MSE News: Bank charges result at 9.45am Wednesday

I agree with the above to an extent, however if it's in favour of the customer, (which no doubt it will be), then it is rewarding those people who constantly run their bank account irresponsibly. These are the people who leave it months and months without contacting their bank for help, and then at the last minute cause they cannot re-finance their debts are the 1st ones to moan cause they've got too many bank charges! It's a total catch 22 and refunding bank charges alone will not make everybody happy - they will STILL have bank charges coming out somewhere down the line.

However, after my rant, i am AMAZED it has taken this long - customers deserve a fair and honest answer, and don't forget it has to be fair to the banks and financial institutions as well, do we really want to be like Bank Of America? Their basic, no frills account will charge for non BOA transfers, cheques and all kinds of other stuff!

I hope this has a happy outcome, but it won't stop the problems. Refunds will be like rewarding a naughty child with sweets and toys, they will still take the mickey until they learn their lesson hard.

I'm on the fence for the moment

I've just received notification from NATWEST that all of their charges have been reduced. Most have dropped from the likes of £35 or £28 to £15, but some are now as little as £5.

Is this an indication of the result and outcome we can expect tomorrow as it seems very coincidental?

What do others think? I hope I get my money back soon (just over £1,500 with interest added). I put my claim in several months before the 'hold' was put on payouts, but still missed out as NATWEST dragged it out for so long.

I also made a claim against NATIONWIDE at the same time and was sucessful in recovering almost £2,000 so I hope I see at least some of my money from NATWEST soon.

Westy@reviewer wrote: »

I agree with the above to an extent, however if it's in favour of the customer, (which no doubt it will be), then it is rewarding those people who constantly run their bank account irresponsibly. These are the people who leave it months and months without contacting their bank for help, and then at the last minute cause they cannot re-finance their debts are the 1st ones to moan cause they've got too many bank charges! It's a total catch 22 and refunding bank charges alone will not make everybody happy - they will STILL have bank charges coming out somewhere down the line.

However, after my rant, i am AMAZED it has taken this long - customers deserve a fair and honest answer, and don't forget it has to be fair to the banks and financial institutions as well, do we really want to be like Bank Of America? Their basic, no frills account will charge for non BOA transfers, cheques and all kinds of other stuff!

I hope this has a happy outcome, but it won't stop the problems. Refunds will be like rewarding a naughty child with sweets and toys, they will still take the mickey until they learn their lesson hard.

I'm on the fence for the moment

um its a bit unfair to say that all of us who have lots of charges are 100% responsible for it! what usually happens is u have a bad time (often redunancy, long term sick, new baby or many other reasons that people who dont necessarily have much money anyway suddenly find a drop in income) and when you turn to the bank and say yes i know the dd bounced and this hasnt been paid but this is why. All the banks do is say tough, we will charge you £39 a time, which then means next month you are even shorter as you have to make up your payment to whatever was bounced and the charges meaning you are short again the next month, and it goes on until you are being charged (in my case £300 a month) again you ask for help and they dont want to know........ they only help out if you have lots of money in my experience, giving overdrafts when you have plenty of spare cash and refusing even temporary ones when you dont........

circumstances change in peoples lives (mine was very messy break up, having to find a new home in two weeks then loosing my job and needing to take a lower paid one so that i wasnt on the dole) and so many people arent fortunate enough to earn enough to live and save enough for bad times.... what really needs to change is the banks response to hardship.. im not saying lend more money but they need to acknowledge things sooner and try their best to help... in my case i ended up with £2400 of charges in one year... I tried and tried to get them to help me sort it out and it was only when the charges were taking me £400 over my o/d limit (an overdraft they had increased without my asking to over twice my monthly wage because i wasnt using it) and this had been going on for months that they got in touch,,, to tell me to repay the whole thing in 7 working days... if they had acknowledged my requests for help and tried to help earlier they wouldnt be in the position of me trying to reclaim £2400 from them.

and yes some people will continue to take the mick but the vast majority of us trying to claim for charges arent intentionally going overdrawn!! we are good people who have bad luck

I dont meant this to sound argumentative or like im justifying going overdrawn merely stating my experience and point of view on what i hope will be a win for the thousands of other people just like me

I would be shocked if the courts thought that the charges can't be looked at for fairness.

How anuone can think that charging soemone £35 for a £5 DD fair. It snhould be a charge to reflect the loss to the bank.

With some banks being part owned by us the Gov should step in.

I think it is 50/50 but i hope a win by us and a i hope it sends a mesage to the banks that they got us in this economic mess and that we aren't going to stand for any sxxt from you anymore.