Incredibly frustrating charges and service from Abbey

[Furrypaws1]

Hi all

 

My partner is with Abbey. Last year their "underwriters" decided to withdraw his overdraft, even though he had not once gone over his set limit and had an Experian report advising that he had an excellent credii rating. In their wisdom, they were going to do this all at once (I think the overdraft was somehting like £800) After many many phonecalls they elected to take approx £50 pm instead, regardless of the fact that my partner was out of work and we were and still are, under severe financial hardship.

His overdraft was paid off earlier this yr. In a moment of sheer genius, all of a sudden at the end of June he gets "overdraft charges" about 8 of them, amounting to £25.00.

He called them over the weekend and asked why he had been charged and why wasnt he told. Their robotic reply was "it advises you on your statement" We wanted an explanation in writing but they cant do that.

We looked at his statement and it gives a load of figures of approx £2.92 a time but have no idea what they are for and why they have been taken all at once.

Although he advised he was raising this to a complaint no resolution, or even apology was given.:-x

Can anyone explain what these bunch of B@@@@ds have done, and what can we do to wrestle back the money or at least make them feel mightily uncomfortable.

Quite frankly I have never encountered such appalling treatment.

[Furrypaws1]

Anyone:(

[sillygirl1]

Go to your nearest branch and ask to speak to the senior manager, ask him if you can record the conversation (you can do this on a mobile phone) and let the haggling begin.

 

They shouldn't be taking money from you if you are on benefits. You need to make the manager aware of this and request the money back they have already taken.

[Furrypaws1]

we are not on benefits, but are in severe financial hardship nevertheless! is there anything else we can do, as quite frankly I already know the outcome of some snotty manager in branch. we want to escalate this asap, is there any sort of letter template?

[yourbank]

we are not on benefits, but are in severe financial hardship nevertheless! is there anything else we can do, as quite frankly I already know the outcome of some snotty manager in branch. we want to escalate this asap, is there any sort of letter template?

Do you have priority debt arrears(mortgage/rent, council tax, utilities)?

Are any of those priority debts being paid off?

 

EDIT: ask the bank what the £2.92 amounts are for?

Might be worth approaching this on the basis of bank error, ie you had a payment plan in place that should have covered all the amount owing.

[Furrypaws1]

yes these are the only ones being paid, we have no capacity to pay any other debts, my partners debts are being disputed via CCA requests etc as advised through the DCA section on this forum.

 

We did ask them on the phone what the charges were for and the same robotic answer came back, "overdraft charges" which my partner answered with "i no longer have an overdraft" but this did not seem to compute.

[yourbank]

I would put this in writing and ask them to clarify what the £2.92 was since you were under the impression that the account was being paid off and therefore the charges going onto the account should have been part of the payment plan. Did the amounts all go out at once?

[yourbank]

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

 

I know what it is.

[yourbank]

"We have begun and will continue over the next few weeks to collect charges on some personal banking accounts which were due to debit from January 2009 onwards. The transactions that incurred these charges may have occurred from as early as November 2008.

 

Customers were notified as normal of any charges incurred and the date they would debit via their statement. However, these charges were not collected on the specified date but are now being collected from accounts.

 

Customers may call to query any debits from their account on 0845 9724 724. We are available 8am to 9pm, Monday to Saturday.

 

Regards "

 

Abbey had a glitch in their systems last year which became apparrent in about may/june time. I emailed them because it was appearing a lot on MSE(response is above and in quotes). I think you need to state to them that they should have made that part of the payment plan and so therefore perhaps they should go halfway with you perhaps.

[Furrypaws1]

Thanks Yourbank, amazing that someone who doesnt even blimmin' well work for them knows what it is, and the bugger who my partner spoke to did not!!!!

 

Thats really helpful, thanks.

;-)

[missmoneypenny1]

that doesnt sound right to me, i think its more likely to be interest charged on the charges or debit interest from the amount that you were overdrawn