I joined Lloyds in december 1996 with my small business, throughout the past 16 years service has been varied, it was better when I was chucking loads of money into the account. Recently due to the recession my business has suffered quite badly and at times has gone slightly overdrawn, but it always recovered, ok I had a few charges here and there but that was expected until recently when I was surprised to see a cheque I'd issued put the account 1p overdrawn, Lloyds bounced the check and charged me £70.00, considering this harsh and excessive I called the business managers (that's a joke title, it has to be) anyway I was not the happiest of bunnies at the time and my mood was made worse by the negative and unyielding attitude of the guy I was connected to. In fact I got so annoyed I hung up. Two days later I had a text from sky saying they'd been informed by Lloyds that the direct debit had been cancelled, I had an email from O2 saying the same, at this point I logged onto the account, where I found all (approx 35) direct debits had been cancelled leaving just a standing order to my accountant, thinking this must be a system error I called Lloyds to be told it is very strange and they would investigate, later I found Lloyds had done it deliberately. I went to town, withdrew all the cash from the account leaving loose change in there, I closed the account, signed the paperwork and was told it would take a few days to close, and I would receive a cheque for any balance. I immediately opened a new account elsewhere. I have a loan with Lloyds and about a week after closing the account I was still getting daily texts (mini statements) I thought this was strange as the account was supposed to be closed, I found the "Closed" business account went overdrawn! I called Lloyds to question this, they said it's the loan repayments, I said the account is supposed to be closed and I offered to pay by standing order, this they refused, they said they will continue to keep the business account open despite my signing the papers to close it, and they will continue to take the loan payments from it, so obviously they'll be adding unauthorized overdraft charges too! I have written a letter of complaint to Lloyds and kept a copy, stating I have no desire to bank with them, I will not be paying any money into the business account I'd closed and repeated my offer to pay the loan installments by standing order. I have kept a copy of this letter which I sent recorded delivery. I have also contacted the ombudsman who said I do have cause to complain. The thing is I asked Lloyds for an overdraft facility several times, they refused, the just kept on bouncing and charging. Cancelling all my direct debits without any notice has caused a serious number of problems including my daughter's car insurance got cancelled. It was 3 days after they cancelled all the direct debits I received a letter from them saying they were going to do this and I should contact them. The service over recent years from Lloyds has got worse, I could never get hold of the business managers, they would never return calls, the call centres outside the uk were worse than useless and I'm glad to be out of the clutches of this nasty bank, well almost, I still have to get them to close the business account! My question is this, can Lloyds keep that business account open against my wishes? can they refuse the loan payments via an alternative route from my new bank, can they impose charges when they put the account into overdraft by taking the loan payments out when they know I closed that account, and offered to pay the loan installments from my new bank via standing order, (I wouldn't trust them with a direct debit) Oh and I see they don't bounce the loan repayments! If they paid me I would not bank with them ever again, it's a matter of principle, they are an awful bank, oh and just to top it off I've started 4 ppi claims against them.

Barclaycard is axing its loyalty points scheme 'Freedom', giving customers two months to redeem their rewards. Barclaycard said that the scheme – which is available to the majority of its 12 million customers – is being scrapped because it wants to focus on 'other product development'. http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cardsloans/article-2148253/Barclaycard-scraps-Freedom-loyalty-scheme-giving-customers-months-redeem-points.html