Lloyds Bank Ripped me off!*

This weeks disgruntlement has been bought to me by Lloyds Bank. I have been banking with Lloyds since I was 17 years old, although more and more I find myself unhappy about the service they provide.

The latest squeeze on my limited finances is that Lloyds now charge £5 (per month), chargeable after a day, if I use more than £10 of my agreed overdraft.

Ok, I went to the bank, they decided to agree that I can have an overdraft of up to £600 and they will charge me a percentage rate for the amount of time I am in the red. However, on top of this they have now brought in this "charge". I argued that if this was rated as part of APR it would be at such high percent that it would not be allowed under banking law. But, as it is being called "a charge" it doesn't fall inside this protective legislation.

If I were to go £10 overdrawn, and left it like this for a year, I would owe Lloyds Bank £60! but despite my protestations, the woman at the end of the line was nonchalant.

Since then I had not been overdrawn; Until last week when an annual direct debit for the AA (the Automobile Association for all those reading in the U.S.) came out. I thought I had changed all my dd's over to a different account with, in my opinion, a better, fairer, bank, but this one must have slipped through the net.

As I only discovered the issue the day after the amount was automatically removed from my account, it was too late by then - £5! FIVE POUNDS!

This is an outrage as far as I am concerned. Under the old system I would have seen the withdrawal, gone in the next day to replenish my bank account and the total cost would have been nearer to 0.36p. Lloyds Bank are not stupid, they must know that there are potentially thousands of people out there who will have annual direct debits coming out before they realise. This £5 charge seems [to me] to be a bit of a rip off charge.

So what can I do? Nothing really. Pay the charge and use a different account from now on. But out of pure rage, immediately after I got off of the phone to yet another nonchalant customer services clerk, I called up a t-shirt printers and had my "opinion" on the whole affair emblazoned across the front and back.

The asterisk is the only indicator of the little line of small print (which I know all banks are very fond of) stating, at the very bottom, "*opinion of wearer".

One might say  " I've got the t-shirt on this one! "

___