Arrrgghh! Banks

Is it me or are they just take take take.

I am not a happy bunny today as I have been charged by my bank in relation to a standing order on the 1st going out and the funds not being there.
However I check my online banking and the funds are showing there by something called ' CHAPS'????? Usually my place of work pay me by BACS.

So a quick call to my branch and the bloke is not in the least bit interested.
Apparantly the timings missed each other so hard luck!

They try and get me to re-finance my loan every time I set foot inside the place when sorting out my affairs, to wish I keep telling them I'm not interested but it doesn't sink in.

And I also getting charged monthly for some super duper account that offers a wide range of offers, none of which are prevailant to me. And they get all cagey when I try and cancel it.

Despite being a loyal good customer for best part of ten years and no prioir problems, they treat me like an idiot.

Rant Over, thanks for reading if you made it this far!

[G]

Why pay for an account that your not using the benefits of.

Swap to Alliance & Leicesters Premier account today, its free and you get the option to open a 12% interest savings account for a year.

As for the charges, I normally say dont use money thats not yours if you dont want to be charge for the pleasure, and normally i have no sympathy for people who cant keep track of their money and outgoings but on this occasions its seems abit shady of the bank. Although it would perhaps be worth your while changing the date of your standing order by a couple of days if it is so close to your pay day.

With regards to bank charges, Alliance & Leicester do bank charges differently, rather than charging you a wacking great ?25 or whatever, they charge you 0.50p a day which is a maximum of ?5 a month if you are forever in you overdraft.

[Luckypants]

If you owe them no money, take your business elsewhere. Easy to do, your new bank will arrange for all standing orders and direct debits to be transferred to your new account.

As far as the charges go, your company for some reason has missed the BACS deadline and so tried to make sure you got paid on time by using CHAPS that transfers money immediately. This was not in time to avoid you incurring bank charges, so they (your company) should reimburse you these charges as these were a direct consequence of their late payment.

I quite agree with you and share the frustration/sense of impotent anger.

It's not just banks either. Any company, be it banks, telecoms, solicitors, insurance, you name it, seem to do the absolute minimum they can to help you, they'll shaft you for money, be on your case if a single payment is missed and threaten to bring in the bailiffs. Try getting them to answer a straight question? Pfft, waste of time, you just get knocked from pillar to post in the call centre where no-one has the authority or knowledge to deal with your problem.

Worst thing is? They all seem as bad as each other so I can't see a solution unless you want to keep your cash under the matress.

After speaking to a few people at work, they have also fallen foul of the charges too.

It turns out our boss didn't make the payments on time and thus tried to do it on the day. I am slightly annoyed that my bank is unsympathetic despite having no history of this before. I thought they were supposed to treat you on merit and have a personal touch, after all your giving them your money to hold.

Instead I am lablled in the same group as those who default on their payments. I will certainly arrange my S/O for a later date.

Problem now is my boss isn't concerned about us being charged as technically we were paid on the date albeit many hours late than expected.

Dan you're boss SHOULD have informed you of the late payments so that you could at least give your bank notice.

I've just had similar - agency not paid me for weeks, and in the midst of trying to sort that out, contacted my bank who said basically, "Thanks, but don't expect us to cover any further DD's or SO's on your account, and you may still be charged.".
Thanks HSBC - very kind of you (to$$ers).

Thankfully, they did honour a few DD's and SO's, as (I'm hoping!) they could see a history of regular payments.

Oh and LuckyPants - sometimes it's not quite so easy to take your business elsewhere if you have "adverse credit history" ... I've been refused a SAVINGS account on that basis before now!?! WTF?
"So let me get this straight ... I want to GIVE you money to store for me, with no credit facilities, no cheque book, no debit card, and a 90-day withdrawal notice, and you can't open such an account because I have an "adverse credit history"??? Fine I'll take my business elsewhere" ... and I did ... I took it to The Abbey who laughed and said "yeah we get a lot of custom that way"

Dan as others have said, change the date of your DD's and SO's to be a few days after pay day (made no difference in my case as my pay was WEEKS late going in).

Originally Posted by MeridiaNx

It's not just banks either. Any company, be it ... solicitors ... you name it, seem to do the absolute minimum they can to help you, they'll shaft you for money. ... Try getting them to answer a straight question? Pfft, waste of time, you just get knocked from pillar to post in the call centre where no-one has the authority or knowledge to deal with your problem.

We're not all bad y'know

my g/f has just been handed ?29000 inheritance off her dad (he,s not dead)was given to her as her brother and sister got theirs years ago and it was invested into a cheap house each for them to do up(so no mortgage for them).The problem here is because it,s been given to her as cash if she wants it in one lump sum she will only get ?15000 and the rest will go on inheritance tax.

Have to say we think this is scandolous as her dad worked hard all his life and has already paid tax on this money.The only way around this is for her to draw ?3000 from the account each year for the next 10 years to get the full amount,which is a bummer if she wanted to buy something which would cost more,..............no not a new bike for me,but i would,nt complain

No wonder some people keep their life savings stashed away under the matress it,s to stop banks and building societys ripping them off

Originally Posted by sv-robo

my g/f has just been handed ?29000 inheritance off her dad (he,s not dead)was given to her as her brother and sister got theirs years ago and it was invested into a cheap house each for them to do up(so no mortgage for them).The problem here is because it,s been given to her as cash if she wants it in one lump sum she will only get ?15000 and the rest will go on inheritance tax.

Have to say we think this is scandolous as her dad worked hard all his life and has already paid tax on this money.The only way around this is for her to draw ?3000 from the account each year for the next 10 years to get the full amount,which is a bummer if she wanted to buy something which would cost more,..............no not a new bike for me,but i would,nt complain

No wonder some people keep their life savings stashed away under the matress it,s to stop banks and building societys ripping them off

Sorry to derail but this is nothing to do with the bank, surely?

Blame friend Brown. John Major's vision of 'wealth cascading through the generations' was rather abruptly stopped in its tracks by New Labour.

Sorry. Back on track, banks are rip-off merchants...

[Gazza77]

Originally Posted by sv-robo

my g/f has just been handed ?29000 inheritance off her dad (he,s not dead)was given to her as her brother and sister got theirs years ago and it was invested into a cheap house each for them to do up(so no mortgage for them).The problem here is because it,s been given to her as cash if she wants it in one lump sum she will only get ?15000 and the rest will go on inheritance tax.

Not if he lives for at least 7 years she won't, and the taxable amount reduces on a sliding scale over that time period. Has he some sort of terminal disease, or is he likely to live for longer than 7 years?