Sledge vs A&L: This time it's war.

[TheSledge]

Hello. Bit of background.

 

Had all my savings, my mortgage and current account with A&L. Although I thought their web interface sucked, I stuck with them for 5 years. Occasionally (normally when changing jobs and therefore my pay day moved, hence mismatching my cashflows) I would go into unforseen overdraft and incur those £25 charges (normally in bundles of 3 or 4 at a time such as when all the utilities go out - £25 charges per £20 debit - pretty crap). I would call and get half of them back most times. I always thought they were a rip off and after the recent publicity I know my thoughts were well justified. So when it happened again I asked to close my account. They tried to offer me half back again, but I said no, actually your website sucks, you don't have offset mortages and basically I don't like the cut of your jib. I asked then to take whatever I owed and transfer the rest to my new bank account, and then close the account. They did this, though despite knowing a charge was about to hit my account didn't allow for this and so when they cleared my account and this new charge arrived I was hit for another unauthorised overdraft charge (£25 for the payment and £25 for the overdraft incursion). So now my account couldn't be closed. So I went to the branch, asked how much to pay - they said £50 -I paid in used unmarked tenners. Job done I thought.

 

But my account still remained open strangely. Then they debited the overdraft interest - a matter of pennies, and thus hit me with £25 of new charges. At this point I got angry. I deposited one hundred pounds of cash and called them to say I wanted my statements since I intended to sue. Didn't hear back, until I received a cheque from them for the amount of cash left in my account, but minus ANOTHER £25 for unauthorised OD and a note saying account closed.

 

Pretty miffed, made several calls, all sorts of promises to refund the charge, but nothing happened. Sent the first letter asking for my statements with a cheque for £10 - and yesterday received the cheque back along with a BLANK compliments slip. So no idea what they're doing or why they sent the cheque back.

 

Called their group complaints line, got a nice woman who said she'd call them and sort it. She called back in a few hours and said it was being handled. Obviously I only have her word for that...

 

So here I am - all sorts of lies, and plainly poor customer service later. As it happens I work in investment and am an approved person (i.e. approved by the FSA to conduct investment business etc) and I can say that they have broken many of the Conduct of Business rules when it comes to dealing with what the FSA term "private customers" - i.e. Joe Public.

 

I'm appalled that they would not acknowledge my letter but instead just sent my cheque back with no note whatsoever. If I did that to a client, I would a) not see him again and b) get fired. A clear violation of the rule (#7) called "Customer Communications" which states that all communication should be clear, and not misleading. They have also lied on several occasions when they said they would repay the ludicrous charges occured due do them not closing my account correctly, and asking for the wrong settlement amounts. Needless to say lying to a customer violates several COBs and generally leads to public mistrust - public trust in the financial system is listed as one of the 4 statutory goals of the FSA.

 

Anyway, for any who have read thus far - what is next - do I actually need to send a registered letter requesting statements to prevent the completely unprofessional conduct that occurs when they ignore letters and lie about receving them? Seems amazing - imagine if other businesses and professions behaved in this manner. Oh well. I would love to take guys all the way to court and do them for lying to and misleading customers. But at this stage it'd be nice to stick it to them on a public forum and get some cash out of them!

[Guest Niklowe]

Did you send the letter asking for alist of charges as an SAR under the DPA. If you didn'e specify that then they can take as lomg as they think they can stall you.

 

If not send them this adjusted for your circumstances

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bank-templates-library/516-1-data-protection-act.html

[TheSledge]

Cheers mate - yep I sent the form SAR letter under provisions of DPA 1998. Guess this is just one of the many ways they can stall you - it seems, after reading all the threads that their responses are gradually evolving. They know they have to pay up and it seems on small claims they do before court (since the court costs are disproportinate to what they would save) - otherwise they are playing the odds game - even if 1/10 people get cold feet or lazy then it's worth them playing this drawn out endgame - so unprofessional, but unfortunately, so expected by financial services firms in the UK currently - but God help a poor doctor or teacher who behaves slightly unprofessionally, they get their ass sent back to them in a sling. One law for the workers, another for the money men. Same old.

[Josamolly]

I'll get this thread moved to the A+L forum... you will get loads more help in there..

 

Jos