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My wife has had an account with the A&L for some time now (about 5 years) which until last year she only used for receiving child benefit payments.
At the advice of A&L she changed it last year to a current account.
She has always managed this account and previous accounts carefully and was mortified to find out earlier this month that she went overdrawn by £16.
This is the first time this has happened and was considerably upset by the whole business.
The bank refused to refund the £50 charges.
Its not alot in the scheme of things I know, its the principle.
I think considering the time that she has been with the bank and had no other 'breaches', she has been treated appallingly.
I contacted them by phone and was promised a reply which never came!,consequently I sent them a request for payment/reversal of charges from the template library dated 15/11/06
Their response received today was quite frankly astounding!, as follows:
Reference: VCD92/UNFAIR
I have noted your comments that you believe the charges that have been raised on your account to be unfair,please be assured our charges are reasonable and are competitive with the charges made by other financial organisations.
The OFT has commented that they consider the level of late payment charges to be unfair, however they were actually referring to late payment fees for credit card payments, which are quite distinct from a banks charges on current accounts.
As yet the OFT haver not entered into any discussions with the banking industry regarding current accounts. however, should that position change in the future, the A&L will participate as appropriate.
Given the above, I cannot accept you have been unfairly charges as you suggest.I regret, therefore that I am unable to agree to your request fort a refund of those charges on this occasion.
I am sorry if you are disappointed with my response, but as the charges have been raised correctly in line with the terms and conditions of your account, they must stand.
************************* ************************* *
My response to this would be as follows, but I am not sure my wife has the stomach for this. IS IT WORTH IT ?
I am receipt of your letter dated 17th November and note its inaccuracies.
The high level of charges levied, as reported by the OFT refer to credit card and current accounts alike. .
As I stated in my previous letter of the 15th November, the regime of 'fees' which you have applied to my account in relation to direct debit refusals, exceeding overdraft limits and so forth are unlawful at Common Law, Statute and recent Consumer regulations.
In my letter of the 15th November I requested that you demonstrate these penalties by letting me have a full Breakdown of the costs, as a result of my breaches, in order to reassure me that your penalties really do reflect your costs, which you have failed to do.
I would draw your attention to the terms of the contract which you agreed to at the time that I opened my account. It is an implied term of that contract that you would conduct yourselves lawfully and in a manner which complies with UK law.
I calculate that you have taken £50, excluding any interest as a result of those charges.
I require repayment in full of this money.
If you do not comply fully within 14 days then I shall begin a claim against you for the full amount plus interest plus my costs and without further notice.
************************* ************************* *****************
Advice would be appreciated, I know its within our rights, but at what cost?
HSBC
7th October 2006 - Prelim for £3078
24th October - LBA
7th November - Claim filed
11th November - Acknowledged with intent to defend
11th December - Defence filed
16th December 2006 - Offered full amount but no default removal. Rejection letter sent.
Halifax
7th October 2006 - Prelim for £3427
24th October - LBA
3rd November - Offered £913
3rd November - Accepted as partial payment
7th November - Claim issued
21st November - Acknowledged with intent to defend
11th December - Offered full amount but no late payment removal
4th January - SETTLED + removed adverse credit info
A & L
19th October - Prelim for £540
26th October - Offered £358
2nd November - Accepted as partial payment and LBA
27th November - SETTLED + removed adverse credit info
this is a standard response from A&L i bet it was astandard letter from customer services , i had a number of these before I started my claim however,the reply to my moneyclaim was for the first time acknowledged by a Jackie McGuirk a solicitor with the Litigation Team. They will continue to send you standard computor generated replies stating that they are acting fairly and in the terms of the account contract until such time that you issue the moneyclaim against them. Go for it claim the charges back and don't forget to include the 8% interest you can claim against the charges incurred. Good luck keep plugging away don't get fobbed off by them
My response to this would be as follows, but I am not sure my wife has the stomach for this. IS IT WORTH IT ?
Tony
This is your wife's account, your wife's money, and only if she so wishes is it her fight.
This is not a stroll in the park. You are considering taking a bank to court. Court action is not to be undertaken lightly.
You have seen that A&L are not exactly friendly in their responses to complaints re charges. Do you want to expose her to more correspondence of this ilk? Does your wife want her account closed in retaliation to a claim?
Much as I agree with your desire to protect your wife, you must leave the decision on claiming to her. Do not push her if she decides she doesn't "have the stomach" for it; perhaps she may change her mind at some date in the future, in which case you have lost nothing but a little time.
Yes, it is "her money", but it is also her peace of mind!
Since my lba, they have refunded one charge of £25, of the £50 initially charged.(levied at the end of the month)
But because the charges (of £50) put the account overdrawn (in the following month(before the £25 was refunded))a further charge of £25 has been levied.
When I phoned and pointed out that the third charge would not have occured if they had not leveid the first two, I was told that I had been given two weeks notice of the prevoius charges in which to make sure there where sufficent funds in the account.....(to pay thier charges)
I phoned again and asked which charge had been refunded, significantly, if it was a charge levied the month previous, the account would not be in arrears, making the third charge invalid?
None of my questions where met!
The time has passed for court action, but I have delayed further action as we have no written proof of all the charges to date.
Will a phone call be sufficent..or shall I wait for a stat:-?:-?ement at the end of the month before filing a claim?
Don't be put off tonyevic.
You are right - it IS the principle. However, I don't understand your comment : The time has passed for court action-
You can claim for any charges up to 6 years back.
DO read the Step-by-Step procedure on this site and ask for access to Internet Banking, then see the charges A&L applied. I wouldn't use the telephone as you have no written proof of what was said.
Should I send them a letter requesting that they close the account?
ALLIANCE & LEICESTER
PERSONAL CUSTOMER SERVICES
BOOTLE
MERSEYSIDE
G1R 0AA
REQUEST TO CLOSE ACCOUNT
Dear Sir/Madam,
ACCOUNT NUMBER SORT CODE:
following your lack of positive action to resolve the dispute regarding the unlawful charges which have been levied to my account and the manner in which your customers services responded to my phone call on the 14/12/2006 I have no further wish to bank with you, therefore take this as notice that I wish you to close my account. Frankly, I’m shocked by the way you have managed my account and consider you unfit to hold a consumer credit licence.
There will be no further transactions on this account, deposits or withdrawals Any further charges levied on this account or defaults issued as a result, by you will be dealt with through the courts.
A & L were continually in denial with my claim throughout, right up until I issued them with my moneyclaim. They initially responded saying they would defend the claim then within the 28 days that they were required to provide a defence they settled in full saying that having reveiwed my claim and enclosed a cheque for £938.00. So stick with it your nearly there and just remember that they do not want to defend their actions in court because they they know that it is difficult for them to justify the way they have managed customers accounts. Best of luck
Just to wholeheartedly echo the above post from neathboy2.
Don't stop now - also, your interest of 0.02p seems incorrect at 8%.
Should be more.
Courage as we scale the glass mountain
I agree with ampersand the interest at 8% looks wrong surely its more than 0.2p.Have another look at it you don't want to under claim what your entitled to.
Ive checked the interest again (8p) but as the charges were only levied on 23.11.06 and again due on 23/12/06 (yes you did read that as 23/12/06)
the interest is negliiable!
Believe you me.....if I could sting the *#^$~>? for more I would, given the way they treated my wife... they made me
Ps
should I send them the letter to close the account?
(after withdrawing the £5.16 in credit first)
I reckon they wont close it beacuse of the impending charges due on the 23.12.06...
They didn't close mine until a couple of weeks after they paid out so you have time to get in first and close it. I can't believe they are allowing court claims to go ahead for these sorts of amounts, don't think the courts will be too chuffed either.
Its your decision whether you close the account or not at this stage but if you do they will probabley try for the impending bank charges first before allowing you to close it. They've told me after my claim that they will contact me to discuss my future with them so I'm waitng for them to give me notice to quit which they seem to be doing to most people who reclaim. So the upshot is that they will probabley close the account anyway after the claim has been settled.
I am waiting for my letter from A & L regarding closing our account, I deposited my refund cheque to day and the kind lady at Natwest treid to talk me into depositing iti n a an ISA, i just said thanks, but no thanks. i have plans for that money. Oh to make life more interesting they added another lot of £64.00 plus interest, so guess it is to court we go again. they never learn.
Go on try and close it and see what they do. If they add more charges, before they let you close it, you will get those charges back with a little bit of interest.
I just wrote them a letter declining my permission for them to deduct any more charges out of my account, they sent the usual, our charges are lawful letter, the promptly refunded the charges before closing my account - doddle!
My Wife v A& L
/UNFAIR
of your account, they must stand.
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