Well having banked with one of the major banks for a very long time I decided to look around to see if there was any other banking facilities where I would be better off.
I had seen the Alliance and Leicester Premier Account and thought that it looked very competitive and that could be worth making the switch. How WRONG was I !!
I applied over the telephone and was told that everything was ok and ready to roll. Just one stipulation was that in order to match my current over draft facility (£2000) I would need to send a copy of ONE of my current bank statements. No problem I though as my overdraft facility was balanced at zero anyway. The account was processed within minutes. I chose not to take the credit card that comes with the account as I didn't want one.
Once all the information had come through (on a Saturday) I ...
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 ...
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
