A & L New Terms

[ladykenco]

On the 21st Sep this was released

 

Alliance & Leicester recently decided to abolish overdraft interest rates on its Premier Direct and Premier Current accounts. But overdrafts won't be free. A&L will instead charge 50p a day, capped at £5 a month, for authorised borrowing. If you go over the overdraft limit, the charge jumps to £5 a day. There is also a £25 charge for unpaid direct debits and bounced cheques, although this is lower than the previous £34.

Andy Bayes, head of current accounts at A&L, says: "The changes mean that customers using their agreed overdraft will never pay more than £5 a month, regardless of the amount they are overdrawn or the number of days - and very many will pay less.

However, research by uSwitch.com shows that an authorised overdraft could cost customers up to £5 a month, or £60 a year. That's equivalent to an overdraft interest rate of 6.15%, which is slightly higher than the previous rate on the Premier Direct Account of 5.9%.

Overdraft interest charges scrapped

Sep 21, 2007

Alliance & Leicester has announced it is scrapping interest charges on overdrafts and replacing them with a daily fee for people who go into the red.

The group said it was the first UK bank to abolish overdraft interest for all its customers.

Instead of being charged overdraft interest of 5.9% or 7.9% and an overdraft arrangement fee, A&L customers who have an authorised overdraft will pay a daily charge of 50p, capped at £5 a month.[

The bank said changes, which are being introduced from October 22, meant no one would ever pay more than £5 a month for an agreed overdraft, regardless of how overdrawn they were or how many days they used the facility.

Customers who stay in the black will not be charged anything to run their current account. But people who breach their credit limit or who have an unauthorised overdraft will face stiffer penalties of £5 a day, with no limit on the amount they can be charged in a month, compared with its previous charge of £25 on day one, followed by a second £25 charge five days later if they were still over their limit.

The group is also scrapping its current charges of £25 for payments which are made while someone has an unauthorised overdraft and £34 if payments are bounced. Instead people will have payments of less than £10 processed free, while they will incur a penalty charge of £25 for every payment above this amount that goes out of their account.

The group, which is the latest high street bank to change its overdraft charges, said the move had been prompted by the current High Court test case between a number of banks and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) over unauthorised overdraft charges.

Andy Bayes, head of current accounts at A&L, said: "Alliance & Leicester is committed to offering free banking for customers who stay in credit - our research confirms that 94% of people agree that having a bank account should be free.

But he added that the research showed that 81% of people thought that if banking was free, it was fair that customers had to pay when they went overdrawn.

The bank found that there was a lot of confusion surrounding overdraft rates, with 62% of people with an overdraft not knowing the rate they were charged, while those who thought they knew, massively underestimated it.

 

Today after logging into my internet banking I see I have charges to pay for between 17th Oct - 16th Nov of £25, after looking through my statement yes I was overdrawn on 5th Nov by £5, So I rang them to be told that b'cos my statements are drawn on the 17th of every month there has not been the 30 days since that date before I was overdrawn so I have to still pay the £25 not the £5 per day...I did have a go stating that they said 22nd of October and I was not o/d till the 5th November but they are saying that you have to be 30 days after your statement date before the £5 a day comes in to play. What utter rubbish!

I am fuming and cannot wait until this court case finishes, I have every confidence that it will go in our favour then we can all claim what is rightfully ours!

Anyone else had this problem??? Would be interested in what you have been told.

[ladykenco]

Ok after reading through this site throughout the day, spending at least 5 hours reading LOL

I now plan on starting a claim, even with the Test Case looming should I start now?

Also is there an act or something I can state when they take their charges and make me overdrawn? I know its classed as unauthorised lending and is illegal without an agreement. Also I have an online account with no paper statements, I have got my list of charges so no probs there straight to Prelim letter......Anyway when you have a non paper statement account do they still have to write and advise you of charges being made on your account? They havent done this, I have only found out once logging into my account and viewing charges etc..

Thankyou for any help you can give.....

[ladykenco]

Anyone help?