Thread: Unplanned overdraft and excessive charges

I wrote to Lloyds last week (14th) telling them that I could no longer afford to make my loan payments of £362.70 a month and offered them £40 a month until things improve. On the 20th they took the full payment from my account (which only had about £8 in it) and sent me a letter teling me that due to the unplanned overdraft they were charging me £15 flat fee, plus £20 a day (plus interest) until it is paid off. They were nice enough to only add on 10 of these daily charges per billing month, but the next billing month starts in 10 days time!!

Are these charges typical and fair, or are they excessive? My thoughts would be the latter.

How do I go about convincing them to reverse the payment so that my account was in the same state as it was prior to the 20th and cancel the standing order?

Hi cashdesk

I am having a very similar situation with Lloyds at the moment. I have three products (overdaft, credit card and personal loan) with them and all are in there collections depts. I have 'agreements' in place with collections to reduce the amount monthly by a manageable amount for two of the products but the third I do not which is a credit card and they monthly now take a full missing months payment without so much as a thank you leaving me with insufficient to then meet the other two agreements. I did last month manage to get a partial refund back but it took plenty of calls. I think it this practice should be illegal, they have no idea what problems they cause by doing this. Not much help but I would offer that on my loan, they agreed to a much reduced rate for six months but only once it was in collections.

Lloyds have an extremely high charges system, even though they as other banks did, changed it from a service charge to an unauthorised overdraft. The fees actually seem to work out as MORE expensive than before though.

Barclays for instance charges so much for every 5 days you are within your 'reserve overdraft', (£30 I think). However cancelling that means they return all items when you don't have the money to pay them and charge £8 a time. Much cheaper than keeping the reserve.

As I understand it Lloyds continue to charge an excessive amount even if you cancel that unauthorised overdraft. My fiancee simply can't afford to pay with all these charges going out and the interest they charge.

I'm sure they're as illegal as the old system but no doubt because they've changed the name of it all it's legal now... I hope not.

I got a letter from them yesterday. I had offered them £40 towards the loan and overdraft but they said "Thank you or your letter expalining your circumstances. Having looked at the information we do not accept your offer and will continue to take the full amount and apply charges and interest". Or something along those lines (I don't have the letter with me).

What can I do under these circumstances? I have sent the £40 for this month, but every month they want to apply £215 in charges for the overdraft alone, and that doesn't include interest on the overdraft or loan.

What can I do next? There must be another option open to me.

I have not found a way of stopping these 'offsetting' payments from your account but have your tried calling and speaking with the 'customer care unit' 0800 389 8766, they tend to have some power with regards refunded excessive charges and should be slightly more understanding when you explain the situation to them, if not, they can raise a complaint and somebody from there 'charges' team shoudl look in to the charges and get back to you. Only other alternative other than waiting for your account to hit collections is to stop paying anything in and use a different non Lloyds account.

The thing is, I only opened a Lloyds account because I got a job in one of their companies. It was then sold to a private equity company which offshored my entire department and made me redundant.

I have asked them to cancel the standing order but they have refused. The only money that has gone into that account for the last 11 months is their payment, as I have another main account.

If I have asked them to cancel the standing order and they have refused, do I have a case for unfair terms, as they are manipulating my position to their advantage?

Hi, i have 2 accounts with overdrafts and they both went over cost me 165.00 per account which took me even further overdrawn could not pay back so next month went a further 165.00. delivered letter into bank and got the usual we feel these charges are fair wait for the courts to decide.

They did increase my overdraft to cover the charges but they are now charging me interest on the charges as well.

I have asked for CCA,S for these overdrafts and also one for a loan which i tooki out online?