Bank Charges Financial Hardship Disussion

JaneD5

I am at a loss what to do and believe the opportunity to fasttrack your case via Nationwide because of hardship is impossible.

I have had a terrible experience with them as follows;

1. After Much convaluted correspondance via phone and letters back and forth Nationwide established that my charges were £2300 and that because i had provided them with many number of letters showing i am in a desperate financial situation they would look into it via the hardship ruling. The extent of my financial situation involved both personal and professional issues but ultimately i lost my job in April, am about to get repossesed, have 2 CCJ's and many number of utility bills and loans including a secured loan that i cannot currently keep up payments for, my hope was that they would reimburse me so i could stay afloat for the next couple of months whilst trying in vain to get myself out of this predicament.

2. I chased the claim up and then got the response over the phone 'great news, we are going to refund you because of your situation and you will recieve a letter in the next couple of days and payment within the week. I promptly contacted the mortgage company and people i owed money to to give them the news.

3. To my horror my heart sank when i checked the account and my balance had gone from -£310 to -£60 (and this despite never having an overdraft). I called them and they said sorry for the confusion but they had refunded me from the period of April onwards. If this wasnt satisfactory (how it could ever be when i showed them how desperately i need money??) then i could contest this via their member services team,

3, After another couple of weeks the member services team. they said they could see the extent of my problems and i had a good case which was going to a forum where they would discuss what i would be refunded,

4. I was desperately disappointed to hear via a phone call on Friday that they had decided that they would not amend the original decision as they 'assumed' that i should have been financially ok before April so irrespective of my dire position on that assumption (and being that i couldnt show i was financially inacapble of keeping payments with evidence for the full 6 years) I would not be assisted.

5. It has left me in tears many times over and feeling helpless and not knowing what to do as the bills mount. I know that it is not their fault that i am in this position, however i dont know a clearer situation where someone could need assistance via the hardship rule or a situation they would ever reimburse somebody, my financial world is falling apart but because they assumed that really i should have been ok before losing my job, the bills, the repossesiona nd personal problems as a result of my finance that i find myself isnt their issue - all i got from them was the same as i had for the previous months, hollow insincere empathy as they ushered me off the phone.

They have pointed me in the position of the ombudsman if 'i am not happy' - does anybody out there know how long this process takes?, as i dont know if i can hold out for much longer,..i am selling the house and what equity is left to recover my situation but because of the financial climate am finding great difficulty in doing so and if i get repossesed and they sell it and the bills escalate i fear not even this will help me.,

Any advice very much appreciated,

Edinburghlass_2

Phone the FO tomorrow and get your papers to them as quickly as possible but be aware that generally the FO will give the financial institution their statutory 8 weeks in which to reply to them. That is why I suggest you phone first and see if you can get someone on to your case as quickly as possible.

From Martin's article..

Financial Ombudsman Service

The independent financial disputes body, the Financial Ombudsman, will look at cases of hardship and is completely free to use. You can approach it, both if the bank says you’re not in hardship and you disagree or if it says you are in hardship but it doesn’t offer what you think is fair for your reclaim.

A full guide to using the Ombudsman and template letters to help are in the main Bank Charges Reclaiming guide. The slight negative with using the Ombudsman is that it may take a while for it to make a decision, yet if your complaint is currently on hold with it, this could make the process quicker.

JaneD5

I shall do,

Many thanks for your response.

JaneD5

I just spoke to the Ombudsman and the girl who picked up said that she spoke to her senior.

And it may be right that they will only reimburse for the period of time that you can show you are in a bad way financially and irrespective of your financial position may not get reimbursed your full charges.

Can someone possibily substantiate this?

Anyway they said there is a 5 month wait generally befor ei t gtes processed.

I am now broken,.. woe is me

Phoenixx73

Is there a downloadable version of the dmp from the CCCS?

Edinburghlass_2

JaneD5 wrote: »

I just spoke to the Ombudsman and the girl who picked up said that she spoke to her senior.

And it may be right that they will only reimburse for the period of time that you can show you are in a bad way financially and irrespective of your financial position may not get reimbursed your full charges.

Can someone possibily substantiate this?

Anyway they said there is a 5 month wait generally befor ei t gtes processed.

I am now broken,.. woe is me

They are correct, using the financial hardship route has never been a guarantee that your charges would be reimbursed.

I would, however, stress to the FO the way that Nationwide have handled your case by saying that you would be reimbursed and then not.

jinksythree

I wrote to HBOS to request a refund under financial hardship rules - they sent me a form to fill in, which they should have received back today (recorded delivery). I have shown that my income if £550 p/m and my essential outgoings are £1000 more than that each month - I will take it further if I don't get a positive response.

My mortgage and insurance is £588 p/m alone, so my income is not even meeting that (£60.50 Income Support p/w, £50 Tax Credits p/w, £18.80 p/w) - I had a payment holiday in August, but they wouldn't extend it to September. I took voluntary redundancy (not a great amount) at the end of June to spend the summer with my young daughter, who had been ill - I had a job lined up to start mid-August but it fell through, through no fault of my own - so I cannot claim any of my insurance policies.

I think, from reading the previous posts, it seems that people are being penalised for doing their best to keep their heads above water. It should not be a situation where it becomes desirable to let things get so bad that your house is about to be repossessed or that you get into major arrears so badly that your credit rating becomes very badly damaged, in order to have more chance of the bank and Building Societies agreeing to a financial hardship case. I think the banks and BS are making a mockery of the term 'financial hardship' and flying in the face of the legalities to which they are bound. I think the Ombudsman should be being more pro-active about this.

I asked them to hold all charges until my request was resolved, but I have two due to come off on 2nd September, totalling £70; that's more than half my weekly income at the moment. They are absolutely hugely profiting from people's misery. I think it's disgusting......

PS 28/8/08 - phoned them yesterday to ask if they would cancel the £70 charge due to my circumstances, the girl checked with the manager and came back and said no, though they did agree during a phone call today not to charge a further £35 for a DD that was sent back today as I explained there was a bit of confusion about the date I'd changed it to - I think it depends who you get a lot of the time - I have to say that it has always been a guy who has agreed to a refund or cancel charges on telephone banking and never a woman - that's my experience, anyway...

Robbda

I wrote to Halifax explaining that on losing my job i have, had to take a lesser paid job and had entered into a DMP to manage my debts, I said that i wanted a refund of the charges i have received since then (£1k) as i felt it was hindering my financial situation and that i felt i came under the classification of financial hardship...

So Halifax write back, the usual its on hold blah blah we can see no evidence of you being in financial difficulty (!?!!?!??!:mad: ) and don't consider you valid but please fill in the attached expenditure form if you dispute that

So i shot a letter back, saying that i found it hard to believe they had no evidence that i was in financial difficulty as it was clear from statements that i had been out of work as there were no credits to the account, they could see the weekly payments going in that a varied depending on what work i could get and that monthly total was less than my original month amount and the i pointed out that £1k of charges had been put of my account for repeated failed direct debits due to a lack of funds (HELLO!)

Then i enclosed a copy of the banking code on what is classed as financial hardship - with everything relevant to me highlighted an update claim sheet with interest increase and the SOA issued to me by CCCS

Will let you know how i get on

dec001

after being told by ombudsmans office everything was on hold,then found out about the waiver rules and contacted my bank (first trust) by phone and letter telling them i believe they apply to me-claiming £4000+ for six years of charges,first contacted them in april 08 and got the usual final response-anyone else dealing with first trust in n.ireland?,waiting for response any day now!!

Furch

Has anyone sent prompting letters since the latest news re. the hardship cases?

I am waiting for a reply from RBS and they seem to be taking their time in responding.