Bank Charges - illegal?

dchurch24

Murtle wrote:

Surely the action taken should have been against your employer who agreed to pay you the correct amount on time?? not the banks, that you agreed to have the correct amount in the bank to cover all direct debits???

Well now, that wouldn't have been a particulary clever thing to do. If they were still in existence (which they are not, as explained in another post in this thread), perhaps I could have gone after them for the charges. I don't think I would have been employed with them for very long had I started legal action against them at the time, do you?

The fact that the charges shouldn't have been imposed in the first place, surely should mean that I should attack the problem at the root, not aim it at someone else who's actions resulted in a third party breaking contract law?

In that particular case, both parties were in breach of the law regarding contracts; my employer for not paying on time, and the bank for imposing penalties. My employer not paying on time was not a DIRECT penalty. The banks penalised me for breach of contract caused by someone else's breach of contract, which is not enforcable. It would be daft to go after my employer (regardless of whether or not I was still working for them) as their defence would be that punitive charges are not enforcable - they cannot be held responsible for a third party breaking contract law - that, most likely, would have ended up with me out of pocket for taking them to court in the first place - in effect, I would have been attempting to ENFORCE punitive charges in court. Punitive charges are NOT ENFORCABLE, so therefore, I would have been throwing good money after bad trying to get them enforced in a court.

I'm not sure I'm doing a very good job of explaining myself, so I'll stop there.

Incidently, for the information of the group, I have a copy of a letter from Abbey National admitting that they levy PUNITIVE charges, if anyone needs a copy.

dchurch24

If someone had told you that if you didn't show up at a particular place and time they would murder someone, but you were made late because (for instance) your employer made you work late, it would hardly be your employers fault that someone got murdered.

Is that any better?

...no...didn't think so ;-)

djohn2002uk

digp wrote:

hahaha- there really are some muppets about, aren't there?

Not really sure who you are referring to here.

dchurch24

Is that any better?

...no...didn't think so ;-)

I wasn't aiming that at anyone - it was meant as an indication of my inability to explain properly.

djohn2002uk

dchurch24 wrote:

I wasn't aiming that at anyone - it was meant as an indication of my ability to explain properly.

I understood the first time, although I did laugh at the killing analogy.
I was referring to digps post.

Pere_Ubu

Not really bank charges. I have posted else where about this just wondered if anyone here could throw some advice in. Short story. Trying to pay off debt through Payplan, pay £34 per month but interest is £64 per month, the company has a CCJ against us and are going for a charging order.

Are they allowed to put on so much interest?

gothicf0rm

how did the debt acrue? they are allowed to put on interest, fact of the matter is bank charges are penalties because they already charge interest. however if you can explain how the debt originally acrued perhaps we can seriously reduce the total amount - i assume at some point you DID run up charges?

Pere_Ubu

Yes we have run up charges and recovering those is not a problem it is the high interest rate. On average the debt is increasing by £35 per month. We have no other disposable income to increase our payments, we pay a set amount to Payplan each month to distribute to all our creditors. Just wanted to know if anyone here had any ideas how we can stop/reduce the interest.

dchurch24

Purely hypothetical:

If you were taken to court and ordered to pay the outstanding amount, would the interest stop - surely you would owe the court the money then - are they allowed to add interest?

LoLo

Is there any chance you could post up an example letter of what you wrote to your banks about them giving you the charges back. Also over what period of time can you date them back to? Thanks