Rather than go on and on about the annoyances some tenants provide to me, I will simply ask the questions I need to know the answers to: How many people are allowed to be resident in this property? It has 6 bedrooms (2 converted living rooms and 4 actual bedrooms), one bathroom, one shower room, a separate toilet downstairs. A boyfriend 'moved in' the same day as the actual tenant, they come and go at the same time and he has been here at all times with the tenant since she moved in, essentially the boyfriend is now a tenant. At what point can I tell him to sod off to his own house? There's an A4 sign which suggests the property is no smoking. It's proved as useful as a fishnet binbag, if I complain to the landpeople are they obliged to take action? I get up for work at 7am, many other tenants do not and can be found wandering the house at random points past 11pm, there's TV noise and excessive chattering in the room next to mine - what time is shut up time? I had to take a half day off work a couple of days ago after being kept up til 3am. Turned out someone wanted a bath at 2. They also seem to like the slamming noise their door provides. Many thanks for any wisdom to follow.

Hello Thepower, thankyou. There's a conflict of interests with my presence here, i've been asked to leave by powers above. I will answer your question and bid the site a big goodbye. As you'll no doubt be aware, we're not one of the biggest high street banks. For some people, obtaining a current account is a basic part of life. For many others, it's all down to those numbers provided by Experian. As we're not the biggest bank, we can't always offer Current Account facilities where other banks would. The reason is simple, if required, it has credit facilities, even if you don't want them. The Co-operative bank offers a Cashminder account for this reason alone, when credit scoring simply doesn't match up to Current Account facilities. You could run a Cashminder account in credit without a charge or overlimit balance for 3 years, if you've got a low credit score, you won't be able to get Current Account facilities. It is not based upon you as a banking customer, moreover you & all financial institutions involved in your history. When i tell this story to people on the phone, i conclude with the following information, which i do not doubt in the slightest you already know: Defaults, CCJ's etc can remain on your credit file for 6 years. During this time, it's unlikely we can offer you a Current Account. Not to push you away from the Co-operative bank, but i'd recommend an application first with ourselves 1-2 year during your repayment program with Paylink/Payplan and maybe another 2-3 years into it. After that, i'm afraid i can only suggest another application at one of the larger banks - one every 6 months or so, too many at once will knock that hard earned credit score right back down again. There's no system, no real reason to leave it for years 1-2 and 2-3, just trying to let the credit score settle down a bit and not to look too "desperate" for facilities when you're dealing with other unsecured lenders in the future. I hope this information was useful, although i'm sure you are no more aware of your banking situation now than you were 12 hours ago, i'm sorry but there's no way of dodging that credit score. I shall bid you all goodbye now. It was a nice try, but i have my employment contract to consider before the better interests of other people at this point. Regards, Anon.

I will do this tomorrow, as i have yet to see anything productive from certain members of this site, and i have now only 5 hours sleep ahead of me. What a shame some people have made of themselves already. I wondered, why would bank employees leave the site if they tried to help. They must have been led into the same trap as myself. noomill060, I am not female. I am male but I have something you do not, which is common courtesy. At first glance all is not what it seems. I do hope you find something else to do tomorrow so i can get on with what i originally planned.

Hello Gary Unfortunately you're not the only person in this scenario, i'm all too aware of this problem but i must say it's not often but does cause problems when it happens. You should not have had to claim any charges back though. While you're overdrawn, you accrue interest, and possibly charges. During this time, you're not made aware of it until your statement is printed on the 5th of the month. In this case, the statements going to customers on the 5th of September 2007 will indicate any interest and charges to be debited on the 21st of September. Now, to the point, all this was happening in the background while you were paying your girlfriends account off. All that's happened is, the account wasn't closed and hence the charges were allowed to debit. In my experience, and trust me i've done this before, if i do contact a customer regarding an overdrawn balance, or someone rings because of the standard "3 month overdrawn dormancy" letter, i check why they're over. If it's charges, they're gone, it's as simple as that - account closed, no more Gary's etc. I must say that we do talk to each other, but the outbound telephone system dials the number and only presents the account to the collections department when the customer answers. Effectively, what i'm getting at, we don't have a clue what's going on until we've had a look around for a bit. Sorry but that's just the way it is, we can't sit and browse the account, we have to do it on the fly. Again i'm sorry for your experience, if the debit balance was caused by someone not closing your account and daily charges accruing, i would have got rid of everything and closed the account.

These are examples of the events i've read that prompted me to join the site. "I paid by card and was charged when it came out of my account, why let them take it when the money wasn't there". I know why and i know how to stop it. "I was refused an overdraft and then i got charged because i couldn't pay my bills". I know why and i know how to stop it. "I was told when i opened the basic bank account i coulndn't go overdrawn and here i am overdrawn". I know why and i know how to stop it. "I have received a letter saying my account will be closed". I know why and i know how to stop it. To be honest, of the 50-60 posts here, only 3 have been close to what i joined for. I don't care about law, or benefit conditions, that's not my job. If someone reading this website wants to stop being charged, let me know.

I am offering my opinion, if people ignore or belittle them then fine, i hope you will not be charged again and that the current information on the site is sufficient for your needs. I am addressing those people in financial difficulty or those who would like further information on avoiding future charges. Charges will not go away. I am sure if a parking attendant walked up to any one of you and told you "That meter over there, it's broken, park on those double yellows and we won't do a thing", you'd all jump for joy. Are members of this website unable to accept a helpful gesture? Are you really all that disgruntled about charges that you'd take it out on someone who's job it is to make sure no more charges apply to customers accounts.

Hello, I personally believe that in some way, the charge represents the work involved in the final act of refusing a payment (or authorising it in the case of card and backed cheques). I do tend to dig deep with things like this. I'm sure the bank doesn't have a wad of money set aside to pay me from the money it makes on the stockmarket. I really can't comment on law. As i said previously, if it was illegal it would never have been introduced in the first place. that sounds logical to me.

Hello and thanks for the message. In my department we will only say no if: There's blatant misuse of facilities where the customer is causing the problems through their own misconduct Experian have notified us of adverse information on the credit file There is no grounds for concern i.e. the increase is for non essential items. If someone in on benefits and they're looking for an increase to their overdraft, that to me is dangerous ground. For such a low income as it is, further indebting a customer who is on benefits is not wise. I am trained to offer alternatives instead, like, checking what Direct Debits can be cancelled, or reduced. You'll be amazed at how many people want to cancel the Gas and Electric but scream down the phone when you ask to cancel Sky. Let me be as blunt as i can without causing any offence to you. If you're on benefits, or if you earn £1,000,000 a year, you will be charged for going overlimit, it is that simple. Of course i previously mentioned that the size of the income would further irritate the level of financial difficulty, and in the first instance, 100% of the charges would be removed. If charges continued to apply, the overdraft would be increased to encapsulate the charges and this would be reduced monthly. If charges continue after this level of help had been offered, facilities would then be removed to stop charges. This is all in my experience and not everyone would do this for a customer. We do not deny access to benefits. If we cannot offer an overdraft, a formal arrangement will be made to pay off the overdrawn balance with the customer debiting the benefits via a branch, minus £10 or £20 to chip away at the balance.

Thanks for the message. The issue you have here is that the company went against your wishes under your direct debit guarantee, and setup the mandate anyway. I've also dealt with this and unfortunately refused several refunds based upon the lack of bank error. Please take this information positively, if you already have this information then i apologise. The blanket stop will refuse any Direct Debit mandate from debiting the account. No Direct Debit will leave the account even if a Direct Debit (say to Sky) was cancelled and Sky have come back with a new instruction. Unluckily for you, you only cancelled the original instruction, without a stop in place, the originator can come back as you found out. That's where an originator stop comes into play. Rather than stop every single direct debit, you can stop one company from coming back. For those of you that don't know, each company in the Direct Debit scheme has an originator code. This is a 6 digit number. This number can be stopped from claiming funds via Direct Debit. So, if you've got a company causing you hassle, apply an originator stop. The bank could cancel multiple Direct Debits from the same company to no avail without an originator stop. I hope this was of some use.

Hello Caro, thanks for the message. As all bank staff will say, there's no way to know why a charge is £5 or £35. I am being honest with you when i say there's not one person i work with who could answer such a question. Take the HSBC who charged me £20 per card payment. The Co-op who will charge you £35. Smile will charge you £25. Why this differs i do not know. On many occasions i've spoken to customers who have been pennies over their overdraft limit yet suffered the full force of daily charges by Smile bank. I kid you not, i've seen an overlimit amount of £0.10 be charged £150 in one month. This equates to £15 + £5 for day 1, then a full month at £5 per day. I know this won't be new information for many people here. Keep in mind you've got to leave your account for a LONG time to get £150 of charges which begs the question why didn't the customer check the account, and if they did, what stopped them from ringing the bank.

Then please take your issue to the source of your anger. I am sat at home on my computer, if you wish to belittle my comments you may open an account with the Co-operative Bank and prompty go overlimit, i'll happily be belittled when you ring the telephone number i'm paid to answer. As for the site, i will continue to offer guidance. Taking note from jansus, for any members reading this thread, my expertise would be accustomed to those of you who are reliant upon their credit facility, primarily the overdraft, and especially those of you in financial difficulty or those with basic bank accounts like the Cashminder. You may also find some of the information regarding payment timescales useful. Plus i work for a bank so I may know a thing or two of interest, like how the 3 day bank transfer will now only take 2 hours from next year.

noomill060, i'd prefer not to converse with you from this point forth. It is clear to me that regardless of the charges you've had refunded, you still have some issues that i am not able to deal with. I am sorry but i am not going to give my free time at 11pm to be badgered by you. Respectfully, i will no longer reply to or acknowledge your posts unless it is of a positive nature or my reply would prove useful to another member or guest of this site. Regards.

Jan, just what i was waiting for, thankyou. I've dealt with this sort of thing before. The bank system shows the customer service advisor that there's no recommendation for an overdraft and promptly declines your request as instructed to do so in their training. I cannot give you a 100% answer because i have not got a clue about your personal circumstances, the amount of debt you owe in & outside of the Co-op accounts, the turnover of your account and your Experian credit score, these factors are all built into what the system thinks is a good overdraft limit for you. If you'd have spoken to me, a common sense approach would be first to ascertain if it's responsible to give you an overdraft to pay the bills. I know it's only 4 days, don't ask... If it's not a suitable option, we'll suspend the Direct Debits for free. It's called a blanket stop. This means Direct Debits are stopped until you remove the stop. We don't charge you a penny, the companies might, but to be honest, it's not us you owe the money, it's the companies, so the priority is letting them know about the mistake and coming to an arrangement with them. At the end of it all you'll end up owing the bank money or owing the companies money. Who's more likely to charge you? My approach here would be to ask the companies for the leway if the bank point blank refused your request and if they can't because the instructions already on the way, cancel the direct debit or "blanket stop" all of them. This may not be the method of choice, but it results in 0 charges. Please remember banks don't just give out overdrafts any more, it's a stern change with the new debt crisis and the fact everyone's claiming charges back.

I tell customers the charges will stop when they follow my advice.

Exactly, it's not that easy, that's why i have a job where i do, if people weren't in financial difficulties, i imagine i'd still be at my old job with the Co-operative Retail head office instead. Just so you know, i'm not a debt collector, i rehabilitate. After 8 minutes i can really change how people perceive the bank to be a mindless charging unethical machine, to a very Co-operative bank that simply wants the contact it needs. Sometimes i've spent 45 minutes just speaking to someone telling them things they'd never known about banking. I know it's not easy to stay in credit, again, that's why i signed up. I'm not telling people not to go over their overdraft, just how to avoid charges if it's about to happen.