Hi everyone.
I have been doing so well with my money since moving my account from Lloyds and have been using my A&L account for a couple of months. I got paid on Friday 22nd and over the weekend I set up a bank transfer online. It was for £550 to my partner's (Mindzai) sole account (also A&L) to cover my share of the bills and direct debits. It occurred to me on Sunday that due to it being Christmas, the transfer might not make it to his account until Thursday which was the 28th, and some of our DDs are set up to come out on 28th of each month. As Mindzai had already gone ahead and used up the majority of his money on paying other bills and buying food/petrol etc. I was really worried that he was going to have a load of DDs returned on the Thursday. So as a solution I amended the payment to him from £550 to £300, and we decided that on Wednesday I would withdraw £250 and he would pay it into the Post Office instantly. So we did all of this and had all of the money organised and where it should have been and thought that everything was safe.
But I checked my account yesterday and was absolutely horrified to see my balance was £-472.12. I looked at my statement and saw that on 27th a bank transfer of £550 had been made to Mindzai's account
leaving me with a balance of £-172.12, and on 28th a bank transfer of £300 had been made to Mindzai's account - but later returned as I obviously didn't have enough money to cover it.
Now I really was shocked over this. We organise our money so well now, and even use a spreadsheet to make sure we know exactly how much money we have at any given time. So I quickly phoned the customer advisors and explained the situation to the woman who answered. I was expecting to get told that this was an error made by the bank and that I wouldn't get charged for this. But, I was told that I had set up a second payment and not amended the existing payment. Now I know full well that I didn't do this so I said to her that I definitely had amended the payment. So she then said that I hadn't deleted the payment and that was what I needed to do. After a couple of times of me saying "
but I amended it", I registered what she seemed to be saying. She was saying that you can't amend a payment, you need to delete it - otherwise the original payment will still be there. I clarified this with her and she confirmed that was what she meant.
Now this is absolutely baffling to me, but as I am so ridiculous at talking on he phone to people I didn't think to argue at the time. She then said that I would get a £34 charge because they had to return the £300 payment. As usual I got off the phone and immediately thought of all of the points I should have made, like if you can't amend payments then why is there an option to?
So I'm writing a letter to them today as they took the £34 charge yesterday which is the majority of my Christmas spending money.
I was just wondering if any other A&L customers have had a similiar problem with amending bank transfers on their internet banking? I know full well that I didn't set up a second payment, and I remember checking the payment immediately after I had amended it and there was only one pending payment in existence and it was definitely for £300 only.
I feel really disappointed about this. It seems like they are just trying to fob me off by saying that I'm the one who made the mistake here. I know that I will get the £34 back eventually but I just wonder how much denying there is going to be from them that they are not at fault.
Lucid
Possible fault with A&L online banking? 
