Bank Charges Financial Hardship Disussion

Edinburghlass_2

Rightly or wrongly every bank will have their own definition of what constitutes financial hardship and how they will deal with claims. Please put your requests in writing rather than phoning as that way you will get a reply in writing and if you feel that the bank is not looking at your claim under the waiver then you can ask the FO to look at it.

shooter

melissa'smoney wrote: »

I have just rung the A&L after reading the article. The lady thought it was for people on benifits only but after pointing out some of the FSA's qualifying terms she willingly wrote notes on my behalf and said someone would be in touch??
Obviously i work but my income barely covers my outgoings so i live in my overdraft and exceed it most months, hence my £5000 reclaim which has gone to court as is still on a stay.

I got myself into a mess after taking a lower paid job on 32hrs pw which has led to me using my overdraft, exceeding it and regualry living on my CC.

Can i claim on the 'exceeding £500pa in overdraft charges' and 'regualrly living from a CC' alone or do i need more hardship circumstances than that?

x

Hi mellisa,

if you fulfil any of the criteria as it seems you do the you can claim as a case of financial hardship

The hardship conditions are explained under the heading
Dealing with complainants in financial difficulty - annex 2 here:

http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Doing/Re...sp_monthly.pdf

write a letter to your bank using the criteria to state why you believe you fulfil the criteria

see my thread to get the gist of what to write

http://www.legalbeagles.info/forums/...ead.php?t=9830

but if you do make sure the letter is personal to you, many banks are now either paying out on harship cases or or stopping charges and interest on accounts until the outcome of the test case as my bank have done for me.

Good Luck with your claim and if you would like any help then post here and myself or others will help you as best we can

I am also going after A&L and have £630 of charges since february this year!

I have threads on CAG (user name belville) and on Legal beagles (user name shooter) where I have posted the letters I have sent.

If you would like a link the Pm me and I'll send you them

Good Luck


Shooter xx

melissa'smoney

shooter wrote: »

Hi mellisa,

if you fulfil any of the criteria as it seems you do the you can claim as a case of financial hardship

The hardship conditions are explained under the heading
Dealing with complainants in financial difficulty - annex 2 here:

http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Doing/Re...sp_monthly.pdf

write a letter to your bank using the criteria to state why you believe you fulfil the criteria

see my thread to get the gist of what to write

http://www.legalbeagles.info/forums/...ead.php?t=9830

but if you do make sure the letter is personal to you, many banks are now either paying out on harship cases or or stopping charges and interest on accounts until the outcome of the test case as my bank have done for me.

Good Luck with your claim and if you would like any help then post here and myself or others will help you as best we can

I am also going after A&L and have £630 of charges since february this year!

I have threads on CAG (user name belville) and on Legal beagles (user name shooter) where I have posted the letters I have sent.

If you would like a link the Pm me and I'll send you them

Good Luck


Shooter xx

many thanks for this you've been a great help, also you're letter on the other thread is really good, if you could pm it me that would be great.....thank you :beer: xxx

A_fiend_for_life

holdste wrote: »

Hi everyone
I have just called Nationwide to ask them if I could use the hardship waiver to reclaim and was told no because I still have a wage paid into the account and I have a car loan been paid out so I can't be experiancing hardship, even though the car loan is 3 years old. I told them a lot can change in 3 years but they just fobbed me off. I have had £700 of charges in the last 3 months which caused more DDs to be returned and left me without funds to pay the bills. Now I'm in arrears with my mortgage and council tax but nationwide say this is not a hardship. May resort to keeping my wages under the mattress, got to be safer there than in the bank

Hi holdste,

Don't listen to them see how many points you can emphasis in a letter in the guidelines on the original post (OP).

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/oft-bank-charges#hardship

See shooter's post too

Your over the £500 mark in the last 3 months never mind the last 12 months. Not to mention change or changes of circumstances, the mortgage and council tax.

Rent / mortgage and council tax are priority debts and should be paid before any others.

Lilycharlotte

I have around £2500 of bank charges to claim from Halifax. I have already submitted my claim and got the standard 'we'll let you know when it's over' letter.

I have closed my bank account and opened a new one a Barclays (just a basic cash account as it's all we could get). We moved house 3 months ago to cut down on rent costs but all our rent payments so far have bounced as we didn't have funds in our account. Meaning more charges. We are up to date with all rent payments now.

We are being taken to court in September because we can't pay the council tax. We also owe around £800 to Npower (from the previous house we lived in) as well as some water rates.

I try really hard to make sure we have the money in our account to meet all the payments but sometimes it's just not possible. My OH works away, clocking up 500 miles a week and a lot of petrol pounds. We have a small daughter and I am starting university in September. It is not a full time course but I have to do a placement for 3 days a week. I also work in a resturant 2 nights a week.

We don't have a credit card or overdraft. We have a loan and are late paying every month, although it does get paid eventually.

Now I've wrote all that down it seems we would have a case for hardship.
Is writting a letter the best course of action or is it best to call them? If I write should I include copies of the court summons and late payment letters and bounced direct debits and charge letters?

I have no idea how much money in charges we've had over the past 6 months - not many as 6 months ago we opened the new basic bank account.

I guess there is no harm in trying, and like it says even if we get offered a wee bit we can still claim the rest when it's over. Which would be really good.

I just don't like dealing with Halifax as, to be frank, I hate them.

Thanks,
Sally

fedupwiththeworry

I've been struggling for a while with a failing business which closed just 4 weeks ago. Had a month where DD's would bounce so got whacked with charges, got some money in the account, the charges would take it and so more bounced payments = more charges etc etc £1600 this year alone :mad: always up to the O/D hilt.

My mother then gave me some money last month which meant that the charges would be paid and my money would pay the regular outgoings and I would be back on track so to speak.

Within a few days Abbey sent me a letter stating my o/d is to be cancelled from 1.10.08 rang the number on the letter to explain I'd just got myself sorted but although the chap was quite helpful, he couldn't do anything and suggested I rang complaints on the Monday (this was a Sat). Did that and the lady actually suggested I claim back my charges but said the case was on hold. In the meantime she was contacting another Dept as she thought the letter was standard and they'd just extend the o/d for another year.

She then came back to me and said OK i'm putting you through but don't worry your o/d is safe. I got transferred and the guy there said sorry we can't extend as we can't get the underwriters to agree to it. They offered to extend it only if I pay it back @ £125.00 p/m (£2000 o/d) and lose my chq book and debit card. OK don't mind losing those but where do I find another £125 p/m at the moment.

Anyway sorry for the long post but can I claim back under hardship due to the amount in charges this year plus we've only got WFTC (still got a web presence - not doing well) I'm hoping if I can that they will use that to pay back the O/D and I'll have a chunk left over (from prev 6 yrs)

Thx for listening.

dirtydavey

HSBC deney all knolage of a financial difficulty waver. What should I do now?

Dave

Orford

dirtydavey wrote: »

HSBC deney all knolage of a financial difficulty waver. What should I do now?

Dave

Presumably this was on the phone. You need to put it in writing.

Here is the actual waiver directions from the FSA, particularly annex 2:
http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Doing/Regulated/Notify/Waiver/pdf/disp_monthly.pdf

Edinburghlass_2

Edinburghlass wrote: »

Rightly or wrongly every bank will have their own definition of what constitutes financial hardship and how they will deal with claims. Please put your requests in writing rather than phoning as that way you will get a reply in writing and if you feel that the bank is not looking at your claim under the waiver then you can ask the FO to look at it.

To reiterate what Orford has said, put everything in writing and read Martin's article here http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/oft-bank-charges#hardship

shooter

dirtydavey wrote: »

HSBC deney all knolage of a financial difficulty waver. What should I do now?

Dave

Hi dirtydavey

The banks will try anything to stop you getting your money back, BUT they are playing with fire if they try to deny te New FSA waiver criteria for hardship cases.

Write to them with as much detail as possible of each part of the criteria that you fulfill if they still deny it then contact the FSA
with a copy of any correspondance from your bank

The hardship conditions are explained under the heading
Dealing with complainants in financial difficulty - annex 2 here:

http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Doing/Re...sp_monthly.pdf

The above will help you.

do make sure the letter is personal to you, many banks are now either paying out on harship cases or or stopping charges and interest on accounts until the outcome of the test case as my bank have done for me.

you can see my letter at
http://www.legalbeagles.info/forums/...ead.php?t=9830


The fact that they are trying to deny the new waiver rules is in some ways good for us claiments cause if they continue to do so the the FSA may decide to lift the waiver altogether and then we can all get back to getting our money back from the banks

GOOD LUCK and don't hesitate to post if you need more help

Shooter x