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A student has been landed with bank charges of £800 - after going just eight pence overdrawn.

Laura Gibson, 20, has been threatened with legal action by Lloyds TSB if she does not pay the extortionate charges.

The fees mounted up after Laura unwittingly went 8p overdrawn on her current account.

Despite paying back £300 the penniless student has been unable to keep ahead of the spiralling charges and still owes £515.18.

She claims the bank piled on daily fees of up to £20 plus a monthly fee of £15 for having an unplanned overdraft.

By the time Laura realised what was going on, the costs had spiralled out of control.

'I can't cope with it,' said Laura.

'The bank staff can see I'm not in a situation to pay yet they carry on telling me I have to or they will take me to court.

'They didn't contact me saying I had gone overdrawn. They just keep putting more and more charges on your account.

'The first charge was in the region of £80 but it goes up and up the more you go overdrawn.'

Laura, of Monkscroft, Cheltenham, Gloustershire, said it was hard to keep track of the situation while she was ill with a nervous breakdown.

'I had nothing to live on because it was swallowing up my benefit money.

'I tried to leave the bank in February but they told me I couldn't until I had paid the charges.'

The student, who is enrolled to start a course at the Gloucestershire College in September, found herself being charged £20 a week after getting overdrawn.

Once her debts topped £100, the bank started charging her £20 a day.

Laura's bank statement shows she was £180.97 overdrawn on May 1 but by July 1 it had increased to £515.38.

'I've now paid more than £300 in charges to them,' she said.

Laura now has a part-time job and has opened an account with another bank but says she is still unable to pay all the charges.

A spokeswoman for Lloyds TSB said they would investigate the case now they had been alerted and would contact Laura to discuss her account.

Last week an investigation by finance website Moneynet.co.uk reported that Lloyds TSB was worst offender for punishing customers who fall briefly into the red.

Those with the Lloyds TSB Classic Plus account - which Laura has - who exceed their agreed overdraft limit by £50 for two weeks are charged £165.

A damning report by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) said that banks rake in more than £8.3 billion from current account charges.

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