Bank Charges Financial Hardship Disussion

ailsajayne29

natweststaffmember wrote: »

Are you aware that you can be in financial hardship with one bank but not with another one?
as awful as this sounds, having any money for Christamas could ultimately prove the fact that hardship may not be as severe as to get a payout which does not have to happen under financial hardship.
Please see above re car payments though.

The car had to be handed back over a year ago now as part of the whole dmp and sorting myself out business,

I didnt know that one bank could say Im in harship and another say im not.
As for christmas, as I had to use most of my holiday from work for hospital app's earlier this year (we get 2hrs towards app anything over you have to use as leave) I have to take my enforced two wk break at christmas largely unpaid, having any money at all to buy food and maybe even my parents and brothers family even something small would be nice and make me feel less like my life is effectively over due to money problems... I do appreciate that its no where near a severe problems as others have at the moment but if the fsa waiver says that not being able to repay loans etc counts as hardship why are the banks not paying out on this criteria? and why are lloyds allowed to class you as in hardship but state that they are not repaying anyones fees? even if you are in priority arrears?

natweststaffmember

ailsajayne29 wrote: »

The car had to be handed back over a year ago now as part of the whole dmp and sorting myself out business,

I didnt know that one bank could say Im in harship and another say im not.
As for christmas, as I had to use most of my holiday from work for hospital app's earlier this year (we get 2hrs towards app anything over you have to use as leave) I have to take my enforced two wk break at christmas largely unpaid, having any money at all to buy food and maybe even my parents and brothers family even something small would be nice and make me feel less like my life is effectively over due to money problems... I do appreciate that its no where near a severe problems as others have at the moment but if the fsa waiver says that not being able to repay loans etc counts as hardship why are the banks not paying out on this criteria? and why are lloyds allowed to class you as in hardship but state that they are not repaying anyones fees? even if you are in priority arrears?

Unfortunately. the issue is on the interpretation of "essential living expenses as they become due" which is the FSA definition of hardship(not just the annex 2 of the FSA Waiver). No bank has to refund bank charges under the FSA waiver.

EDIT: quote from FSA waiver re definition of Financial Hardship

"For the purposes of this direction, a complainant is considered to be in financial difficulty when his income is insufficient to cover reasonable living expenses and meet financial commitments as they become due;"

Orford

The FSA waiver merely lists things that banks should use as evidence of possible financial hardship. They are not hard definitions of FH and as such are open to a wide interpretation, as seen by the different approaches by each bank. Lloyds are by far the worst in this regard, but unfortunately there is no mention in the Waiver Directions that obliges banks to make any refunds at all.

ailsajayne29

ah ok, well Im trying to contact my loans and credit card people asking for copies of my cca's at the moment and for details of any ppi, because i really cant remember if i took any out, However as they are all with debt companies now (not the original company) I'm not sure whether to just write and ask them or if I need to contact the original companies! I want to get my debts down despite not having any extra money to pay them off with!

intrepid

I find it hard to imagine Lloyds are worse than HSBC to be honest. I am still reeling that their way of saying we were in difficulties but not hardship was just to deny that a need exists for stuff like simple bus travel, for my kids going to college or me to anything at all. Even to the supermarket for food shopping!! The only legit travel cost is to work and my partner the only one in work. Forget all about Christmas- that is so far off their radar as to be non-existent. We are at a monthly deficit, but their blatant manipulation of 'need' makes it appear we are not- by about £3 per month. Deliberate, entirely, carefully worked out too I am sure. Their charges were the reason we absolutely could not keep inside our limit too- this is not ironic, it's robbery. Sorry, feeling cross!

natweststaffmember

intrepid wrote: »

I find it hard to imagine Lloyds are worse than HSBC to be honest. I am still reeling that their way of saying we were in difficulties but not hardship was just to deny that a need exists for stuff like simple bus travel, for my kids going to college or me to anything at all. Even to the supermarket for food shopping!! The only legit travel cost is to work and my partner the only one in work. Forget all about Christmas- that is so far off their radar as to be non-existent. We are at a monthly deficit, but their blatant manipulation of 'need' makes it appear we are not- by about £3 per month. Deliberate, entirely, carefully worked out too I am sure. Their charges were the reason we absolutely could not keep inside our limit too- this is not ironic, it's robbery. Sorry, feeling cross!

I have said this for many years but the charges are the consequence and not the cause of the charges. The reason is that there was insufficient funds to cover the items going out and the consequence is the charges.

intrepid

That might be the start of it, but in fact as our income is so tight, we cannot literally survive if we have £70-£100 charges to pay from the previous month and when we exceeded our limits by a total that is not more than that. Even our own branch thought it outrageous, and surely this is why so many people got their charges back? You seem very pro- charges for this site.

natweststaffmember

intrepid wrote: »

That might be the start of it, but in fact as our income is so tight, we cannot literally survive if we have £70-£100 charges to pay from the previous month and when we exceeded our limits by a total that is not more than that. Even our own branch thought it outrageous, and surely this is why so many people got their charges back? You seem very pro- charges for this site.

When the OFT test case issues are resolved, bank charges will still exist and people will still incur them. No one within the bank charges campaign will tell you that they believe there will be a zero charges for unauthorised overdraft charges. The only question is when it will be a fair charge.

intrepid

That is really a very different matter, though is it not? Fair is fair and these charges were not, being often as much at least as we were over limit by. My case as i have been outlining is that we are clearly in hardship and the bank were manipulating 'need' in order to make the figures suggest we are not. And we would have been within our limits 95% of the time had they stopped charges sooner (they have now)- OR just applied a 'fair' charge. Whatever you say, and i am curious as to whether you are payrolled by money saver or just doing this for fun- they have been causing our continued charges as we are living at a deficit as an actual result of them quite often.

jonboy739

hi, i put a hardship claim into the ombudsman in june this year, since june my bank has taken over £1000 in bank charges. i have just had a offer of £105 off the bank and for them not to give me any bank charges me for 3 months, so i have contacted the ombudsman this morning and told them that is not exceptable as they have put me that far behind with my bills because of the bank charges and it seems very unfair that they still get to keep about £1000 of my money. anyway the ombudsman have told me that the bank is under no obligation to pay me any money back and the £105 that they have offered will put me back into my over draft. anyway they said there is nothing more they can do. so martin lewis do i fight on or is that the end of it?