the previous banking day to meet payments out.

hi

this wasnt my experience with A&L. Wages go in in the morning by BACS it shows first thing. by the end of the day all outgoings have been reshuffled to appear before the payment in. The Halifax account i had before A&L also did the same.

Borgbaiter

ea81206

Hi borgbaiter, in answer to your question regarding credits to my account on 16th or 19th May there were no credits until 20th May so this does not affect the available balance as this credit was "available " as soon as it was shown on my statement.

I have managed to get a full refund on both charges and £10 charge for exceeding overdraft! Result!