Urgent advice needed please.

[adg123]

I have an account with A&L. They took £75 bank charges from me which put my account overdrawn. I do not have an overdraft facility and tried to get one to stop any charges being incurred from the last lot of charges. They rejected it. I am on JSA and do not have the money to bring my account back into the black and have since incurred a further £80 of charges. I will never be able to pay this debt as it gets more by the day. I was initially unaware of the new charges (£5 per day) as it was printed on my statement and I never noticed it. I haven't spoken to them as I know I'll get upset and angry and that won't get me anywhere. How can I stop this spiral of debt? I really have no spare money to put into an account for which I am still receiving a daily charge.
I am about to start my own business dog grooming and will be on NEW DEAL where I will continue on Job seekers for six months. Any money the business makes will be held in an account with a joint signatory from Birmingham Chambers of Commerce so effectively I will be on benefits for the next 6 months. HELP.
I'm sure the banks just love people like me - they're making money out of someone who has none!

[Penfold92]

Wow ADG,

That is some trick by A&L. I suggest that you set up a parachute accoutn asap so at least whatever you do get you get to keep...Inthe meantime this really should have been in the A&L section of the site. I will ask one of the MODs to move it for you as other A&L people will be able to help you as well...

Penfold

[freakyleaky]

Hi Adg. This might be of some use to you. Do you need a parachute account?

[Kaaron]

Hi Adg
I'm in a similar position. I was made redundant and opened up another account. However, the new bank took ages to re-do my direct debits etc and I ended up £136.overdrawn. As I was on JSA I had nothing spare to pay back the overdraft. I asked them to close the account but they refused because of the o/d and instead they started to charge me £5.00 a month under funding fees. My o/d is now £251 plus I have just received a statement saying that they are adding another £5.00 u/fee, £75.00 exceeding o/d fee (15 days at £5.00 a day) and £5.00 o/d usage fee (16 days at 50p a day). That's a total of £331.00!
I wrote to them explaining that they knew I had been made redundant and I am still unemployed but now not on JSA. The requirement for having my account was that I had to have at least £500.00 a month going in. I explained that being unemployed I cannot comply with that requirement so would they close my account, drop all the fees as I was not employed so could not comply, and come to some arrangement where I can pay off the original £136.00. Still waiting for a reply but will post any developments.
How are you doing?

[Kaaron]

Hi Adg how is it going? Any news yet?

I had a letter from A&L telling me how much I was o/d and advising me to contact CAB, also of impending charges to be added to my account soon. No mention of my letter to them so I phoned yesterday morning. They said they were two weeks behind in answering letters and the one they had just sent me was a standard letter. I said I would wait for a written reply. That evening I received a phone call at 8.30pm telling me that they were removing all charges from my account and even removing the overdraft caused by the D/Ds going out! This would clear my account and did I want to keep the account open? I was a bit gobsmacked to say the least and said that I wasn't expecting that to happen, could they put it in writing and give me a couple of days to think about it. Now awaiting letter to confirm phone call.
I'm wondering what they are playing at because they know I have written to the FOS about the other unfair bank charges and I'm waiting for the results of the High Court hearing.