Please someone recommend a Bank Account with reasonable charges???

[Demented]

I am very, very ! I have just been to check my on-line balance with the Abbey National and I have gone a whole £11 over my overdraft limit! I phoned the number and was connected to a call centre in India somewhere to woman who could barely understand me and I could barely understand her. After about five minutes she eventually managed to tell me that I would be charged £90 for going £11 over my overdraft!!! Three tiny transactions have caused this! I have got to get to the bank today with some money as this is going to get worse (am terrible for switching two or three pound).

Does anyone have an account with better charges than this?

I have NEVER gone over my overdraft before and will certainly try to get these charges reduced perhaps when I visit the counter today as they completely ridiculous!

Nobody???

Are they all like this???

I am currently browsing Martin's Money Saving site and can't see anything better.

Nationwide only charge £15 for every transaction when you are overdrawn.

That is disgusting though £90 for 3 items. I am with Barclays and they charge £25 per item but you can only be charged 3 times within a monthly period.

I think most of them have silly charges if you go over agreed limits - though £90 does sound a little bit steep, IME there is normally a 'capped' maximum in any one month.

I'm with Natwest - mainly because I used to work for them which gives me some advantage of inside knowledge - but they are fairly reasonable.

And their call-centres are UK based!

Message withdrawn

Am currently bugging DH rotten to give me some money (he owes me £25 at the moment anyway) so I can get down there and put it right. £15 a transaction with the Nationwide seems more reasonable to me. Looks like Cahoot (part of the Abbey) seem to have a flat rate charge of £25 for each statement month you are overdrawn, no mention of individual transaction charges.

I was ready for a £25/£30 hit but not this! It's only £11!!!

I'm with barclays and I hate them. But I know as a SAHM with no income (aside from a small monthly direct debit from DH and my child benefit) it will be difficult to switch accounts over, especially with a maxed out -£530 balance . Desperate to pay it off so that I can just move banks and get back in control of my finances again.

Abbey normally let you go overdrawn as a one off without charging you. I'm pretty sure that you can do it once every 6 months.

I'd wait until tuesday and speak to them again - it's a UK call centre during normal working hours.

Alliance & Leicester , Demented - Martin recommends it. Their premium current account pays over 5% interest and atm they pay you up to £50 to open an account!

Agreed overdraft rates are very low and you are only charged interest on the amount o/d on a daily basis. If you exceed your o/d limit and there is a debit they will charge you £25 for it. And you can either do it online or ring up and speak to a British human (in L'pool generally).

btw your bank will be shut today as it is a Bank Holiday - maybe the charge is higher because you will be o/d for 4 days before you can fix it?

When you do speak to someone here tell them you will switch accounts unless they cancel the charge (and then do it anyway, hehehe )

First Direct are fab, imho

First Direct are FAB FAB FAB ... can't recommend them highly enough.

hate the RBS they willingly ripped me off for a 6000 pound loan, i would have got a lower interest rate from yes car credit! They then changed my bank account, i have to pay £15 for the pleasure of having it, they canncelled my overdraft when i changed account but didnt tell me so i suddenly had to find 800 pounds. I then asked for a £200 overdraft as a buffer as I live a long way from the bank. Some snooty cow who was below me in school and had been working in tescos until 6 months before told me no i was high risk. I personnaly dont see the prob if they leant me £6000 and £200 is hardly going to bring the bank to its knees. I have lost count of the amount of £30 charges they have taken because money was in like 2 days to late. The moment my loan is paid which is soon i will take so much pleasure in closing all my accounts and moving to the clydsdale. Rant over.

A&L's over-overdraft charges:

So they would charge you £50 for this weekend. It's really bad luck it's happened now.

Ah - also:

If your 3 tiny items were all over the limit A&L would have charged £25 for each one apparently - it's the number of transactions, not the amount of each.

This is First Direct's equivalent:

So they would be charging you £40 for the first day and £25 for each subsequent day.

We are in Scotland so at least the Bank was open today (most Scottish branches only take the Monday at Easter). The teller was lovely and said that they were only allowed to take off one of the charges, but she said that she felt it was unreasonable too. She went off into the back room and came back with a plan (I think after checking up on my DH's account and the credit card we have with them ), she said she would fill in a form saying that the Bank had made a mistake with my account making me overdrawn and would reduce the charges down to £30. Making me a very happy bunny (never thought I would say that about £30 bank charges).

Have now made a resolution to sort out my Bank account as I am constantly running it to the hilt and am going to start by reducing my overdraft by £50 when I get paid next week. If I stop running things to hilt then charges should be avoided in the future.

NDP, I am like you, although a WAHM for my DH's company, I'm not most Banks idea of their ideal customer and am not eligible for accounts that require a minimum payment of £1,000 a month.

TBH after looking on Martin's Money Saving site the Abbey is fairly competative as many of the banks want £30 or so and then £25 or so per transaction.

Thanks for all your help, today has been a big long overdue wake-up call!

Oh, I am glad they were open, Demented! (And that you are happy with the £30 charge!)

A&L's Premier current account only requires £500 per month but their charges are the same as the others; OTOH they do at least have British humans on the end of the phone...

I've got a Nationwide Flexaccount and went slightly overdrawn because someone had delayed paying in a cheque I had written so it came out of my account unexpectedly iykwim. When I explained to the building society what had happened they waived the charge and then gave me an agreed overdraft(£100) to stop it happening again. Now if I go slightly over by accident I don't get a letter and it only costs me a tiny amount as long as I sort it out within a few days.

That sounds positive Pixel, I have asked Nationwide to send me one of their leaflets. Funny thing is when I left School and started working I had an account with Nationwide (just a cash card account, not a current account) and ended up leaving them because they started charging for using cash machines other than their own, very often their own was out of order and you had to remember to go into the branch and ask for the charges to be removed from your account.

I have always found First Direct brilliant. Their staff are just so helpful and pleasant. And you get straight through to speak to someone - none of this press 1 for this, press 2 for that.

I get a weekly text to tell me what my balance is and they will send me a text alert if I'm starting to get near my overdraft limit.

We have Halifax current account that has a £200 overdraft facility and NOT lots of charges - can't find the actual charges thing (filing cabinet needs a clear out! sorry)

Will check out Halifax too then.

First Direct is an internet only bank, isn't it? I think I really need the option of going into the branch as I don't like the idea of not being able to go in on the day and pay money in if my account is looking like it is going overdrawn.

My account have gone over the overdraft again!!! I work for my DH and he didn't take account of the Bank Holidays (think his business bank was closed on Friday), wages are usually in on the 28th, sometimes sooner!

DH seems a bit blaize about it but it's another three items, I need him to give me some money so I can get down there and rectify it, it just happened today so as long as the money goes in today there shouldn't be a problem (usually)! Grrrrrrrr!!!

First Direct is an internet and phone bank but is part of HSBC, so you can pay money in at a local branch, although in Scotland branches of HSBC are not all that common of course ....

demented- i know exactly how you feel, my wages were late going in didn't go in until today because of the bank holidays. so i have 10 fees of £30, which is costing me £300 at the end of next month and i only get paid £500 per month cos i am a student. have spoke to abbey and they are not willing to reduce my charges, she just basically said tough and that i shouldn't have written cheques until the money was there and should have cancelled my direct debits.

vickiyumyum, I am soooo for you! Have you been into your branch? They can apparently lift one or two (can't remember) of the charges as a courtesy. I was told if you phone it depends who you get. I asked today when in (had to lift money out of my DS1's savings account so currently feel really awful about that) if they ever put a ceiling on the charges (some banks limit the charges to £90) and she said no and it wouldn't be the first time someone has come in with hundreds of pounds of charges. IMO it's not fair, I do realise that if I go over my agreed overdraft I should pay charges of some sort but the sort of charges the Abbey has been dishing out are OTT. I really hope you can get it sorted out.

Still looking for a new Bank account, got a leaflet from Nationwide and they charge £15 for going overdrawn and then £21.50 for each item, so certainly for the first item it would be more expensive than the Abbey.

I've not seen an HSBC locally so I think that probably rules out First Direct.

If pay date is on a weekend/Bank Hol wages should be paid on the previous Friday! That's outrageous! (I can't believe your DH would do that to you!)

Demented, would A&L be any use to you? They use the Post Office as a local bank; if I pay cash in with my debit card it gets credited the same day. (Found out the hard way that it doesn't work if you just use a paying-in slip.)