Happy New Year from Alliance & Leicester

[devilzwishbone]

On the 31st December 2007 like many I was out celebrating the new year.

 

I had 3 cards

 

Barclaycard (Credit Card)

Barclay Debit Card

Alliance & Leicester Debit Card

 

My A&L account was at the time my main bank account and I had pending direct debits to go out on the 2nd Jan 2008

 

I had funds available thoughtout December however on the 2nd Jan 2008 I had gone over drawn £8.49 which was as a result of a Cash Point withdrawal of £10 and the Direct Debits

 

A&L then tried to charge (as you probably expect) £25 overdraft fee + £5 per day it remained overdrawn

 

By the time I got payed 27th of the month it was £90 extra they wanted

 

I refused to pay, I agreed to pay £25 but certainly not going to pay a total of £115 for a £8.49 unauthorised overdraft

 

I withdrew all funds before they was going to take the £90 out on the 5th Feb 2008, In which I had £100 overdraft facility available to me any how so it should have left me £10 credit available in my overdraft facility whilst the dispute is being handled.

 

Not as straight forward...

 

They told me NO MORE pending direct debits was due, but 2 days later £50 came out to pay my Virgin Media bill and therefore when the £90 came out it sent it into a whole new spiriling set of charges for £5 a day plus their £25 charge, thanks to their misadvise.

 

A&L said its my responsibility to ensure there is funds in the account for DD to come out.

 

However my argument was...

 

a) If they know of a pending direct debit processed on the 30th December 2007 due to come out on the 2nd Jan 2008

They knew the funds was due to come out, Why permit £10 to come out of a cash point knowing this information, Their systems should be able to detect there would be insuficient funds to pay both and declined the cash point machiene withdraw

 

b) The 2nd set of charges was as a direct mis-advise given to me by their agents on the phone.

 

Nothing got done and I wrote to the FSA about this.

3 Months later they had still failed to look into my complaint (A&L)

 

Therefore the FSA agreed to investigate

My grounds to appeal was under principle 7 of the FSA

Treating customers fairly, I felt I was treated unfairly since they had knowledge on their systems that funds was due to go out yet have incompetent systems to put the 2 pieces of data together and refuse a withdraw or even alert you to the remainder balances and pending direct debits to give you a choice.

 

However the bank charges court case had started thus they stopped looking into it saying they will get back to me once the court case comes to an end and a finally legal agreement has been drafted on these bank charges

 

Whilst this was happening they was still sending me bills for the charges in which it is now sitting at £580

 

Ive not heard much from them recently I think its just a bank statement once every 6 months now

 

Were do I stand with this?

[spireite1970]

This sounds a little bit like the problem i'm having with A&L . They cancelled my overdraft facility around about the time the banks realised they were in trouble .I had an £800 overdraft of which i owed them £750. I payed off the overdraft using a credit card only to find at the end of the month they had added a £25 pound charge that then sent my account overdrawn . I recieved another letter saying i would be charged £5 a day while my account was overdrawn .I now owe them £700 in charges which i refuse to pay .

[Nickm]

I have had similar prolems recently with a&l, how they can say that the £5 per day is not a penilty charge I don't know.

I accept that through a miscalculation of my own I went overdrawn but in a 2 month period they have taken £280 in charges.

 

I am now in the process of moving all dd's from he account and closing it.

 

Paying a charge for going overdrawn isn't a major issue, its being charged exorbatant rates. It would be cheaper to go to a loan shark than bank with a&l

[Surfer01]

We are in the process of dumping A & L as their account is very difficult to manage and some days we have 3 different balances showing. Not only that they do not wok in real time and a cash withrawal from an ASTM can take up to 3 days to reflect on your account.

Twice in the last 18 months we have gone into unauthorised overdraft by a couple of quid and twice they have reversed the charges as we were able to demonstrate that they were at fault. The last time they paid us compensation as I was ready to take it up with FOS.

A & L are a totally useless shower.