'Impossible' to compare accounts

Updated
File photo dated 04/04/06 of a person withdrawing money from a cashpoint as current account providers are using a myriad of baffling charging structures that make it almost impossible to calculate and compare the cost of slipping into an unauthorised overdraft, research from Which? has found. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Friday January 17, 2014. The consumer group made its findings after asking 18 volunteers, including a principal inspector of taxes and a retired headteacher to calculate from a mock statement what this cost would be by looking at banks' and building societies' charging structures on their websites. The volunteers got just 10 out of 72 calculations correct between them, with the tax inspector getting just one of his four calculations right and the former headteacher getting them all wrong. It also took people 10 minutes on average even to find the charges on current account providers' websites - and in some cases it took longer than half an hour. See PA story MONEY Charges. Photo credit should read: Gareth Fuller/PA Wire

%VIRTUAL-SkimlinksPromo%Current account providers are using a myriad of baffling charging structures that make it almost impossible to calculate and compare the cost of slipping into an unauthorised overdraft, research from Which? has found.

The consumer group made its findings after asking 18 volunteers, including a principal inspector of taxes and a retired headteacher to calculate from a mock statement what this cost would be by looking at banks' and building societies' charging structures on their websites.

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