Abbey National Stink! (Abbey National)

Member Name: stroppy-moppy

Product:	Abbey National
Date:	21/08/00 (133 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None

Disadvantages: Too Many

I had been a customer with the Abbey for over 10 years, and for the last 7 had been having my salary paid in monthly. They had always been really great, offering me loans, credit card and upping my overdraft when I'd spent too much to avoid bank charges.

In January last year I was made redundant - at the time I was 8mths pregnant, so the chances of me finding another job at the time were nil. However, because I had an overdraft of £750 (oops, I know!) they rang me up the day after my salary should have gone in to ask if there was a problem. I explained the situation and that I would be getting SMP paid into my account and they were brilliant, saying that as I was a "valued customer" if I wanted my overdraft increasing to let them know. I kept them informed regularly on what was happening and when I found a new job in October last year, told them that my first wage would go in at the end of the month.

Then the fun started. Two days after I told them I was starting the job, I received a letter saying that as of 01.11.99 my overdraft would not be renewed and I would have to pay the whole lot back by then. I rang them and tried to negotiate the situation but they said because I'd not had enough money coming into the account each month, they were terminating it. They wouldn't even agree to me paying it back on a monthly basis. It was all of it right there and then. As a result, I had to find myself a new account and stop my wage going in or they would have taken it straight away.

I did, after 3 months of wrangling, agree to get them to let me pay it monthly, but this has damaged my credit rating and am finding it extremely hard to get credit now, when I have always been ok. Now whenever I see their adverts or hear about them I feel sick - they were my bank for years and they treated me like this. I've switched to the Halifax.

Summary: