It really seems that this guy mismanaged his money, more than anything. From the article, he had no idea what his balance was, he moved without notifying the bank of his new address and he allowed a friend to withdraw money randomly on his own. That's a recipe for disaster and no matter what language you speak, a little common sense goes a long way.
Granted, the additional account "features" that he couldn't use were a cheap ploy on the part of Lloyds to get more money and I'm glad they refunded him for those.
FWIW, banks in the US do the same thing. My friend rang through a debit that took him $1 in the hole, so the bank charged him $35 for it. They then also allowed through about five more transactions on the same day, then charging him $35 for each of those. My friend's recent deposit should have been in the account to cover it all but the bank was holding it waiting for funds to clear because it was a personal check for like $5000.
