Advantages: telephone banking Disadvantages: low skilled unhelpful service
I had left LloydsTSB just over 12months ago due to issues with bank charges and I thought I would join A&L due to the plethora of paper mail I had recieved from them.
Firstly they supplied me with a VisaDebit Electron card which is not widely welcomes - motorway stations, rail stations etc do not accept them and of course most online transactions failed with them.
After a while I was offered a premium account which I neglected to take them up on. The problems arised as soon as my account went over drawn at any time. There is no consistency with what payments they will make to put you over drawn. For example a few bills where paid which put me overdrawn -£220 but then the following month my mortgage payment would have taken me over -£30 which they bounced. They are of course charging you £25 for a so called review which is a blatent ...
So far - so good!
Alliance & Leicester Premier Current Account
I decided that it was about time I looked around to see if I could get a better deal from my bank, having spent 20+ years with the same major player, more out of apathy than loyalty.
I did a bit of research and found that I could open the Alliance and Leicester Premier Current Account on-line and if I used their Premier Switching service to move my direct debits and standing orders, they would match my overdraft limit with my current bank, subject to certain conditions, give me a minimum overdraft of £250 and not charge me any fees for going over my overdraft limit during the switching period.
Additional benefits are £100 for opening my account, FREE European annual multi-trip travel insurance(for eligible account holders up to the age of 65) and a linked Plus ...
Advantages: Limited protected against going overdrawn in certain cases (one transaction per 3-5 day rolling period) Disadvantages: MIsleading false sense of not being able to go overdrawn
It is possible to go overdrawn even if just using a Visa Electon debitcard alone.
There is a popular misconception that as payments made in shops and on websites with Visa Electron debitcard are checked with bank to see if there are sufficient account funds, that one can't go overdrawn if one just uses Visa Electron, but one can, as unlike withdrawing cash from a ATM the amount is not debited from the account straight away but takes 3 to 5 days, so one can make multiple payments with a check being against only balance that does not include the other payments. This was not clear to me, and on that card I was unable to check my balance as it did not work in ATMs or at Post Office, only for debit payment at shops, but that is another story. I found this all this to my cost in unauthorized bank charges which I can ill afford and I will ...
blissett 31.07.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of VISA Electron
