Millennium Bank New Charges

I'm with Santander Totta and have been paying the same amount per month for the last 2 years or more.

If you can pass on some evidence of that I would be grateful Polli. We have just discovered a monthly charge on our account and been informed it's because they have upped the minimum amount you can have in your account to avoid charges by €2000... yes that is two grand!

We don't appear to have been informed of that either - the charge just appeared. This has happened before with other banks and was the reason we moved to Millennium.

We have been in to query it and asked for print outs of the five different insurances we have with them, suggesting we might go elsewhere with our business, and the clerk didn't bat an eyelid, which suggests a cartel where we will find nothing different anywhere else (or of course an employee who doesn't give a s**t).    

Went to see them yesterday and was told....

If you have 5,000 in a savings account (which you pay tax on) your current account would be free of the 5.20 (plus tax .21)charge.

SO either pay tax on your 5.000 savings or pay maintenance fee on your current account.

Another way of getting you to register in their tax system me thinks!

The €5.20 charge has shown up on my statements since June as C O M . M A N U TE N C AO C O N T A R E S I D E X T E R IO R 0 8 20 1 5 but I have never told them that I am now a resident with an official card, not an overseas person.

Like most people I don't read the other item that comes with my statements and have since deleted the messages.

However my reading of this €5,20 charge (plus stamp duty)  is that it applies to everyone whose account has an average monthly balance of up to €2500 regardless. It's €4,20 then up to €5,000 and zero above that.

I shall query this at my branch when next I can, but it doesn't look like it can be escaped for person of average or modest means but is not yet an official state pensioner etc.

Also, in case you haven't noticed, as from January 2016 they will no longer be posting paper statements where there are less than 50 transactions or at the end of the year, whichever comes first. They can still be obtained via the machines in branches.

We're with Santanda & we pay 5.72 (inc tax) per month.
We also now incur a charge of 1.30 each time we pay a bill by internet transfer.
However, we do not get charged this on direct debit payments.
This extra charge started in July of this year - we have not received any notification about it.
We have not had paper statements for over 2 years.
Over the last 12 months our bank balance at the end of each month has been in the range 2,000 to 7,000.
At the end of September it was 3,100 and at the end of October it was 3,600.
We still got charged 5.72 + 1.30 for one transfer.

I have been informed that I shall need to go to myy branch in Albufeira and show them my residencia card to be exempt from the 'external resident' charge. This I cannot do until next week as I am not there.

There are a million ways you can be charged for a bank account and it seems the most likely way of avoiding the monthly charge is to have an average balance of over €5,000 or to have at least €500 coming in every month and / or be an official state pensioner - or under 23 ie still at university.

More when I suceed or not.

I suppose one could consult an accountant but for most of us that would cost rather more than 12 x 5.72!

Well said Perry. It's discrimination, just  like the fiscal rep saga was  for non residents.  Money is money in their bank whether you live in the country or not. Disgraceful, but will anything be done about it, I think not. BTW Tom thanks for the info.