One young family has been hit with more than £1,000 in overdraft charges after going just 8p into the red.
23 year old Wayne Green and 21 year old Angela Hannibal have stated that after charges from their Lloyds TSB bank account have rocketed uncontrollably high, they face the fear of becoming homeless.
At the age of 15 Ms Hannibal, who hails from Colchester, Essex, opened a Lloyds TSB basic current account. However the account in question was upgraded to a ‘silver’ account in 2008.
The new silver account offered several customer benefits, such as breakdown cover, mobile phone insurance, and travel insurance, for a monthly payment of £8.
Ms Hannibal became overdrawn by 8p one month as a result of the monthly service charge. As a result the bank hit her with a fine of £170. Ms Hannibal found it a struggle to pay both her rent and her other bills, so she offered to repay the fee to the bank by £30 every month.
More fees were levied against her before she could repay the debt completely, she said, which has resulted with her and her partner shelling out enough lump sums and installments to equal £1000 over the past two years.
The total owed on the account is still around £700 for an account she has not actually used for those two years, as her fees have been accruing at the rate of £10 every day. Additionally, as both she and her partner just welcomed a baby daughter into their lives less than a month ago, the family has been facing fears of becoming homeless; another victim of the current economic climate, Mr Green was let go from his employment and is unable to continue to make the bank payments.
Mr Green commented on his family’s dilemma, stating that it has been a struggle to keep up with both their council tax payments and their rent, especially between losing his job and having to pay Lloyds so much cash.
Mr Green continued, stating the two of them have been paying massive amounts of money all for the sake of an 8p overdraft on an account that his partner never even wanted the silver account in the first place, as she had been completely happy with her original basic account.
Both Mr Green and Ms Hannibal have paid visits to Lloyds TSB on a weekly basis to try and rectify the situation but have so far been unable to come to a resolution.