Lloyds TSB Bank Charge Complaint....... my story

Hi all,

I thought it would be helpful to share my story and current complaint with Lloyds TSB and see if you have any ideas or thoughts on any further action I can take.

I submitted my complaint letter to LTSB earlier this month and copied the letter to various organisations and politicians; including the Chief Executive of Lloyds Banking Group, MSE, my local MP, FSA and the FO. My local MP has told me he will be writing to the Chief Executive of LTSB Banking Group separately to ask for his comments and thoughts on my case - that will make interesting reading I’m sure!!

In short, my complaint letter contains the following points:

• A total of £2204 of bank charges on two current accounts - this doesn’t include interest.
• There were a number of occasions where these charges caused our account to exceed its overdraft limit, and therefore caused a ‘snowball effect’.
• Continual bombardment of threatening letters, harassing phone calls and text messages over the past four years which have caused stress, anxiety and depression.
• Even though we were experiencing severe financial difficulties, LTSB continually issued us with further credit i.e. overdrafts, personal loans and credit cards, all of which totalled £18,284.77. This was clearly irresponsible on their part, especially the occasion where they approved a large personal loan online with no prior conversation or discussion.
• We have noticed there was a £35.00pcm PPI issued on my husbands credit card when they upgraded the account (through no request or choice of ours). Unfortunately, we don’t have a full suit of credit card statements but from the statements we do have we have totalled, so far, £800, in unauthorised PPI charges. Needless to say we have requested this money is refunded, plus any other PPI payments we have paid. They also failed to transfer the previous balance of our credit card when they upgraded the account so there were massive arrears on the account!
• LTSB refused to consolidate our debts into one manageable monthly repayment, even after we met with the Branch Manager. We then had no choice but to instruct the CCCS to pay LTSB a monthly payment (£474pcm) which was spread across our individual debts, and they continued to charge interest on each individual debt!!
• After a year of instructing the CCCS we met with the Branch Manager once again to ask LTSB to consolidate the debts due the amounting interest being added to our debt. This request was yet again refused! As previously mentioned, our original debt to LTSB was £18284.77, we paid a total of £6636.00 over 14 months to them but only reduced our debt by £2084.77 to £16,200.00. We have therefore requested that the total sum of £4551.23 is paid back by LTSB.
• After a further 6 months, LTSB finally agreed to consolidate the debts into one monthly payment. However, they continue to charge interest on this debt.
• We have asked for all of the above monies are deducted from our remaining debt with LTSB so we have some chance of getting the money paid back as soon as possible. We believe Lloyds TSB contributed significantly to our financial difficulities.

Sorry to give so much detail, but I really wanted to share our story and see if anyone else has had any other experiences with LTSB which are similar to ours.

Thank you for reading my thread and I will of course keep you updated with the progress of our complaint. No doubt we are going to have another fight on our hands but I hope my story will inspire others to stand up to your bank and not to be scared of their intimidation and bullying tactics.

I’m not scared of LTSB anymore!!