richardg

mrs g and i both have accounts with a bank who for the purposes of this thread, we shall call "alpha and lima". our personal accounts feed our joint account.

on one particular day not too long ago we both had money going into our joint account in order to pay a direct debit due the following day. money from one personal account going to joint account within the same bank happened on the same day. money from another personal account going to joint account (again, both same bank) left one day and arrived the next.
on the day the money from the second account arrived, 3 DD went out.
now, the statements show that we were never overdrawn, but "alpha and lima" are saying that we went overdrawn three times on the day the DD's went out as the money coming in hadn't cleared by then (claiming there may have been a few hours in between payment of DD's and receipt of incoming funds). they're charging us £25 for each of the three hits = £75 for something for which there is absolutely no evidence on our statements. i have complained and they say they are awating the outcome of the current "unfair bank charges" court case (which may well take more than 12 months) before deciding how to progress our complaint.

all in all, i'm pretty p'd off with this. not really sure how to move on from here and i don't want our complaint to lose momentum - otherwise it will just be forgotten! it's the principle rather than the money, but i could buy a lot of nappies for £75 so could really do without this at the moment

anyone have any suggestions for how to move this forward please?

4X4BOB

Wifey works for the Halifax... In this case she would wipe out the charges instantly.

Did you go into the A&L in person to complain or online/telephone?

Either you got the wrong staff member or A&L policy is sh!te.


Wifey often gives refunds, unless customers are persistent offenders who abuse the system.

Anyway, surely any 1/2 decent bank would want to keep customers with multiple accounts happy?

richardg

just what i was thinking bob. we certainly aren't repeat offenders (plus mrs g is an accountant so used to managing money). i spoke to a lady on the phone who said they couldn't refund the charges and that they would look into my complaint. they have now looked into it and eddie somebody or other has written back to say "we'll let you know what we think when we know the outcome of this unfair charges case". he also said not to bother going to small claims court as they would submit a request to stay the hearing of the case until the outcome of the above case is known.

very frustrating as transfers from savings to current accounts with this bank happen in a matter of seconds, but when you want to transfer from one current account to another, you're looking at 2 days apparently (although i know for a fact such transfers have happened same day between our accounts)...

maybe i'm not shouting loudly enough?

4X4BOB

You need to get yourself down to your local branch in person.

Be polite and explain it to them (don't mention your previous call/response) in a clam way - you're more likely to get a positive response then.

But if they still won't budge be more vocal and make a bit of a scene. Don't get personal with the staff, insult them and they'll close ranks, but threaten to close all accounts with them.

If this doesn't work, then you DO want to close your accounts and move elsewhere as they are being totally unreasonable.

The new bank will take care of transferring all your direct debits over to your new account for you (Well the Halifax does anyway) and you sometimes get a "bonus" when you do, but its not normally advertised (so says wifey)

Good luck with the robbing barstewards!

pwhittle

that's what they tell you , but it took the Halifax 9 month to successfully transfer my DDs, by which time I'd racked up fines from old and new bank.
I only opened the account because I worked them, and they'd only pay you through their accounts!

P.S. if you work for them, if you spend over your income for 3 consecutive months, you have to tell your manager!

MattN

well alpha and lima are a pain.

Similar things happened to me although we were legimately overdrawn, but not by the value they stated. The main problem comes from the fact that they process debits before credits on the day in question.

I've got a screen print of my online statement from when it happened. I complained and said I was only £100 overdrawn, they so no I was nearly £500 overdrawn, looking at the account now they've moved the credit so it appears after the debits but the screen shot clearly shows on the day, the credit first then the debits.

They also lied to me about the 'available balance' all in all I'm really unhappy, got the same line about charges being repaid, wait till the test case is over.

I would move the account but it's overdrawn so unless my new account comes with a decent OD from the start I'm stuck for the time being.

4X4BOB

Don't know if thats true or not. . .

My wife works for them (in branch) and when we were doing up another property, for 4 months running she was spending nearly double her wages!

She didn't have to tell anybody, but then her and the manager(female) are good friends, and she already knew what we were spending all the money on!

pwhittle

it was in my contract, so unless they were joking...

4X4BOB

Don't know if wifey has had to sign a contract or not - She's been with them for years, was with the Leeds Perm' before they merged.

I know she's been there so long, she's on better money than her manager!(she'd turned down the managers role as it was a lot more work for little extra money)

pwhittle

often the case- and you loose overtime
I wouldn't work for them again for any money - hated the managers I had, and the bank's thin vaneer of staff appreciation (leaving choccies on the desks of the call centre staff etc) which works for 18 year olds in their first job, but scratch the surface, as I had to do on more than 1 occasion, and they didn't give a stuff about you as long as the shares were ok.

to be fair though (and on topic!), I have had charges dropped having spoken to the nice ladies in the local branch.

richardg

i'll take a walk down to the local branch tomorrow then (with my little girl for the sympathy vote) and see what they say. i have to say i'm not expecting much of a response, but i'll give it a try

Hanley

With the A & L (I work for them) it depends what call centre you get through to.

Not to offend anyone down south but if you get Ashford you don't get much sympathy but if you get Liverpool you are far more likely to get refunded.

richardg

i've had a business a/c with them for years too. never knew there was an ashford call centre - i always seemed to be speaking to the scouse ladies and have always found them helpful in the past. maybe i'll try again and hope i get beamed north rather than south!!

jods

Hi Richard,

Do what I did with our bank who tried the same trick - I said - please reverse the charges or I'll close all the accounts we have with you.

They repaid the money.