TSB customers told they face non-existent overdraft charges

TSB customers have been told wrongly that they do not have enough money in their accounts to pay their bills following yet another IT blunder by the bank.

It says it has mistakenly sent text messages to an undisclosed number of customers over the past month, urging them to pay money into their accounts in order to avoid extra charges. The messages warned customers they were approaching their account limit and were at risk of being charged for payments due to be processed. But this wasn’t true.

One customer, Jennifer Scott, wrote on Twitter that she had received a message from TSB saying she would be charged for attempting to make a payment with insufficient funds in her account. ‘Two other people in the office have received the same text,’ she said.

TSB’s latest bungle comes just six months after a computer upgrade left up to two million customers unable to access their accounts online for days.

The bank received 159,000 complaints about the IT failure, which saw chief executive Paul Pester forced to step down last month. A spokesman for TSB says of the latest mix-up: ‘We’re working as hard and as fast as we can to resolve the issue and apologise for any inconvenience or confusion this may cause.’

Anyone who wants to check their account can call the TSB customer services team on 03459 758 758.