Bank Charges Financial Hardship Disussion

moneymonkey35

ouija wrote: »

I contacted Halifax on January 6th 2009 about the £2500 they have taken from me in less than 12 months as unarranged overdraft fees. I've complained about these before (but not claimed) and was told they were fair etc etc. Blah blah.

So anyway, they sent me a form to fill out to show I was in financial difficulty and since they have still refused to process the claim I threatened court action. They sent me their final letter explaining they would not respond to any more communication on this matter.

I've filled in the complaing form for the FOS and enclosed the letters I sent to Halifax, plus a list of all the charges, and a copy of Halifax's final letter.

As I understand, this will take a few months to be processed... will this complaint be processed quickly due to financial hardship, or will it just be added to the end of the queue? £2500 in a year is ridiculous. Anyone looking at my case should surely see that.

I am also waiting for an FOS decision... I sent everything off a couple of weeks ago. On Saturday I got a brief letter acknowledging my claim, (I was pretty impressed that this only took a week!) giving me a ref. no and stating that there was a large backlog of claims and so it may take a while to be processed. Unfortunately there was no time scale given. I'm guessing 2 or 3 months. At least I know it is somewhere in the system!

I will post when I get further news.....

esmerellda

Think its about 90 days at the moment with FOS.

shik1

i tried to claim financial hardship with ABBEY due to:

being unemployed since september
partner having a baby in october,she on maternity pay
1800 overdraft that we're constantly in
being with CCCS on a debt management plan

they sent a letter yesterday saying we don't fall into the hardship catergory!!!

do you guys agree?

also more debts have come to light this week:
owe tmobile £146 in arrears
water bill £56
Council tax £56

we also owe mother in law £3200 in rent (she paid our rent to landlord upfront) which i didn't mention on the original expenditure sheet to ABBEY

any advice?

Trilly

natweststaffmember wrote: »

"2.
In making an assessment of financial difficulty the firm will take into account:
a.
evidence of changes in lifestyle, including loss of employment; disability; serious illness; imprisonment; relationship breakdown; death of a partner; starting a lower paid job; parental/carer leave; and starting full-time education;
b.
evidence of the following events:
i.
items repeatedly being returned unpaid due to lack of available funds;
ii.
failing to make loan repayments or other commitments;
iii.
discontinuation of regular credits;
iv.
notification of some form of insolvency or court proceedings;
v.
regular requests for increased borrowing or repeated rescheduling of debts;
vi.
making frequent cash withdrawals on a credit card at a non-promotional rate of interest; and
vii.
repeatedly exceeding a credit card or overdraft limit without agreement (and, in this regard, where a complainant has incurred over £500 in unauthorised overdraft charges in the previous 12 months, that is to be treated as indicative of financial difficulty)."

The above is the criteria that is used for financial hardship but the reality on the ground is that it is arrears on essentials ie rent/mortgage/council tax/utilities etc.etc. that sort of thing.

Most of my overdraft charges are due to arrears on rent/council tax weekly payments to my landlord and I took out a loan of £600 to pay an electricity bill which has ended up covering loss of hours from work, so I still owe that.

Might take out the 'full time education' angle as they seem to list that as a reason for going into financial hardship, whilst I was angling at losing a free £3000 and NHS benefits being an advantage.

arunadasi

Just a quick note to say that yesterday NatWest rang me to say they have approved my Financial Hardship claim!
I'll post more details when I get it in writing.

carol960

Hi can any one advise me what i should do next have tried to claim charges back from the Alliance and Leicester under financial hardship,this was refused the Alliance & Leicester saying as much as they could see we were in difficult times they were awaiting the result of the test case.Because of our financial situation i then contacted the financial ombudsman this took 6 weeks for them to look at our claim understandably they are busy people at this moment in time. Having received there reply just a few days ago they have decided to agree with the bank, saying that because they refunded £140 (total amount of charges is £7,000) back in October that they are under no obligation to do anymore at this stage!The letter then goes on to talk about our credit card debts with the Alliance & Leicester(MBNA)which had nothing to do with what we asked the ombudsman to look at!

natweststaffmember

carol960 wrote: »

Hi can any one advise me what i should do next have tried to claim charges back from the Alliance and Leicester under financial hardship,this was refused the Alliance & Leicester saying as much as they could see we were in difficult times they were awaiting the result of the test case.Because of our financial situation i then contacted the financial ombudsman this took 6 weeks for them to look at our claim understandably they are busy people at this moment in time. Having received there reply just a few days ago they have decided to agree with the bank, saying that because they refunded £140 (total amount of charges is £7,000) back in October that they are under no obligation to do anymore at this stage!The letter then goes on to talk about our credit card debts with the Alliance & Leicester(MBNA)which had nothing to do with what we asked the ombudsman to look at!

The FOS spoke about MBNA? Is there charges on the MBNA Card as well? (they may well be claimable as well )

moneymonkey35

shik1 wrote: »

i tried to claim financial hardship with ABBEY due to:

being unemployed since september
partner having a baby in october,she on maternity pay
1800 overdraft that we're constantly in
being with CCCS on a debt management plan

they sent a letter yesterday saying we don't fall into the hardship catergory!!!

do you guys agree?

also more debts have come to light this week:
owe tmobile £146 in arrears
water bill £56
Council tax £56

we also owe mother in law £3200 in rent (she paid our rent to landlord upfront) which i didn't mention on the original expenditure sheet to ABBEY

any advice?

I had a similar problem with my bank (refused to pay up even though in financial hardship) and have gone to the financial ombudsman with a complaint about it. I suggest you do the same.

Whilst they are also putting on hold bank claim complaints, they will look at hardship claims.

You will need to fill out there own claim form (downloadable from their website: http://www.financialombudsman.org.uk/consumer/complaints.htm) and send the refusal letter from the bank. I also sent a copy of my list of charges, letters I sent to the bank and demands/info about other commitments I could not meet.

I received an acknowledgement of my claim a week after I sent all details to them but they would not state exactly how long it would take to deal with it.
From what other people have said, its 2-3 months so you would probably have a bit of a wait but it could be worth it. If they agree with you, the bank will have to pay out.

Good luck whatever you decide to do!

Paulxo

Nationwide has just replied to me saying that they are "unable to refund my bank charges" under the financial hardship application. They then went and charged me £440 for last month. Considering I'm on a salary of £715 per month, this ironically puts me in financial hardship.

I went directly to my branch to complain and do you know what they said? "Cancel direct debits". Hmm, ok I'll just cancel my mortgage, council tax, utility bills, car insurance, etc, cos my bank says so and they'll charge me.

I then asked for advice on what to do about my charges - about £3,000. (I'm now £2k overdrawn, which if you think about it, means that I would actually be £1k in the black). On telling them I'd had a letter back saying 'No',they said just escalate it until you're happy....

HMM.

esmerellda

If that is their final response and you feel you are in hardship then escalate your case to the Financial Ombudsman service.

Cancelling DD's is a good plan to get out of the circle of charges. Organise payments manually for a couple months until things are straight and you can be sure DD's that are claimed for will go through without incurring more charges.