Bank Charges - illegal?

dchurch24

Hi, I'm actually not allowed to post a link, as per the terms of use of this site, as I'm directly linked to the bankchargeshell site and the group.

But, if you search the yahoo groups for bankchargeshell under the financial heading you should be able to find it. Alternatively if you scroll down on the first page of the site you mentioned, there is a link there.

DilbertJones

Sorry i cant seem to find it, could you pm it?

dchurch24

'tis done.

gothicf0rm

i have exceded my overdraft limit by never more than £41.78. the total amount of days i have spent between being 1p and £41.78 in debt has been 118 days in the course of six years, for this i have been charged almost £2000, giving them a return of approximately 15000%. wanna tell me about the 15000% APR loan?
interestingly, earlier this year i tried to get my bank to extend my overdraft by £250 as i changed jobs, they refused saying "how will you pay it back?" they then levied on me over the course of three months £569 worth of charges. six months later i have no overdraft having paid it off, as well as the charges they slapped on me. these charges in turn though got me charges as i was unable to pay off the credit card to the amount i wanted to each month so i then ran up a further £243.92 in charges on that.
what is more bonkers? charging someone £2000 quid for being a little over £40 overdrawn, refusing to extend smoeone's overdraft for a few months because they say they cant afford to pay it and then charging over twice as much to them because they havent extended it over the same period they tried to get an extension. is that the sort of 'free' banking you mean M Thomson? i had no debts apart from my overdraft with them, a rapidly shrinking credit card debt that was set at zero percent for the next six years (beat that stoozers!), and most of a paid off student loan that ive paid off ever since i graduated. ive never paid a bill late or defaulted but computer says nooooooooo because there's a chance to make some easy money.
yes there are 'charges vultures' such as dchurch out there but there are also many, many people who are on the margins of financial trouble for a short amount of time who are victims of a system that exists to push them into debt to make money. you can find many of them posting on this thread, their problems have been caused and perpetuated by a system that preaches the myth that we have a 'free' banking system and without the current way of having the poor, needy or simply vulnerable for a few months, subsidise the rich then everyone will have to pay for the system.
thats !!!!!!!!, look at how mucb money banks make and the profits they make. you would rather defend this immorality, i hope to god you never spend a few months changing jobs and are a mere 41 quid short.

Mark7799

I'm trying to understand your comment. You say that you have 'exceeded your overdraft limit' which implies that your actual overdrawn balance was above £41.78 (i.e overdraft limit plus £41.78 = balance). Are you able to say how much you were actually overdrawn?

Are the amount of charges you quote the total you have been charged or are they charges for exceeding the overdraft limit?

As I said, just curious, trying to understand your maths.

gothicf0rm

£100 overdraft limit, ive been shrinking the limit ever since i was a broke student from an original £750 to £100 today. i always figured if i needed it again i could have it increased again, its called being financially responsible, little did i know that the bank would do that. they did however offer me a loan for much more than i wanted. almost all the time in the past i have never gone over my overdraft limit by more than a couple of pounds and i shrugged off the odd £30 quid charge because i was earning plenty.
that time i was shrot of money though the charges were for things ranging from not paying direct debits, being over the overdraft limit, visa debit payments coming out of the account etc. remember im not counting the interest payments here on the overdraft, just their charges.
i did have savings but i spent them on building up the business i run today so it would be debt free and have less liabilities than most businesses do. for about three months i drew no income, that was between me leaving my old job and the business being fully functioning. i was unable to claim benefits during this time because i wasnt technically out of work.
the maths comes from taking £41 quid, and then working out the amount they have made from charges over the course of the time they have charged me and then from this taking the number of days ive been over my overdraft limit for and using this to find the APR. in reality the APR is much higher because it assumes ive always been £41 quid over the limit for the entire period. apart from 2005 it was never more than a tenner. remember the £41 quid is the greatest amount i ever breached the contract by and the level a court would decide damages on.
in other words, i paid about £2000 for being a little over my overdraft limit by no more than £41 quid for less than four months in total.
incidentally, ive just run up more charges because of the festive season. payments going INTO my account have all been delayed by bank holidays, payments made by identical types going out dated 10 days later have all been processed fully and left my account. i see one CHAPS payment has been active since the 23rd and yet i still havent recieved funds... payment in progress it says. if its a bank holiday why not delay payments out from my account too? oh wait, that would mean they wouldnt make as much money.

JoseChungsDoomsday

M_Thomson wrote:

You don't have anything to gloat about . What you are doing will lead to the end of free banking in this country. We will go down the American route of being charged for each cheque that is written and for making a payment by direct debit etc. And whilst we are at it you need to get things into context. Taking responsibility if I make a mistake does not make me a "right winger" as you called me in your previous post. By thinking you have the right to sue a bank willy nilly you are making it more difficult for people who have genuine reasons for incurring charges to get their money back. Just remember that there are poor people who will be worse off when we have to pay fees for things like writing a cheque etc. You are being insulting to poor people who struggle everyday but still manage to not incur charges by doing what you do.

couldnt agree more. it's a shame we have to keep coming back to this topic with dchurch24 (as interesting as he may find this hobby, it is setting a bad example to the easily led on this board).

JoseChungsDoomsday

dchurch24 wrote:

...but for the rich to get richer at the expense of the poor, is surely a right-wing ideology, no?

this is just causing a smoke screen to the issue at hand.

If you get charged by a bank due to an error of your own, you should take it on the chin. As I've stated many times before you sign the terms when you open the account and you should expect to be held accountable when you breach them.

gothicf0rm

even though the bank is breaking the law by you taking it on the chin. what do you think of little old ladies who are also conned out of their money by people going from door to door pretending they owe them money they dont?
dude, i run my own business. late payment is a problem sometimes, as a result we have contract terms that set out what we can charge a late payer. i can assure you that if we ever put down in the contract terms what banks have for their personal banking customers the terms would be challenged and thrown out. i know this because i tried and my lawyer then told me all about how punitive damages are illegal.
thats the crux of the matter. its ILLEGAL. what part of illegal dont you get?
i agree with some of the comments about dchurch though who does seem to trivialise the issue somewhat.
no one says banks shouldnt be compensated for their loss, i think people are angry at the shoddy customer service they get, the arrogant attitude of banks and the fact the damages they have to pay out when they are at their most vulnerable in no way represent the actual losses born by the bank.
you might want to compare what banks do to the 1998 and 2002 acts on late payments of commercial debt to get an idea of what is legal and what isnt.
interest rates should be set at 12.5% per annum, you can only claim debt recovery cost ONCE, not every single month and so on. if someone owes me 850 quid i can only charge them 40 quid once, i cant do it with every statement of debt i send out.
now if this is the law for companies, and there are actually bodies out there enforcing unfair contract terms with commercial business why shouldnt the same apply to consumers???
or to put it another way, do you think a bank which faces a maximum loss of 41 pounds over 118 days should be able to charge a total of £2000 as a result. if i could do that in my business id be a rich man.
to make it even more plain, should i do a contract that allows me to get someone that way, and then it was challenged and i lost, if i kept up doing that contract and the next client paid up not realising the contract was unlawful and i was aware the contract was unlawful i would have obtained money by deception.
in never challenging a case in the court system the banks can get away with it because precedence is not set. the moment precedence is set and they continue with their actions they have been getting an unlawful pecunairy advantage - obtaining money by deception - should they continue. thats a criminal offence, and they are doing it to the tune of £3.5 billion a year for just the big four banks.
do you encourage criminal behaviour that perpetuates only because of a legal loophole that prevents them from being taken fully to task over the issue or is obtaining money by deception ok if its done by a vast computerised system staffed by 100,000 people but wrong if its one albanian immigrant going from door to door?

JoseChungsDoomsday

gothicf0rm wrote:

even though the bank is breaking the law by you taking it on the chin. what do you think of little old ladies who are also conned out of their money by people going from door to door pretending they owe them money they dont?
dude, i run my own business. late payment is a problem sometimes, as a result we have contract terms that set out what we can charge a late payer. i can assure you that if we ever put down in the contract terms what banks have for their personal banking customers the terms would be challenged and thrown out. i know this because i tried and my lawyer then told me all about how punitive damages are illegal.

how about how irresponsible it is to recommend someone who is having money problems to go to the extreme measure of sueing a bank instead of trying to work with them? thats what this whole thread is about - dont pay the charges, you can spend a few months/years taking your mind of your money problems by taking a bank to court. But guess what? the problems will still be there.

It is YOUR responsibility to pay for things you can afford, not your bank. It is your responsibility to manage your debt, not your bank. It is your responsibility, to a company that has given you facilities, to use them correctly, not the banks.

And where is the little old lady rubbish coming from? stop trying to cause a smoke screen, dude .