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Depends on the individual. I wouldn't touch HBOS or the Clydesdale with a bargepole - Clydesdale because of the amount of rural banks they closed and HBOS because of the amount of machines they converted into fee paying ones.

I've never had any problems with Lloyds TSB - they give me a generous overdraft' date=' they don't charge you 30 for going over your limit within the first 10 and they've waived the fee in the past when I accidentally managed to have no money in my account when a direct debit was due to come off. Their telephone/internet banking is superb on top. Other people's mileage may vary, though, especially as they're one of the big banks.[/quote']

Is this the account where you pay them 7 a month?

Seems a bit daft paying them what is effectively the same as going over your limit 3 times a year when you've only went over it once in your life.

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Is this the account where you pay them 7 a month?

Seems a bit daft paying them what is effectively the same as going over your limit 3 times a year when you've only went over it once in your life.

there will usually be other more or less benefitial extras to that account such as no commission charges, reduced travel insurance, gift vouchers and a whole lot of discounts. but i deem them quite pointless to be honest. it's just meant as a purchase incentive for the customer, and if you find any use for it... fantastic!

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Guest Jake Wifebeater

I've never had any problems with Lloyds TSB - they give me a generous overdraft' date=' they don't charge you 30 for going over your limit within the first 10 and they've waived the fee in the past when I accidentally managed to have no money in my account when a direct debit was due to come off. Their telephone/internet banking is superb on top. Other people's mileage may vary, though, especially as they're one of the big banks.[/quote']

Have to agree on this one, Lloyds TSB have never given me any gip at all in 12 years. Staying 2 minutes walk from the branch helps as well.

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My bank card got swallowed today, booooooo. I had great fun listening to some awful music on hold to the Bank of Scotland phoneline. That aside, the 2 guys I spoke to were very efficient and I should have a replacement in 7-10 working days. Boo to the time though.

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My bank card got swallowed today' date=' booooooo. I had great fun listening to some awful music on hold to the Bank of Scotland phoneline. That aside, the 2 guys I spoke to were very efficient and I should have a replacement in 7-10 working days. Boo to the time though.[/quote']

And boo to the fact that friday and monday aren't working days.

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there will usually be other more or less benefitial extras to that account such as no commission charges' date=' reduced travel insurance, gift vouchers and a whole lot of discounts. but i deem them quite pointless to be honest. it's just meant as a purchase incentive for the customer, and if you find any use for it... fantastic![/quote']

If Cloud has the same account my mum has (and I'm pretty sure it will be), he'll enjoy the potential benefit of getting a lot of goods for reduced prices from TSB's internet shopping - we've gotten DVD players, HiFis, a washing machine, a cooker, a Dyson and other things for a decent amount less than they are in high street stores (and other interent shopping sites) thanks to the TSB's Platinum account.

There's tons of benefits for that account.

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there will usually be other more or less benefitial extras to that account such as no commission charges' date=' reduced travel insurance, gift vouchers and a whole lot of discounts. but i deem them quite pointless to be honest. it's just meant as a purchase incentive for the customer, and if you find any use for it... fantastic![/quote']

Keeps them from pulling my overdraft too, despite not having any sort of order for when money gets paid in. It's basically worth the 84 a year to get stuff like free AA cover (in any car), free card replacement, mobile phone insurance and so on. And of course, it helped when making sure that I didn't get charged. To me, the account's worth the money - but no doubt they'll pull my overdraft soon and i'll be left cursing them on here :p

Another thing in their favour is how quickly they replace cards - I only have a visa electron card because I don't pay money in at any regular interval (going to bank..effort) and so they tend to wear out quickly, but all the same, they don't fuck me about at all - I get a new card within 5 days maximum, so it's hard to complain.

see i quit tsb years ago because they wouldn't let me open a student account because i wasn't in first year of my course and went with the much friendlier halifax. my only complaints with halifax are bank charges' date=' everything else they've been incredibly helpful with.[/quote']

HBOS fucked me about with a student account a while back, they said "put a tenner in and you'll get your overdraft and your card"...so I did, only to then get told "oh, you actually need to put 100 in" after about a month of being fucked about.

I agree that Lloyds TSB are strict as hell with student accounts, I don't have one so can't comment on the accounts though.

To be honest, I think banks all operate the same way - don't fuck them about and they won't fuck you about.

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Keeps them from pulling my overdraft too' date=' despite not having any sort of order for when money gets paid in. It's basically worth the 84 a year to get stuff like free AA cover (in any car), free card replacement, mobile phone insurance and so on. And of course, it helped when making sure that I didn't get charged. To me, the account's worth the money - but no doubt they'll pull my overdraft soon and i'll be left cursing them on here :p

Another thing in their favour is how quickly they replace cards - I only have a visa electron card because I don't pay money in at any regular interval (going to bank..effort) and so they tend to wear out quickly, but all the same, they don't fuck me about at all - I get a new card within 5 days maximum, so it's hard to complain.

[/quote']

if you worry about replacement cards, order a few in advance. that's what i do/did. i deliberately ordered cards from different CSOs, so i have two cards that only need to be activated should i lose my current one :up:

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just wanted to say, this bloody works!!!

my bank (smile) charged me 45 quid in april for being over my overdraft limit by just over a tenner, for six days, in march.

i wrote them a message telling them how i wasn't pleased, how it wasn't representative of the true cost to them for me being overdrawn, especially considering they'd given me a temporary extension only 6 months before, free of charge.

they sent me a message back, saying go shove it, and to read the T&C's.

i then sent them the first letter from that bank charges website, with a little blurb about my personal case, and lo and behold they have now agreed to refund the charges!!

thanks to all the people who suggested those websites and did the work!

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I've been with Bank of Scotland since I had a SuperSavers account at primary school (remember the wee squirrel?). Anyway I've only ever had a problem with them once and even then a little bit of light persuation ended up in the fee being waived. The good thing about HBOS is that they seem to have around 3million branches in Aberdeen, so on average you're never more than 27 steps away from one.

Personally, I blame the banker from Deal Or No Deal cos he makes up the charges to pay out the prizes, or so I was told...

p.s. surprised nobody has made the banker/wanker connection yet

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Everytime noel says banker, I think wanker.

Ahhh supersaver account! Don't think mine ever had more than a tenner in it but how I loved that account.

I'm with Lloyds TSB (cos of the ease of internet banking as my dad's with them also), but also have an account with Bank of Scotland, and I've never had any problems with either.

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I could go on for ages about my bank.

My bank were silly enough to give me a hefty overdraft when I'm unemployed. I do not think they should have done that. And no, I don't have a student account. But me being me, when they give me money, I spend it. So just now I'm a little bit buggered.

Charges are way too much.

The notion of a bank charging someone to access their own money is one the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. When I take money out of my wallet, it doesn't keep a hold of a fiver for the privillege of using my wallet.

But the point I was meaning to get to here is that yes, my bank is also a complete arse, but they've only been an arse to me because I've brought it on myself. If you don't want to incur charges, be more careful with your money. I'm sure there can't be that many people who use Aberdeen Music who don't need to keep a track of their money and can spend what they like without thinking. It's your money, be careful with it.

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Are the charges really that unreasonable though? If the charges are subsidising you with free personal banking' date=' cheap telephone banking (I can phone my bank for the cost of a local call and talk to a real person, without being held on hold for hours, and get them to do anything and tell me anything over the phone...quite good deal AND it's usually a UK person on the line), free direct debits, free standing orders, no charges to withdraw cash from a lot of bank machines, free use of a debit card and so on, is it really that unreasonable to hit people with charges in order to make some profit from the account?[/quote']

No, the charges are not unreasonable. You signed the contract agreeing with these charges. A bank is a business like any other and only makes money from people in debt! This is how banks survive and can afford to give you loans and overdrafts.

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Sounds like "steal from the poor give to the rich"....typical that only the right wing conservative youth found on aberdeen music would be the only people in the world to agree thats a good thing.

No, it sounds like an idiot tax. If you're stupid, you get taxed, sounds fair enough to me. Why should sensible people subsidise the stupid?

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No' date=' the charges are not unreasonable. You signed the contract agreeing with these charges. A bank is a business like any other and only makes money from people in debt! This is how banks survive and can afford to give you loans and overdrafts.[/quote']

I think you're confused. Banks make their money out of interest charged on loans etc, using your money to fund them.

They basically borrow your money, then lend it to someone else and charge them more interest than they pay you.

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No' date=' it sounds like an idiot tax. If you're stupid, you get taxed, sounds fair enough to me. Why should sensible people subsidise the stupid?[/quote']

Interesting. I've been charged somewhere in the region of £250 over the last three months due to my employer repeatedly fucking up my pay. Guess I must be a huge idiot.

Sometimes circumstances dictate financial difficulties, it's not always the persons fault. It's also very difficult to rectify the situation when your bank is subsequently hitting you for punitive charges not in anyway related to the cost to them AT THE VERY TIME THEY KNOW YOU CAN'T AFFORD THEM.

The interesting thing is that in addition to the overlimit fee (£30 with RBS) and the fee for failed Standing Orders etc (£28 with RBS), you get charged interest on what you're over your limit by. This, I would suggest, is a lot closer to what it actually costs the bank to cover your excess and I have never had one of these that's been more than £3. And even this is at a punitive interest rate of 30%-odd.

I'll be sending off the letters mentioned earlier to both my banks.

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Interesting. I've been charged somewhere in the region of 250 over the last three months due to my employer repeatedly fucking up my pay. Guess I must be a huge idiot.

Sometimes circumstances dictate financial difficulties' date=' it's not always the persons fault. It's also very difficult to rectify the situation when your bank is subsequently hitting you for punitive charges not in anyway related to the cost to them AT THE VERY TIME THEY KNOW YOU CAN'T AFFORD THEM.

The interesting thing is that in addition to the overlimit fee (30 with RBS) and the fee for failed Standing Orders etc (28 with RBS), you get charged interest on what you're over your limit by. This, I would suggest, is a lot closer to what it actually costs the bank to cover your excess and I have never had one of these that's been more than 3. And even this is at a punitive interest rate of 30%-odd.

I'll be sending off the letters mentioned earlier to both my banks.[/quote']

Actually, having just checked my various accounts, since the start of *this* year, I've been charged a whopping 403. Tell me that's representative of the cost to the bank(s).

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Actually' date=' having just checked my various accounts, since the start of *this* year, I've been charged a whopping 403. Tell me that's representative of the cost to the bank(s).[/quote']

after i had a look at the bankcharges.info site in more detail, notably at other users responses from their banks, it seems that many people are getting back charges they have paid over a number of years, not just a specifically recent case - so try your luck and see what happens - there are reports of people getting 4K back in past bank charges.

the thing i noticed most about the reply from my bank was their cowering tone, i.e. as if they were frightened by the very fact i had known to appeal the bank charges.

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  • 2 weeks later...
after i had a look at the bankcharges.info site in more detail' date=' notably at other users responses from their banks, it seems that many people are getting back charges they have paid over a number of years, not just a specifically recent case - so try your luck and see what happens - there are reports of people getting 4K back in past bank charges.

the thing i noticed most about the reply from my bank was their cowering tone, i.e. as if they were frightened by the very fact i had known to appeal the bank charges.[/quote']

Well two accounts have responded. Got 75% back from Cahoot and 50% back from one of my RBS accounts. Better than a kick in the teeth. I'd advise anyone that's wracked up charges to give it a try. Nothing to lose.

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  • 3 weeks later...

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