LTSB over-limit charges

[2Grumpy]

My son says that he doesn't get advance notification of interest being taken from his account. If he doesn't have enough in the account, he gets an over-limit charge as well.

 

Because he doesn't get advance notification, can he claim that's a breach of the banking code and potentially reclaim his charges relatively easily?

[big blue one]

whats the account called?

 

does he receive monthly statements?

 

do they have his correct address?

[2Grumpy]

Will check if they have his current address - I forgot that he moved at the beginning of term!

[big blue one]

that may be ur answer then?

[davethorp]

Lloyds TSB in my experience do provide notice of charges on the monthly statements so chances are they were notified.

 

In my experience only Natwest and RBS that I can recall violate the banking code by failing to give notice and I'm probably about to test the water on that one myself with the new consumer regulations

[big blue one]

ltsb tell you in two ways, at the bottom of your statement and on a letter if they are 'unplanned' od fees.

[2Grumpy]

Have spoken to my son

 

It is a student account but he has negotiated a higher overdraft limit. The first part is free as per a normal student account but he is charged interest the extra bit

 

The bank does have his adress & he does get his statements ok

 

The statements don't have any notes about future interest to be taken and he doesn't get any letters telling him either

[big blue one]

at the bottom of the last page of the statement there will/should be a section saying 'charges for period **/**/**** to **/**/****' then 'charges will be debited on 01/**/****'

 

no?

[2Grumpy]

My son had a cheque bounce. It had appeared on his balance but was reversed the next day. LTSB did it twice, leaving son over his overdraft limit & unable to withdraw money. He went to the closest branch - to be told it would take 5 days for their service centre to put this right.

 

Son phoned me from outside the bank - no reception inside - I got him to get the manager to talk to me. She said that he had got all the money out of his account that he would have been able to, so there was no problem. I was going to put some money in over the weekend so of course there was!

 

I managed to get 'your problem', 'banking code' and 'fix it today' into the same sentence and after another visit from my son, it happened.

 

I was outraged that they had such an attitude - 5 days to fix their own mistake.

 

No doubt they will try charging him for the rubber cheque and ignore all the trouble that they managed to cause.

[big blue one]

u really need to re-explain this, its not clear exactly what happened to me? or i'm thick?

[yourbank]

I think what you are saying is that the cheque was bounced, and so what had been credited to the account had to be debited and was done twice, right?

I have to say that I am surprised it would take them so long because they should have been able to correct this within 24 hours.......very strange. Was the check represented or was it a straight stop, ie Refer to Drawer?

[2Grumpy]

You are correct yourbank, it was a straight stop and they debited it twice.

 

I was most surprised - it wasn't as if there was a transfer that had been done twice, so there wasn't any money for them to chase back.

 

Son hasn't got the cheque back.

 

They just didn't want to do anything in the branch. Their attitude was that he didn't have any more money in the account so it didn't matter. I had to explain that I would be putting more money in so that he didn't starve so of course it mattered!

 

In the end the branchy put cash in to cover it but not before the branch closed which is what they had promised.

[yourbank]

The branch should have done more to have resolved this situation, which is unusual but does happen.

[2Grumpy]

I've just found out that the cheque didn't bounce - it was "lost in the clearing process"

 

Letter on its way to ask how etc

 

This makes their (in)action above even worse

 

If this had bounced they would have charged me £40 or so.

 

I am wondering how much I should be asking for from them.

 

At the moment I don't know who lost the cheque - ltsb, the other bank or someone else e.g. a courier

 

Any suggestions?

[2Grumpy]

Also I have to get a replacement cheque - but I have been told that there is a backlog of cheques waiting to be printed ...

[yourbank]

So it was returned ie debited from the account because it was, what is called, "lost in the course of clearing"?

[2Grumpy]

Debited once - because the other bank could not ensure the authenticity of the cheque because it was lost

 

and again because ltsb thought it was so good that they would do it twice (attempted humour that isn't really going to work!)

[2Grumpy]

While I was inside Lloyds dropping off a complaint or 2 I saw a hand-written sign:

 

Do you have a will?

Do you have a funeral plan?

If not you need to talk to our adviser ...

 

I thought that they had to be more circumspect with adverts for financial & legal services. There were no disclaimers or anything. I enquired and was told that I would get advice & a leaflet offering their services, but by then they had realised that I was more interested in the legalities of the ad thnn what they were saying (especially when I took a photo of it!)

 

Should I be reporting them to TS, FSA or anyone?

 

Will try to add a photo later ....

 

Grumpy

[barracad]

Were there any support materials (e.g. leaflets) readily available? If so, then I think they can get away with it - otherwise it may be in breach of the CAP code and a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority may be in order.

 

The parts I think are most relevant are as follows:

 

53.2 Offers of financial products should be set out in a way that allows them to be understood easily by the audience being addressed. Marketers should ensure that they do not take advantage of people's inexperience or credulity.

 

53.3 Marketing communications should state the nature of the contract being offered, any limitations, expenses, penalties and charges and the terms of withdrawal. Alternatively, if a marketing communication is short or general in its content, free explanatory material giving full details of the offer should be readily available before a binding contract is entered into.

 

53.6 Marketing communications should make clear that past performance or experience does not necessarily give a guide for the future. Any examples used should not be unrepresentative.

 

This is purely based on the CAP code from the ASA. In addition to this, they also need to take into account the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005, which are both enforced by the FSA... however I'm not sure of the full contents of these so I'm afraid you'll have to look that up yourself!

[2Grumpy]

Thanks Barracad

 

That's helped somewhat. I was also thinking along the lines that they would only be offering their own products rather than giving a choice but not saying so. I suppose that could be in the Financial Services stuff you mentioned. When I get a chance I will go searching

 

As it was aimed mainly at the elderly I suppose that it was probably trying to be helpful, I know that my mum got a funeral plan, got one with the local undertaker who she wants to be buried by! I don't think that people would shop around much for one. It was also the compulsion bit that bothered me ...

[2Grumpy]

This is an involved case!

 

My son was charged for "Privacy Guard" - a monthly direct debit. LTSB said they sold it to him over the phone, he said not. He should have received some forms about it - but he didn't.

 

After a few months he went over his overdraft limit (by less than the total of the DDs)

 

When I heard about it I demanded a refuind of the DDs and charges incurred - cited the distance selling regs.

 

TSB refunded the DDs, not the charges. Meanwhile, my son incurred more charges - always over his limit by less than the cumulative charges due to the privacy guard DDs.

 

A few months passed, more stuff happened in the bank account that required more refunds from TSB - but again incurring charges because of their errors (they lost a cheque that he had paid in and were so pleased that they could claim it back they did it twice).

 

More months passed and my son became unemployed. His first unemployment benefit was paid into his account in December. By that time, the charges on charges had mounted up to nearly £900, he was well over his overdraft limit and couldn't access his benefits. [problem] sent a nice letter too. that got a short answer - didn't hear any more.

 

I wrote to the bank telling them that he wanted his benefits. They wrote back saying pay your overdraft.

 

He then logged on to his online banking & I looked at his statements & discovered all about the charges. I wrote saying that he wanted the charges refunded where he had been overcharged, plus the interest that he had been overcharged. The bank wrote back saying that chrges refunds had to wait until the test case was over, and there was no way that they would refund interest!

 

Now they have taken away his online access, closed the account (I discovered this over the phone, they haven't written to say so) and sent a letter asking if he would like to make a payment towards his overdraft.

 

They were also calling my son on his mobile until I stopped that. He has a few mental health issues that the phone calls made much worse. I'm not sure whether he actually answered any of them or if he kept on rejecting them.

 

Meanwhile, with the wonderful setup at LTSB where every department is an island and no two ever speak to each other, it looks as though nothing is happening at the moment.

 

I would prefer to talk to some-one who could sort this out quickly at the bank rather than just keep on sending letters that they say they will get round to but never do, and don't even read properly anyway.

 

Does anyone have any ideas for getting them to move quickly.

 

Failing that, does anyone have any good ideas for getting it sorted at all.

 

Taking them to court isn't really an option - son wouldn't be up to it.

 

Grumpy

[Bazooka Boo]

Ok firstly you could try sending them, or delivering by hand a 'Right of Appropriation' letter. This "may" stop the bank from taking your sons benefits.

 

Have you followed the banks own complaints procedure? If not you need to start the process ASAP, because if you haven't use it then other outside agencies will be unwilling to look into your complaint.

3 Months is normally the norm in giving companies or organisations time in which to deal with a complaint satisfactorily.

 

As for claiming back the bank charges, this needs to be done ASAP, regardless of what Lloyds say, you need to get it in now so that at least the claim will be in the pipeline, waiting for the outcome.

Bank Charges templates:

 

Financial Ombudsman:

[BankFodder]

I think that you should put it all into the hands of the courts.

 

The solution suggested by Bazooka is a sensible way to go if the bank would engage in dialogue - but they won't. The egencies referes to the FOS and there are waiting lists of over a year. Forget it.

 

I suggest that you put in an SAR so that you can get full details of the account including all the data which they have on the privacy guard sale.

By the way, how old is your son?

 

Once you have assembled all of the info, let's hear what you've got and we'll see if we can construct a case.

If you can get some good evidence that the privacy guard was not sold then I think that youwill be able to threaten the bank with some real damage. It could be difficult to get this evidence, though.

How old is your son?

[BankFodder]

By the way, the letter of appropriation is good advice - although they will be reluctant to act on it.

 

Lloyds are really quite a nasty bunch.

I bank with them and have done for 30yrs.

 

In 2005 they threatened me and my family over £150 charges. It was that incident which lead to the setting up of this forum and then the entire bank charges revolution including the test case which is currently in the House of Lords.

 

Well done Lloyds. I hope that you are enjoying the ride. It's not over yet.

[cerberusalert]

Has he been in touch with the DWP about this, I understood it that banks cannot take benefit payments.