Bank Charges - illegal?

kennyward

carlih1 wrote:

Gives me some hope although my charges are a lot more than yours. add a zero onto it!!!!

I have put in my letter to halifax last week giving them 7 days to credit my account as yet nothing. SO i'll send them a letter before action tomorrow. Did u call them or did they call you????

Carli

dear (fellow bank charge fighter) dont despair because my payment of £185.oo ponds is only the tip of the ice berg.i have various other organisations ,plc,s etc that i have in my sites.i have an estimated amount distributed between these parasites as in excess of £5,ooo of misery that i have endured.for all the spies that are monitoring this site get ready for the quickening ( sean connery once quoted in THE HIGHLANDER.)if you wish, by all means contact me in private goto my e-mail address in absolute confidence.kind regards.kennyward.

tempest42

Just read your post Kennyward, even better than having them post you privately ( you cant take it all on yourself fellow bank charge fighter) lets put a request out to all who read this thread to either design yourself/have designed and put forward a poster.
We could all print it and put it up at work, just something catchy you could point at this thread and its sucess so far.

Andy_S_6

As I mentioned in a previous post the Halifax customer complaints department phoned me to say they weren't entertaining my request for a refund. I got a letter of them the following day. Here it is:

Customer Service Complaint - reference number 066198234

Dear Mr xxxxxx

I refer to your above numbered account and to our telephone conversation today.

You will appreciate that we have to pass on the costs for paid and unpaid items should you use an unauthorised overdraft. It's only fair to all of our customers that we pass these costs on to the specific account holders affected. I regret that the charges applied to your account will remain.

I would like to assure you the fees are not out of line with those charged by other lenders in the marketplace. We are confident that the fees are a reasonable estimate of the cost of doing the work involved. It is important to remember that each action will in itself incur labour, administration and technology costs.

With regard to your request for us to provide supporting evidence of the administrative costs involved, it is not our policy to divuldge information to individual customers to that level of detail, as it is commercially sensitive information.

I realise that this response is dissappointing for you and note that you have advised that you intend to proceed with legal action in respect of this matter.

You will find enclosed a copy of our leaflet explaining our complaint procedures. If we are unable to resolve your concerns we'll provide you with details of how you can contact the Financial Ombudsman Service for help. If I don't hear from you in the next 8 weeks I will assume you do not wish to follow the procedures outlined in our complaints guide.

Yours sincerely

Tracy Hopkinson
Customer Services



Anyone got any comments or advice about this letter?

Andy S

tempest42

Andy S,
What a lovely letter, got the same in my hALIFAX file.
Ring them up and say thankyou ! , hope the letter was in gold as thats what its worth cause "It is important to remember that each action will in itself incur labour, administration and technology costs."
How come ? you already pay the people , you need the computers anyway and the admin costs !!!
So in the next paragraph they say "With regard to your request for us to provide supporting evidence of the administrative costs involved, it is not our policy to divuldge information to individual customers to that level of detail, as it is commercially sensitive information." Well if it goes to court they will have to disclose it or how can they justify it. Wouldnt that be a nice one showing all your costs to your competiors.......

Time for money online you have been nice enough - cant wait to see the post of "I won"

djohn2002uk

tempest42 wrote:

Maybe you have been lucky so far , you may read this a little differently when they screw up on you . I do Now


I'm one of the "lucky" ones who doesn't have bank charges, well I had one which was refunded about 25yrs ago,

Why are you having a go at me when I'm on the side of all the claimants, or should I suggest you read my post properly.

tempest42

Sorry, must have interpreted it wrong, didnt mean to come across as having a go so can we call it quits ....

djohn2002uk wrote:

Why are you having a go at me when I'm on the side of all the claimants, or should I suggest you read my post properly.

dchurch24

Ok, this is getting silly - it's clear that many, many people are being charged punitive charges - the same questions are coming up over and over.

I have no problem with that, but I think a forum post (and I am working with Martin on this) outlining the steps that should be taken to recover these costs is in order.

I have emailed Martin a step-by-step guide to recovering these charges - hopefully this will be posted soon - in the meantime, I have posted a the same guide on the bankactiongroup site, along with the 'rules of engagement' (when you contact your bank about this) and a FAQ.

Please have a look there. Most of the questions that have been asked here have been answered in the FAQ.

It can be found here: https://www.bankactiongroup.com ) check the FAQ.

In line with the ethics of MSE, the BAG site is entirely free - it will cost nothing - you have to register though to access certain areas of the forum though; this is purely so we can have an idea of numbers of people for the press.

We are staging a protest outside the OFT headquarters in Fleet Street in an effort to get them to come good on their threat (deadline Oct 26th 2005) regarding these types of charges.

Have a look here - hopefully, we can help as manu people as possible.

Sorry if I am a bit out-of-line, I have just got back from the pub after meeting a friend who I haven't seen for some time, so please excuse the bad spelling and grammer!!!

system15000

i bank with the hsbc and after reading this forum was just wondering if i am entitled to a refund on bank charges.

on the 12th sept 05 i was charged 20.00

the 13th oct 05 i was charged 14.00

the 12th nov 05 i was charged 20.00

the 13th dec 05 i was charged 75.00

total = 129.00

all these charges were for going overdrawn when i did not have a overdraft facility, silly things like paypal and stuff.

whats the best thing to do and is there a certain letter i need to send them if so?

kennyward

tempest42 wrote:

Just read your post Kennyward, even better than having them post you privately ( you cant take it all on yourself fellow bank charge fighter) lets put a request out to all who read this thread to either design yourself/have designed and put forward a poster.
We could all print it and put it up at work, just something catchy you could point at this thread and its sucess so far.

thankyou for your support (FELLOW BANK CHARGE FIGHTER).you can see that the quickening is beginning to develope hence the reason to adopt stealth tactics to do battle with these parasites and the ameboa that live within and share :beer: :j :rotfl: :T the same culture tray that they all inhabit.fantastic idea of yours.bring it on.(LET THE BATTLE BEGIN) kind regards.kennyward.

Tim_L

regularsaver1 wrote:

I mean - there are people that never get charged because they don't miss payments ect --- what do they get for that? silch

The claimants here aren't getting anything other than money illegally taken from them. There are costs involved in getting it back. Do you think it's right that people in marginal difficulties should be charged thousands of pounds in fees, which compounds their problems?

These fees are not being used to cover costs (the systems are automated and the cost of sending out a letter is pennies - if not banks would be paying £35 a time for each statement or piece of junk mail they send out). Neither are they being used to pay for free banking for others - this is a given in the UK market now. They are just another income stream, and hopefully it will soon dry up.