A deserved kick up the backside for Lloyds TSB

[firbeck 860]

My missus banked with Lloyds for years, opening an account when she was a kid.

When we got together we used Nationwide, as it was also our mortgage providers, it made sense. Just before we moved house a couple of years ago, she contacted Lloyds to tell them that as she no longer used her account with them, could she shut it down in order to prevent unnneccessary bank charges, no problem they said, and that was that, all agreed by letter, or so we thought.

Not long after that, the statements arrived showing increased interest on interest that was non existant, or so they said. Now Liz is no financial fool, thats what she does for a living, but constant phone calls and arguments with Lloyds produced no effect. At one point she was threatened and bullied by some evil b@st@rd that Lloyds cunningly employ in India. She went to see her former bank manager, she complained to Lloyds about her treatment, no avail, the charges kept building up.

Despite all her calls, letters, meetings and arguments, by last week, the charges had built up to over £1000, for a non existant bank account. She then recieved a letter saying that she either paid up or they were going to take her to court. In desperation she went on to the media financial adviser, Martin Lewis's website, downloaded his appropriate template, filled it in and sent it to them.

This morning we received a grovelling letter of apology from Lloyds, it's taken the b@st@rds 2 years to do that, we can only assume that they are so sh@t scared of Martin Lewis, who after all is the person behind the campaign to screw the evil banks over interest charges, that they realised that they couldn't bully Liz any more.

Moral of the story, whatever you know or do, the banks think they have you by the b@ll@cks, we hate them, they caused this economic downturn and still want to make profit out of it by ripping off the innocents, Martin Lewis wasn't my favourite person until today, but he clearly has the scumbags on the run, we need people like him around.

We're looking into excessive, unneccessary bank charges from Nationwide now.

[Limey 242]

I hear ya! Just changed banks myself - to one that is almost 100% online (they do have local branches). I had been with my old bank for 14 years - but the final straw was when they refused to accept a deposit made out to my business - despite the fact I had proof it was mine! They insisted I needed to open a business account - which would mean a $25 fee to deposit a $100 cheque!

New bank has no fees on checking, and no fees on savings provided I have $300 in the account. Prior bank wanted $2500 to avoid fees and even then their fees were more than double the new bank! It does pay to shop around!

But it isn't just banks - six years ago we moved to a new house. Closed the cable TV account and returned the cable box. Four years later, I get a letter from a collection agency claiming I owe the cable company $250. So I call the cable company. "Yes" they say, you still owe us that money. "How come you have never sent a bill" I say. "Thats odd" is the reply, "let me get the supervisor". Supervisor comes on the phone, I hear her typing feverishly on her computer and then she says "ummm.... actually, we owe you the money!" I asked if i could report them to the credit agency - she didn't laugh - but I did get the check! What a bunch of idiots!

[Beefsteak 305]

Nice birthday present Eric.......LOl

My stories re Banking :-

A few years back (Around 1990) I banked with 'The Midland' (Now part of HSBCC ) Unfortunately around this time I was made redundant by the R.A.C. I was on silly money at the time (Around £1000 a fortnight!!!) and we were due to go on a bit of a jaunt around Indonesia / Singapore/ Hong Kong etc. Now I always lived hand to mouth , never saved a penny , if I earnt £1000, I spent £1000 etc , and as I had no forseable income I new I would be short when I got back from the far east. I dropped into the bank and arranged a tempory overdraft, "Certainly sir" she said after looking at the ammounts I had deposited over the previous couple of years!! No problem so far........

I went on my holidays a week or so later , having withdrawn the last of my savings. I never touched my account after this point as my next job paid cash.

6 months or so later I got a letter from the bank telling me that my agreed overdraft period was over and could I repay the monies that I owed them.!! Unfortunately I was working away when this letter arrived and didn't get it till 5 days later in which time I had recieved a snotty letter from them telling me that as I hadn't paid them back they were now charging me £25 per letter!! which arrived every other day.

I managed to take a day off work and saw the manager (a certain Mr Bailey) and asked what the hell was going on (My bill with them was now nearly £300) he looked into my account and said that I was being charged for none payment of direct debits , I explained that i didn't have any (And never had had any!!) so he had another scramble for some thing , finally coming up with the 'Real' reason for the charges, I had been charged £10 as an authorised overdraft fee (Nobody had told me this !!) I had left £4. 80p in my account , so it worked out that they were charging me nearly £300 for being overdrawn by £5.20p !!!!!!!!

He agreed that this was "A bit steep" and he would cancel it all. I went back to work away for a few days again, to return to ,,,,,,,yup more bills from them !!! this time totaling £430.

I rang them to be told it would be 'sorted' only to get back another week later to find it was now £700, I had to take another day off work to make an appointment with the manager, only to find the b45t4rd had retired and not left details of my case for his replacement!! I refused to leave the office till it was sorted , to be told the police were on their way, cowardly 5h1t5, I left so as not to cause a scene .

It was never sorted and I ended up with a CCJ against my name, (Although it didn't show up when I applied for the mortgage or any subsiquent bank loans, although I had told the mortgage broker about it)

My other rant is a bit shorter!!

I got that rather large cheque through earlier this year and put it in my bank whist it cleared and we decided what to do with it . I got a statement from the bank (Yorkshire bank) with no interest on it. I rang to ask why not , to be told that they had stopped paying interest on current accounts for the foreseable future due to the financial climate!!!

" So you've had umpteen thousand pounds of my money which you have invested and no doubt made a lot of money with, and you haven't even had the decency to inform me that I'll be getting nothing from the deal.?????? Well thank you very much indeed"

I'm no longer with them !!!

[meeowed 314]

I have just been to pay my credit card bill at my local nat west only to be told i must pay it cash or wait for a bank employee to deal with it after waiting ten minutes with no sign of anyone i gave up  That will be another customer they have lost I am looking for a new bank appalling service meeowed