Alliance & Leicester Reviews

Alliance and Leicester are funny ones. I signed up for their current account a couple of years ago because they had a great rate on interest, and there was a £1000 free overdraft...but since that introductory stuff ended, I haven't found them particularly brilliant - especially since I went to apply for a credit card with them, and then the woman ...  Read the complete review

A&L must be the most backward bank in the country, further more they have lied to me on two occasions. I lost my debit card, had to jump through hoops to report it such becuase they wouldnt process it without my seven digit number and five digit internet number. Funny I didnt have these as was on a night out... As I was going on holiday ...  Read the complete review

I have never had anything but positive encounters with Alliance and Leicester. I signed up for it through a cashback offer of £50 on topcashback and found the whole sign up process pretty easy. They sent me a letter with a form enclosed which I had to send back to them confirming my identity. They provided a pre-paid envelope for ...  Read the complete review

Unbelievable experience with A&L. Within days of opening an account - before all the paperwork had been sent to me - I received a returned cheque that I knew nothing about. Apparently someone had tried to pay £4K into my account, a dodgy cheque. Very worried that my account security has been compromised in some way (before it's ...  Read the complete review

Banking with Barclays was always a pleasure, great phone service, you can speak to your branch like you can with any high street bank (reference previous review), short wait to answer the phone....but then they bought out the Pinsentry device. This requires the banker to have this calculator style verification device on them in order to access ...  Read the complete review

Following abysmal service from Barclays, which I will not detail here, I was scouring the land for another bank to place my hard earned pennies in, when I saw a large poster in a window of A&L promising to give me £100 for joining them! Well as I am a massive fan of being given money for doing nothing I decided to take them up on this offer. ...  Read the complete review

With the recent Credit Crunch, and now, the recession, interest rates have sky dived along with the Bank of England base rate. This is the sole reason for my opening an Alliance and Leicester Premier Direct Current account, which, at the time, was offering a nice and high 8.5% Gross interest on money in the current account but this is limited to ...  Read the complete review

Under NO circumstances should you have a current account with this bank. I moved my current account to here from Smile, and it was the biggest mistake I have ever made! There is no obvious phone number on the website to contact them when you have a problem with your accounts, and on the one time that I did manage to get through the many ...  Read the complete review

The worst banking experiance i have ever had has come from Alliance and Leicester. Depsite being in credit Alliance and Leicester have stopped my account are not returning my calls requesting a reason (day 4) of why they have done so. They have stopped all my direct debits and are not letting money out of my account. My MONEY. No reason....

Alliance & Leicester have some very good current accounts; you can get £150 for switching and paying in £1000 a month made up of £100 from the bank and £50 from a cash back web site such as we promise to. Their premier 21 current account pays 8% interest on balances up to £1000 which beats even regular savings rates at other ...  Read the complete review

After being with nationwide for about 6 years with a very basic account which only had a normal cash card no debit card i asked them for a better account with debit card but they said i wasnt entitled to one... So i did a search for a better bank... At the time money saving expert was recommending alliance and leicester as one of the ...  Read the complete review

Alliance & Leicester are doing a really good deal if you switch your current account with them (Premier Current Account). They offer a service where by they do all the leg work in changing all your direct debits, standing orders and can also write to your employer and close your other current account you are switching from. Even better is if ...  Read the complete review

Alliance & Leic plc should have their banking licence withdrawn. On 24 Oct 2008 a voided, unathorised and fraudulant payment of £8300 was allowed to be debited from my A&L current a/c. WITHOUT A TRANSACTION CODE (ILLEGAL), (there is no overdraft arrangement on this account WHATSOEVER). Since that date I have made numerous costly ...  Read the complete review

STAY AWAY - SIMPLE AS!!

Very poor customer service, I was lied to time and time again. made many a phone calls to track an important document that had gone missing and the phone bills got bigger and bigger wth each call! Even the manager was of no help, forgot to call me back and when I called her she didn't seem bothered to help. If it's a loan your after them make sure you sort it all out a good few weeks before you actually need the money, and whatever you do don't paye the £ 30 fee to have the money deposited quicker into your account. TOTAL WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY!

Alliance & Leicester are Bank Robber in the true sense of the word! I wrote to A&L to cancel a standing order and close my current account. They ignored my letter and paid the standing order. This took my account £1.42 overdrawn. When the statement arrived it informed me of a charge of £20.00 - 4 days overdrawn at ...  Read the complete review

I am furious with Alliance & Leicester. I had a current account with them which I wasn't using and which caused me to incur under-usage fees of GBP5 a month. I was aware of the charge and I accept the fact they were within their rights to levy it. HOWEVER I have since tried now on TWO occasions to close my account and both times was assured my ...  Read the complete review

Was the BIGGEST mistake ever to move to this bank! BEWARE and dont change to them they are a bunch of thieves!

A standing order was allowed to go through which exceeded my overdraft limit by £1. I was penalised £25 for this and then another £5 per day for 17 days until the £1 was paid. They refunded the £25 as a "gesture of goodwil" but refuse to refund the £85.

This effectively means that I originally got charged £110 for being overdrawn £1 for 17 days. Surely this is CRIMINAL??!

The Customer Advisor said that this is my problem and that I should know how to manage my finances! Does anyone know what can be done about this???!

Having read the reviews on this so far it does not surprise me to hear that I am not alone on this one. The Alliance and Leicester is a bank that I thought always sounded professional and very good. I have to say I have had anything but this! I applied for the Premier Direct Current Account in August and it is only now that everything ...  Read the complete review

Their "review page" on the website is a joke. I wrote a review stating exactly what I thought of them - not a lot as they don't seem to have heard of customer service and don't do anything about customer complaints, even after the FSA had written to them!

Basically don't go near them! The way they operate their accounts borders on the dishonest - they decided that despite my account having a 4 figure balance I was "technically overdrawn" and tried to charge me over 360% interest for the privilege. Their interest rates only last for a short while, then as the Nationwide advert goes, once they have "hoiked you in" they screw you around!

I recently switched from Nationwide to Alliance and Leicester, this was partly because of a bad experience one of my collegues has had with Nationwide ( a whole other story!) and partly because of the generous offer of quidco cashback of £50 (of course, 2 weeks after i switched A&L started offering £100 cash to new customers but there you ...  Read the complete review