Bank charges have been incurred by a young couple who did not want to upgrade to a new silver account.
Although Angela Hannibal was automatically upgraded to a silver account by Lloyds TSB, she is now facing bank charges that amount to a shocking £1700.
In fact, she is now fighting to reclaim the bank charges as she had originally only been 8p overdrawn on her current account.
According to a report by The Daily Mail, the whole saga started when the now 21 year old Ms Hannibal turned 18 and was upgraded to a silver level account with Lloyds TSB. This upgrade would cost £8 a month and offer services such as mobile phone insurance and breakdown cover.
However after the monthly charge was taken out of her account in January 2009, this left her balance overdrawn by 8p. Ms Hannibal, who has also just recently given birth, was shocked to learn that the bank was now asking for charges of £170.
Both her and her partner were already struggling to pay their bills and save for the birth of their child and she offered to repay the charges at £30 a month. Despite this, she was then asked to pay another set of unauthorised overdraft fees of £170 each.
Although the couple have paid £1000 off so far, they will need to pay off the remaining £700 despite interest of £10 being applied every day they remain overdrawn.
Speaking to The Daily Mail the new mother from Colchester in Essex said: “I was completely shocked when they asked me to pay £170 back. I was scraping around and set up a payment plan and have been using my wages to try and keep up with the payments.
“It’s led to real financial hardship for us, especially with a new baby.”
The bank has said they are willing to work with the couple to resolve the situation.
