Bank Charges Financial Hardship Disussion

titter74

I have been waiting since 2007 and march this year woz excepted as a financial hardship case,in April Barclays gave me a goodwill gesture of just over £3.5k,the company that are dealing with it for me got there commision and i received a letter to say that this is not the final installment and will receive a final amount when courts have decided.With regards to what is happening now,if your case was half way through do we get the rest??It does not seem fair for those that are waiting might not receive any money but yet there are plenty of people that have already got theirs,i feel that for all those waiting should get what should be owed by the banks ripping you off!!!!!The law in this country is complete rubbish and not fair on the consumers that if is wasnt for them the banks wouldnt exist!!!!:mad:

never-in-doubt

So,

We lost then eh?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8376906.stm

jonpnash

It is not the end.... of this..... Just the start of round two...
To quote the judgment...
Lord Phillips stated that it might be open to question whether it is fair to subsidise some customers whose accounts always remain in credit by levies on others who experienced events they did not foresee when they opened their accounts.

Also in the press release they also say... this..

Lord Walker commented that ministers and Parliament had decided to transpose the directive as it stood rather than to confer the higher degree of consumer protection afforded by the national laws of some other member states. Parliament might wish to consider whether to revisit that decision (Para 52).

IN other words....
This is not the end of it. The law lords have only questioned the jurisdiction of the OFT to investigate the charges under the Unfair Contract Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations. NOT THAT THE CHARGES ARE FAIR or THE CASE IS SETTLED.
They have indeed, said that they OFT can proceed with a case under different regulations.
In other words..... This is not the end... but just the beginning of round two.
Maybe this decision will galvanize support and the case against the banks. I don't think the banks can pop the champagne corks just yet..... as is not going to go away..... by this announcement.

Think we should all wait to see what the OFT says first..

Namechanger

Can we still carry on claiming under hardship then?

hoyles10

We got a letter from Natwest saying they had accepted our hardship claim and were going to write with an offer in the next 21 days. This was 25 days ago.

Is there anything we can do or just forget about it for now?

jonpnash

So the FSA has now released the waiver on claims!
So everyone who is trying to claim can now take their case back to banks, the FOS or county court? Nothing is stopping them, so situation reverts back to what is was before July 2007? or am I missing something here.

This current OFT case was only ever limited in it's scope. Reading the judgment it seems it was judging not whether the fees were fair or not, just whether the OFT has the power to assess them.
The judges do seem to agree they are unfair, as they say this over and over in their "learned" judgment. Seems to me this would be a very good argument for a county court. i.e. the top judges in the land seem to agree that the charges are indeed unfair.
I am now going to take it to country court. Armed with the supreme court's judgment...

To quote...
"The members of the Court are well aware of the limited nature of the issue which
we have to decide in this appeal. But many of the general public (who are understandably
taking a close interest in the matter) are not so well aware of its limited scope. It is
therefore appropriate to spell out at the outset that the Court does not have the task of
deciding whether the system of charging personal current account customers adopted by
United Kingdom banks is fair. "

"It seems to me that this reasoning is relevant not to the question of whether the
Relevant Charges form part of the price or remuneration for the package of services
provided but to whether the method of pricing is fair. It may be open to question whether
it is fair to subsidise some customers by levies on others who experience contingencies
that they did not foresee when entering into their contracts"

Llogan1988

I was just wondering now that the courts are in favour with the banks (a bit dodgy considering) can i claim as finantial hardship? My husband and i are on full benefits, dss, council tax and have 5 or six red letters now threatening court action/balifs can i still claim and will it be considered that because we have all claimed before the supreme court ruiling today we may still get money back? Sometimes i have had £70 of my £130 money taken leaving us skint before i even got any and with 2 kids to feed the amount of money left means spending my husbands jsa on everything thus skint again, i only have my pet insurance coming out my bank now and thats because no1 else will touch me lol

FooFan

I was wondering similar to the above poster. I put in a claim last October when I lost my job, asked to be considered under hardship but this got ignored totally. I have not worked since and my debts are beyond manageable now, plus I am still incurring charges from time to time. My bank has reduced their fees significantly now which is a good thing.

Have asked again for a hardship claim form, they are supposed to be sending it to me but will it even be worth trying now?

Edit *fingers crossed I might have a job offer next week so I can well and truly get myself out of this mire*

kathryn33

my case is with fos after bank agreed i was in hardship ive spoken to them today and they are proceeding with my case

moshambo

Hi
This question seems to have been asked a few times but cant find the answer.

We have yet to make any claims, or request for amount of charges....

But times are tough at the minute and we have been speaking to our bank of recent weeks about our account.

Last week they said they would send a budget form out for us to provide all outgoings and there was a possibility of claiming charges back - their words.

This recent news of the court judgement brought me back to this site and i discovered this 'hardship' idea.

Can anyone confirm that this will still be possible despite the court judgement, estimate timeframe if possible for these claims?

Thanks