Bank Charges - illegal?

msaquib

My brother had a capital one credit card with £200 credit limit. The account has now been passed to debt collections Equidebt. The debt now stands as £536 of which £336 are charges.

What action can he take to waive £336 worth of charges?

Thanks
SM

---lee---

ajbaker wrote:

Good gracious, that was surprising.

Having posted the above as the first part of my quest to recover the money, I phoned the Halifax. After speaking with my first 'rep' I was directed to her manager. Having mentioned my complaint, she seemed unwilling to budge. However after suggesting the charge was 'unfair' given my good history with the bank, and that I would like her to consider waving the charge, she agreed. No questions; though I was reminded it was a 'good will' gesture!

I was expecting a bigger fight to be honest. My sympathies for those who haven't had as much luck with the bank - I do believe it is purely down to the 'rep' you speak to and not any particular approach you take as a customer.

However my question and complaint with Amex still stands. I have already spoken with them and they have refused to budge. I'm surprised they have such a reputation on this site - there product may be reasonable but customer support is horrendous, and very difficult to communicate with (not English).

Thoughts still appreciated.

I think if you post your question in the credit card forum as a new thread, you are much more likely to get a response from those who are most experienced with credit card companies.

Lately, a lot of people have been posing questions about their specific situation on this thread and it’s becoming increasingly unwieldy and difficult to follow in my opinion.

---lee---

msaquib wrote:

My brother had a capital one credit card with £200 credit limit. The account has now been passed to debt collections Equidebt. The debt now stands as £536 of which £336 are charges.

What action can he take to waive £336 worth of charges?

Thanks
SM

Advice on possible routes to recover the money are already in this thread. It's long but comprehensive and would probably be useful to you.

gothicf0rm

yeah, the thing to remember about that too is that hes paid interest on the 336 worth of charges too or at least been charged interest on it so really hes paid out more than 336. first thing you need to do is calculate how much interest theyve charged him as a result of these charges and then once you have that too work out the real sum by adding 8% compound interest so for example a 30 charge that youre paying 15% interest on from 30/01/2005 will have compounded 4.51 interest. the 8% you can claim under the county courts act from 30/01/2005 on a 30 pound charge is 2.33 then there's adding the interest out on the compound interest which is more complex. adding all these up will give a figure they owe him.
the reality of the situtaion is legally speaking he is UNDER his credit limit. he should contact his credit card company next and officially dispute the existence of the debt at those levels. the chances are they will write it off over the phone. good luck to equidebt in ever managing to collect that if they dont.
theres also the small matter of defamation on his credit record, as people say check out the credit card thread.
its much easier to deal with than this thread because the consumer owes the cc company money and they have to legally prove the existence of the debt and at the size they say it is rather than here where we have to sue our banks for thousands of pounds.

kennyward

please can anyone give me advise.a number of years ago(5)i got myself in all kinds of trouble with the nat west bank when i was going through a nasty divorce.by the time i come to terms with the trouble i was in i had accumalated over £5,000 worth of bank charges,intrest and various other account penalties.i agree with them to pay £40.00 per month and they froze the intrest on the account.i think i have payed so far approx£3200 off the debt.through the web site i have become more moneywise and therefor asked nat west for a full breakdown of the debt and all the information contained by them about me.neadless to say they have stone walled me and also threatend action to recover the rest of the debt in full.how can a get a breakdown of this account so i can check its accuracy so i know that the nat west are not having me over .any advice from savvy moneyexperts would be gratefully received.kind regards.kenny ward.

inmypocketnottheirs

kennyward wrote:

please can anyone give me advise.a number of years ago(5)i got myself in all kinds of trouble with the nat west bank when i was going through a nasty divorce.by the time i come to terms with the trouble i was in i had accumalated over £5,000 worth of bank charges,intrest and various other account penalties.i agree with them to pay £40.00 per month and they froze the intrest on the account.i think i have payed so far approx£3200 off the debt.through the web site i have become more moneywise and therefor asked nat west for a full breakdown of the debt and all the information contained by them about me.neadless to say they have stone walled me and also threatend action to recover the rest of the debt in full.how can a get a breakdown of this account so i can check its accuracy so i know that the nat west are not having me over .any advice from savvy moneyexperts would be gratefully received.kind regards.kenny ward.

Kenny. have a read back through this thread and there is plenty of advice on how to proceed. Basically, if your bank has levied charges for exceeding your overdraft or for returning cheques, direct debits or standing orders, then 'apparently' they do not have a leg to stand on. I say apparently, because although certain other posters have had their charges refunded before getting to court, this has yet to happen for me. I will be starting court procedures against the Co-op bank this week for £1300 of charges.

Worth sending a letter and commencing the procedure, and visit https://www.bankchargeshell.co.uk for more information.

comicmankev

Just an update. After several calls to a call centre I finally got through and told the lady that I wanted a copy of all my statements for the last 6 years. I also stated that I wanted a list of charges for the same time.

I was told that the statements could take up to 3 months to compile (how on earth can this be when a computer and a laser printer can probably do this in minutes!). I also received a letter stating that I would not receive a list of charges as this was on my statements that I should have kept!

After advice on this thread, I wrote stating that I wanted the charges listed within 20 days (which I also gather is 20 actual days, not working days), otherwise I would report them to the info com. The 20 days was up yesterday.

Should I give them another week as it was Christmas?

As for the statements, I received some last week. They only supplied the statements from 2001-2004, which makes me wonder a little because the main problems with charges was when I changed jobs at almost exactly the time when the statements finish! Does anyone think they would be stalling as they know what I'm doing.

Anyway, to my astonishment, I went through the 2001-2004 statements which in my memory was a good time for charges. I added up the varius odd fees and that grand total for then is £547 in fees! And those were the good times!!! It looks like the total if I ever get the rest of the statements couyld well top £2k. This is definately worth fighting for in IMO.

This has got slightly out of hand now. I now get charged every single month but am doing my best to get it straight. I have made ALL the money saving options I could after using this whole site for several years now (which has saved me a fortune), but although many of the fees have been due to an error on my part, many of them can also be put down to and error in my employers part, some the bank and even the DD takers.

If this total really adds up to £2k+ (not even mentioning interest). Then I know for sure that my situation would be intirely different. I can and know how to control my money, yet I have never got into a situation to be able to bounce back. There is no suggestion that someone could make that I have not tried to get myself out of this mess, yet people on this thread still seem to think that we are to blame!

I have 2 jobs, I have a mortgage house which cannot now be re-mortgaged due to the credit history. I have no credit cards, but am paying of the bills. I and my partner (who also works full time) have not been out (at all, not even for a meal) in three years. I sell anything I can on Ebay, I even do it for others and take small commisions.

The only problem here is the fact I am sitting on the brink of my overdraft and it's just sitting that bit to far. Last months I went £40 over my overdraft. I have now receved a statement (as mentioned earlier in this thread) with charges that total £140. This is for direct debits/visa transactions that did not go through on ONE day. there was enough money the day before, and that exact day I funded the account to cover them, but I still got charged £140!!!!!! just so you all know, the grand total of these fees that were due to go out was £45 in 4 different payments.
Is there anyone out there that can tell me that my bank is trying to help me out of this situation? Is there anybody that can say that these fees are right??

The fact of the matter here is that although this thread sometime sietracks a little, but it is about the fees that are charged being fair. That is all it is about. It's not even about whether you could have avoided the situation first, just fair fees.

Not sure whether I've ever posted a message this long, so I will end by wishing you all a happy new year, whatever you do and whatever situation you are in! and good luck to all!

carlih1

Hi

Anyone got a link to the report the express did on wednesday about bank charges

Many thanx in advance

Carli

dchurch24

I have the article at home - it was me they mentioned - I can fill you in on the details if you want.

carlih1

dchurch24 wrote:

I have the article at home - it was me they mentioned - I can fill you in on the details if you want.

Yes please

Carli