Bank Charges Financial Hardship Disussion

natweststaffmember

zpacey wrote: »

Someone please point me to the right direction, I applied for financial hardship with alliance and leicester and after being sent the income and expenditure form and filling it and sending it back I have today received a letter from them saying that they will not pay out and I have to wait for the test case.
I have priory debts including rent arrears of £1500, gas and electric bill £800.00, water bil £115.00 and on top of that I also told them that I lost my husband three years ago through cancer he was the main bread winner and I'm now a full time student at university and have two children aged 3 and 5years old. I'm left with nothing and haven't paid any of my loans and credit cards for nearly 2 years now.
Do you have any PPI on those loans or credit cards?
Are there charges on the credit cards(cos they are easier to claim as well)?
I sent them my husbands death cert as well, now if that isn't enough to show am on financial hardship what is? Please someone help me out as am at my ends wit.

Do you still bank with Alliance and Leicester?
Were the priority debt arrears caused by the loss of your husband?
Do you get any funds for being a student? Have you approached university with regards to hardship funds?
Are you claiming all the benefits you are entitled to claim?

zpacey

natweststaffmember wrote: »

Once you get a response we will work on something for the FOS. Please do not do a templated complaint to the FOS cos it will waste your time and will take longer than 12 weeks(which is timescale on a clean complaint).
You need an income and expenditure form completed(have you got that?)
You need copies of all correspondence.
You need list of charges back to July 2001(if you have them).
Their Final Response letter(awaiting that one)
Plus you need to have an argument based on that Final Response.

Will have a look back cos I think amethyst asked about priority debt arrears(mortgage/rent, council tax, utilities)? Have you got those?
From those arrears are there any repayment plans in place?

I have all the above as I started the claim in 2007 before the test case malakay, I have a whole folder with all the correspondence. Can I add you on so I can pm you if I do have to escalate this to FOS? I will definately need your help. Thanks

zpacey

natweststaffmember wrote: »

Do you still bank with Alliance and Leicester?
Were the priority debt arrears caused by the loss of your husband?
Do you get any funds for being a student? Have you approached university with regards to hardship funds?
Are you claiming all the benefits you are entitled to claim?

Most of the priority debts were as a result of the loss of my husband as I was trying to sort out all the benefits I was entitiled at the time and it all got so messy and out of hand and in the end I found out I actually wasn't entitled to as much as I had anticipated.

I do get student loans, maintenance and parent allowance most of it goes to the childminder and am still trying to figure out how they work it all out...

As for benefits, I get child benefit, child tax credit and widows allowance which all together works out to be £224.00 a week. Apparently am not entitled to income support...

I have made repayments arrangements with all utility bills so most of my benefits goes to repaying these which leaves me with about £40.00 for food, I haven't bought my children any clothes or taken them anywhere apart from local parks as I can't afford to, I relay on free cycle for things like clothes etc.

I haven't approached the university regarding hardship, I didn't know they could help but I will do once we go back in sept.

And finally when I first made a claim with a&l back in 2007, they closed my account so no, I'm not with them, I opened a cash card account with halifax.

natweststaffmember

I'll be interested to see their final response letter. Oh, so they closed the account when you first contacted them.....this could actually be an interesting complaint or perhaps complaints.

andyallen3

Hiya,

Wondering if anybody can help me here.

I have had a long going battle with the halifax for a hardship claim, this ended up going to the FOS.

The other day the halifax wrote to me offering 35.00 in charges out of the 3200 that I'm trying to claim back, They have also accepted that I am in financial hardship.

My account was passed to their collections team back in january, and I had set up a 40.00 a month payment plan, as the account was majorly overdrawn. The fact that the halifax thinks 35.00 will help with my financial hardship, is beyond me.

Anyway, I decided to go back to the FOS about this, and today had a letter informing me that they think the banks offer is fair! with the reasoning being the bank stopped adding interest and charges onto my account back in january. Im shocked at this, and i'm wondering what to do next?

There is no way I'm accepting 35.00 in full and final settlement of my complaint.

Advice, comments and help would be greatfuly appreciated.

Andrew

natweststaffmember

It;s only full and final settlement of the hardship element as the rest of the charges are still repayable on the conclusion of the OFT test case.
Do you have any priority debt arrears(mortgage/rent, council tax, utilities)?
Are any of the above arrears subject to a payment plan?

andyallen3

natweststaffmember wrote: »

It;s only full and final settlement of the hardship element as the rest of the charges are still repayable on the conclusion of the OFT test case.
Do you have any priority debt arrears(mortgage/rent, council tax, utilities)?
Are any of the above arrears subject to a payment plan?

Some of the arrears are on a payment plan with the halifax. The rest of them are with debt collection agencies. What I cant figure, is people are claiming thousands back from the banks under the hardship route, not just 35.00. It's all very confusing.

I just dont see how they can say one charge of 35.00 is enough to say It will ease my financial difficulties.

Is it worth writing back, and asking for maybe half the amount? And the rest if the case is found in favour of the consumer

natweststaffmember

andyallen3 wrote: »

Some of the arrears are on a payment plan with the halifax. The rest of them are with debt collection agencies. What I cant figure, is people are claiming thousands back from the banks under the hardship route, not just 35.00. It's all very confusing.

I just dont see how they can say one charge of 35.00 is enough to say It will ease my financial difficulties.

Is it worth writing back, and asking for maybe half the amount? And the rest if the case is found in favour of the consumer

If the priority debt arrears are on payment plans then £35 is a valid amount however just to clarify, how far back did you go on the charges, was it July 2001(if your account was open then)?

andyallen3

natweststaffmember wrote: »

If the priority debt arrears are on payment plans then £35 is a valid amount however just to clarify, how far back did you go on the charges, was it July 2001(if your account was open then)?

I have gone back six years with the charges. How does 35.00 release the burden of financial hardship, also struggling to stick with these payment plans at the moment. Not all priority debts are on plans, argos and vanquis will probably be heading that way.

natweststaffmember

andyallen3 wrote: »

I have gone back six years with the charges. How does 35.00 release the burden of financial hardship, also struggling to stick with these payment plans at the moment. Not all priority debts are on plans, argos and vanquis will probably be heading that way.

Priority debts are Mortgage/rent, council tax, utilities.

Argos and vanquis are non priority debts however are there charges on those as well?