Lloyds T(he) S(neaky) B(******rds) (Lloyds TSB)

Member Name: sallyonsunday

Product:	Lloyds TSB
Date:	09/01/09 (411 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: none. at all. ever. Why can't i give zero stars..or minus...?

Disadvantages: I could write a book...

Anybody who knows me, knows that it is no exageration to say that lloyds have been constantly trying to reduce me to the realms of nervous breakdown since 2004.

I hate them, i hate them, i hate them. When i think of the words "underhand" and "evil" its the image of that sodding black horse that floats before my retina..

Where do i start...?

Are you sitting comfortably, then i'll begin...

When i was working and struggling for money, lloyds were bending over backwards to bung money at my partner and i. by the time i was 22, i had an overdraft of 1500. i decided to go to university at this time and went into lloyds tsb to tell them i'd like a student account. This was one of the worst mistakes of my life.

The conversation ran thus:

Ok, madam, you are now a student is that right?

-yes.

-so you have no full time employment?

-no, i want to change this account from a select account to a student account.

-ah, but that means you have to close this account, we can't change account types. you'd have to reapply for a student account.

- what do you mean reapply?

- we'd close this account and get you another, on condition youre accepted only you won't be because of your overdraft.

-oh..

-so really, in declaring youre a student youve infringed your overdraft by declaring yourself to have no full time salary. do you have no salary?

-well no because I..

- can you pay this debt of 1500 to us now?

-No way! i'm at uni, i ...

-Well if youre declaring yourself as unable to pay, we'll put you in debt collections then, until you are able to pay, we don't actually deal with those accounts in collections so we cant continue this discussion with you now. you'll receive a letter from our collections dept soon. good day.

I was screwed.

As for collections.. its an indian call centre. Once you are put into collections, they refuse to deal with you. i was actually told if i wanted to discuss my account to go in that room and ring the call centre up, which is outrageous. They held me over a barrel telling me theyd take all of my student loan to pay the debt back. when i protested, they held a gun to my head and said "you either agree to pay £50 a month in repayments or we'll take all of your loan to pay this back because we have removed your o/d facility..." This is a trick i've heard lots about too.

As another reviewer on here rightly pointed out, they arrange payments and credits to your account to go through in the most inconvenient and charge incurring way. It seems ironic that they are unable to credit your account on certain days whilst feeling its perfectly acceptable to administer overdraft charges on xmas day...

So for 3 years, ive been struggling to make these awful repayments. along the way, i've had no customer service, every discussion has been followed up with offers to "consolidate" into a loan. ive been offered ltsb credit cards to transfer my o/d. when i offered to pay on my existing card, they told me theyd only accept ltsb cards. how convenient.... my credit rating is shot, because as the halifax informed me- if youre in debt collections to a bank, nobody will touch you with a bargepole.

As for the charges, the people who implemented them want stringing up, and i'd happily do it. you can, for a dd bouncing, be charged a £35 fee, plus up to £25- A DAY! for being overdrawn. one christmas i had to pay 200 pounds to these b*******s, because i went £6 overdrawn on a dd. They kindly charge you for all weekends and public holidays too, so whilst i was enjoying xmas, they were whacking £25 a day onto my account. by the time i realised, i couldnt pay anyway instantly, due to erm, being overdrawn... and each day got more and more into debt, using next months salary to pay this off, and being short again. And from other's experiences, this is not an unusual scenario...

i can tell you all sorts of horror stories about this bank- my friend had a dormant account with them. they charged her £5 o/d interest one month. it went overdrawn, and she ended up in total paying £150 in cumulative charges. they gave her a ltsb credit card to get out of it. shes 21 years old. Moneysaving expert daily is filled with horror stories of these awful charges that are beyond the pale. my friend told them to cancel her dds, because a loan would be coming in to pay them, they never did and she incurred £200 of charges for each item. they rebuffed her when she argued back and said her account was her responsibility. again, this girl is a single mother.

My Uncle got made redundant and he had a 1000 quid o/d. guess what? they slung him into debt collections. i have friends on modest salaries who are up to £4000 overdrawn with this bank, because of irresponsible lending too. i cannot say how strongly i feel about this wicked bank that simply preys on people with low incomes and pushes them into debt with their own cumulative charges.

Anybody who says this is a good student account is very naive. go to halifax instead. go to a loan shark, wherever. I went to my student finance advisor at uni, who told me before i even said the name of my bank "lloyds is it? Most of our problems are with them.." he said they were constantly throwing large amounts of money at students then recalling it, and offering consolidation or credit cards or putting them into collections.

This bank repulse me.

Summary: Go to a loan shark. you'll get better treatment....