Overdrawn! Twice!

And it’s not my fault, honest! Well, perhaps only for forgetting I’d already set a transaction up – but when faced with an account screen which tells me that no such transaction has been set up it’s kind of understandable that I went ahead and kicked another one off. My email to LLoydsTSB (which could make more sense but I was in a rush as a cybercafe in Rome):

I have noticed that I recently went overdrawn due to the information on my online banking page not being up to date. I checked my account around the 16th of the month as I wasn’t sure if I’d set up a transfer of cash to pay off a credit card. Upon looking at the “transfers and balances” page, there was no information regarding such a transfer so I set up another, moving money from one account to a different one and from that to the credit card.

I just checked my credit card statement today – I paid the bill *twice* as I *had* set up a one-off payment from the Lloyds account. The end result is I went overdrawn with both yourselves and the Nationwide as I had to get the cash onto the card quickly and the credit card is held with them.

Had the information on the online banking page been correct, I would not have found myself in this situation. At the time I looked, I can only assume that the money had been “reserved” in my account for a transaction I had set up for an earlier date (allowing for the 3-4 days these transfers take, which nobody can explain). At that date, as the transaction had commenced, the details were wiped from my Transfers and Payments list, but the money left in my account. There was therefore no indication that almost UK400 was due to drop out of my account. I then set up another transaction to move the sum to the Nationwide to cover the sum I thought I then had to move from there.

A week later I check and two debits have been made, my card has been paid twice (I’m now in credit on the thing) and I’m overdrawn with yourselves (which I didn’t expect) and with Nationwide (which I did, but as it turns out I didn’t need to be).

Had your system not deleted the details before the transaction was completed I would not have found myself in this situation. I should have still been comformatbly in credit. I have just started another transaction from my savings account to rectify this and am currently almost UK400 “out of pocket” as it’s sat on my credit card earning no interest.

As such, I would expect the least you could do would be to ensure I don’t incur any charges for that. At most, I would hope someone would look at your system to ensure that future transactions are not erased from view in the system until the money involved has actually *moved*.

I mean, we all know banks try to screw you by taking 3-4 days to shift money (unless you’re moving it between accounts within the same bank) but to start the movement off, leave the money where it is and then delete the visible record that such a transaction is taking place is bound to lead to confusion, isn’t it?

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Talia

Could be worse…I lost my purse last night. Ever tried ringing the bank with a hangover? Hold music is bad enough when you’re sober.

Mosh

Eek, not good. Hope you didn’t lose too much stuff. At least you can walk in and shout at them if you need to as well. I’m kinda stuck in another country…

Mind, I’m thinking of jacking my Lloyds account and shifting everything to Nationwide anyway. On the whole they’ve been much better anyway.

dcsun4

walk into a bank and shout at them? unlikely.

most banks are only open during Monday to Friday business hours… so if you happen to work those same hours and can’t get out of work at lunchtime you’re still screwed.

this happens to be a pet gripe of mine at the moment. I’ve decided to move somewhere that’s open saturdays and has better interest rates for savings… oh wait. that’s the Nationwide.

nice to know someone else likes them before I make the jump. 🙂

Mosh

They’re very good IMHO. I changed as they’re the only place that lets you get money out of foreign ATMs without charge, but their online banking, interest rates, low/non-existant charges, emailable staff who actually reply etc etc make them a very good deal indeed.

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