Bank Charges Financial Hardship Disussion

Jude_Tulip

I phoned the dept and the person I spoke to was not aware of the bank paying out on financial hardship, 'I just had to sit it out, it can take a couple of years'. When I asked what the point was in making me fill out their financial questionnaire she could not answer me. I then received the standard letter about my claim and the OFT a couple of days ago. I have now sent another letter today asking them what the point of the exercise was and enclosed a printout of the blurb on hardship from this website. My husband thought I was a bit 'cheeky' in my letter, but I am getting really frustrated. Don't know where to go from here. There is no point in going to the Ombudsman because by the time they have gotten round to your complaint I will have gone bankrupt.:mad:

Jude_Tulip

carol960 wrote: »

This thread is to discuss the updated section of the Bank Charges News article on financial difficulties.

Please feedback here so that we can finesse the info.

[/quote]
I could not find an answer in any article. If you have seen something that would answer my question please feel free to point me in the right direction

Elzie_2

hello,

Robbda kindly posted his letter on here a few weeks ago for me to send to A&L as he was successful with his claim.

I did this and they sent me a form to fill out with all my income and expenditure to assess whether i was in financial difficulties.

i checked my bank account yesterday and had received £380 back from A&L in refunds.

I had a letter from them this morning saying we have thoroughly investigated your request and are satisfied that the fees to which you refer have been raised correctly in accordance with our charging policy. However we have taken into consideration your personal circumstances and a result of this we have agreed a refund of fees of £380. This amount has now been credited to your account.

Then a load of waffle about how to run a bank account and avoid fees in future.

The thing is that I am actually claiming £3876 in charges so they have only given me back 10% of fees!!

Can anyone advise me what to do next please!! I am so desperate for this money back...

Thanks!

julesd99

I claimed bank charges about 2 years ago (sucessfully, though I didnt add interest)
After this payout (Abbey clung on to the 11th hour! and I won by default
They did not turn up to court or contest the judgement
I built up around £400 of further charges from the time I first asked for my money back to the present
I am out of work at present so I think the 'hardship' clause may apply, but will it go against me if I have had a previous refund?

carol960

Elzie wrote: »

hello,

Robbda kindly posted his letter on here a few weeks ago for me to send to A&L as he was successful with his claim.

I did this and they sent me a form to fill out with all my income and expenditure to assess whether i was in financial difficulties.

i checked my bank account yesterday and had received £380 back from A&L in refunds.

I had a letter from them this morning saying we have thoroughly investigated your request and are satisfied that the fees to which you refer have been raised correctly in accordance with our charging policy. However we have taken into consideration your personal circumstances and a result of this we have agreed a refund of fees of £380. This amount has now been credited to your account.

Then a load of waffle about how to run a bank account and avoid fees in future.

The thing is that I am actually claiming £3876 in charges so they have only given me back 10% of fees!!

Can anyone advise me what to do next please!! I am so desperate for this money back...

Thanks!

hi i 2 have received the same letter from the alliance and leicester receiving £140.00 refund i`m reclaiming nearly £7,000 worth of charges what do we do next.

Hannahkah_2

My partner and I believe that we come under the FSA's financial hardship criteria. We are constantly having itens returned unpaid due to insufficient funds, we have missed 3 months mortgage payments and 5 months loan repayments as well as other unsecured debts. Are monthly expenditure is £500 more than our monthly income.

I have contacted HSBC and sent them a I&E form. After looking at this and saying that under government guidelines they do not take unsecured debts into consideration they have ruled that we do not come under financial hardship umbrella. Their reason for this is because after everything is paid eg mortgage, car etc we are left with £14.00 a month for food, clothing and unsecured debts etc. Because we have money left apparantly we are not struggling to survice even though that £14.00 a month has to stretch to pay £500 a month unsecured bills and feed two adults and a dog.

We have cut back drastically on out spending but we still cannot get on top of our problem.

Does anyone have any advice on what should be our next step in proving our financial hardship?

Your help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

A_fiend_for_life

I don't have full clear advice but cccs when I contacted them said food allowance based on one person should be £20 per week.

Hopefully you'll get additional advice shortly:

You might need to send them another letter asking them to justify their reasoning:

- guidelines for a single person are £20 per week not sure about 2 people
- there are guideline amounts for pets, clothes, haircuts etc
- what 'government guidelines' are they talking about if that is the phrase they are using it is very nebulous.
- things like broadband you can justify for paying bills, job hunting for a better paid job etc.
- have they requested any evidence of rescheduling debts, missed payments etc? Given your missing payments on priority debts you may well have evidence of rescheduling outgoings too. I am wary of why you should be taking the next step it sounds like they haven't asked for proof.

cccs should be able to give you info on what your minimum spend should be on different outgoings.

There is also a dedicated board on HSBC financial hardship discussion.

BOBBY

carol960 wrote: »

hi i 2 have received the same letter from the alliance and leicester receiving £140.00 refund i`m reclaiming nearly £7,000 worth of charges what do we do next.

Me too! Is there any way of claiming the rest or do we just wait? I too am desperate for the money.

Can anyone help?

Many thanks

k1mmie

My daughter had an overdraft with lloyds TSB. She was a full time student with a small part time job. She lost her job and called the bank to inform them that she could not pay any money into her account. Instead they said they would get the Customer Support Unit to call her. They did and suggested increasing the overdraft to cover all the charges and set up a repayment plan.. When she said that this was not ideal as she was a full time student and could not afford to have it increased they said they could not refund charges under the hardship scheme as the banks were waiting for the test case etc.. blah blah blah. SHe said yes I know of the test case but It does not cover hardship cases. They said they did not know of any cases paying out and that was the end of the matter. She has just referred it to the FOS as her overdraft of £200 now stands at a balance of £500 all due to charges, and each month they add on another £80.

I hope she can qualify under the hardship case as this is very difficult for a 19 year old who is trying to start work with such an overdraft already.


Has anyone managed to get a refund through Lloyds TSB on a hardship claim?

miss-bonkaz_2

Hi all.... does anyone have a template to send to the bank to request a financial hardship claim? or can anyone give me an idea on what to write.
thanks...