Has your overdraft been cancelled?

Lloyds have reduced mine from £1000 to £700 because they said I wasnt using it, but as I run my account well and keep within the limit what harm was it doing just being there and not used. Meanwhile my son has two accounts with two overdrafts if £1000 each and frequently exceeds his limit but hasnt had his reduced

I've posted this elsewhere on this site, but it won't let me post a link to it as I'm a new member, but this is what Lloyds TSB did to me. They took away my overdraft when I was out of the country on holiday!!! I had an Agreed Overdraft Facility with Lloyds for £3400 and I was £3200 into this amount.

Whilst I was out of the country on holiday Lloyds sent me a letter to say that they are taking away my planned overdraft facility in 7 days as I hadn't paid anything into my account for a period of time. This letter was dated the 29th January, the day I left Devon to go to London before the flight to Sri Lanka. I had previously contacted my Credit Card company (Lloyds TSB Mastercard) to let them know I'd be out of the country and NOT to cancel my Credit Card.

I returned from holiday around the 27th February to find letters etc telling me to immediately repay my overdraft as they had taken this facility away (and obviously added loads of charges, about £300). I immediately visited my local branch where they said these charges were indeed unfair, but they don't have the authority to cancel the charges. They took photocopies of all my letters and my credit card statement which proved I was in Sri Lanka on the days many of the letters were sent to me. These copies were then sent to Brighton, and then to Birmingham!!

It was at this time I thought I'd pay all my overdraft off (£3219) and put the account back to £0. I did this as a show of good faith as I understand I owed the money to Lloyds but I wasn't willing to pay the charges I incurred by them sending me a letter which I wasn't able to reaction on to due to my holiday. The charges are about £300 and to put it bluntly, I'm !!!!!!ed if they're going to get the money out of me.

I've just received a letter from Birmingham to say that my complaint has been turned down because (and I quote):

"I have looked into your concerns and I see that letters were sent prior to your trip to advise you that no substantial credit had been received into your account for a period of time. I can also see that you have also incurred Unplanned Overdraft charges in the past due to the balance of your account exceeding your agreed limit.

Unfortunately this activity prompted us to remove your Planned Overdraft entirely, which is covered in the original term of your account.

I appreciate that you say you were abroad and unaware of this action until you returned, however I cannot see that we were made aware of you being overseas. It remains the customers responsibility to ensure that the account is kept within any agreed limit."

Now, my Planned Overdraft limit was due to be reviewed on the 11th April 2009 so I didn't think they had any reason to alter this limit during the time I was away as I'd received nothing in writing prior to leaving the UK. The reason they give is that no "sustantial amont had been received into your account" and that I didn't make them aware that I was out of the country. I admit to not making any substantial deposits into the account but as I wasn't sent any letters to tell me I had to do so I was blissfully unaware of any problems. I let my Lloyds TSB Credit card company know I was out of the country but I was unaware I had to make my bank know I was out of the country.

Also, what difference does it make if I've incurred charges in the past? They make too much money out of me as it is and this problem will lead me into claiming back the charges for the past 6 years if I'm lucky.

Obviously the charges incurred while I was on holiday I feel are unfair and I'm not going to pay them. The ladies at my local Lloyds branch have been great and have told me to fight them as it's not fair. My next step is to speak to the chap who made this desision and tell him that I want to continue with this complaint and I'll be getting in contact with the Financial Ombudsman.

I realise I've waffled on a bit here, but if anyone has any hints or tips please let me know (if you haven't fallen asleep by my vague ramblings!!).

Cheers in advance
Jon


My charges are now at £450 (ish) and rising. I've written to them about 3 weeks ago and I'm still waiting on a reply. They're absolutely hopeless and I'm going to have great pleasure in reclaiming all of the unfair charges from the past 7 years.

After 15 years of being an RBS customer, 4 of them actually working for them, i have been given a month to find £850 as my overdraft is being removed on the 29th May.

I have had an overdraft since opening the account and only really dipped into it for a week or so every month in the week before payday.

Two months ago, we needed some urgent plumbing work done so used the overdraft to pay for the work, with the intention of paying this back to the account by £250 per month.

My limit previously had an expiry date of November 2009 so i assumed we had plenty of time.

I'm now in a state of panic as the 29th is my payday and i only earn about £800 per month and the lot will be wiped out when the limit is removed.

None of my bills will get paid this month and all i have been told by RBS is that my account will be referred to their Personal Account Centre if i don't have enough in my account when the limit goes.

I was actually sick after putting the phone down to my branch and am disgusted at how i have been treated. How many people these days can get their hands on that sort of money in a month

MSE_Guy wrote: »

We're hearing worrying stories of banks closing people's overdrafts, while they're overdrawn, without warning and sometimes adding charges because they're then in the red.

We want to know how widespread this is, so please report your story if it's happened to you.



Please include:

• Current account provider
• Overdraft limit before change
• Overdraft balance at time
• New overdraft limit after change
• Whether this happened at an official overdraft review
• Any charges
• Whether you were notified

See our news story for more information and the news story discussion thread to debate the issue.

Hi, started a similar thread over in Credit Cards as there is a lot of this happening within the CC industry as well....

Link is here: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1694063