Bank Charges - illegal?

comicmankev

I'm at the claim point. I have had no sort of response after using all the letters suggested.

Can someone clarify a couple of thigs for me. All the bank action group forums are blocked on my PC at work (not sure why!) so could anyone tell me, if my claim is against Abbey, then do I file the claim against my local branch of the registered office? If it is the later, can someone PM me this full address.

And is there anything else I should know before proceeding??

Any help greatly appreciated.

kaznelson

If this case proceeds whilst other cases are being heard would the banks really try and adjourn these cases for this reason?

Surely the costs involved in delaying "smaller" cases would still outway refunding the customer?

homer_j_3

well having put letter 1 requesting my charges back into MBNA, I received a letter this morning asking for me to call them. Having discussed the letter with them, they have said that they do need to check with the legal team before they can agree to refund the amount in question.

We did end up in a discussion regarding the fees and charges after the " You agreed to these in your T &C's" line as I said that regardless of the T&C's, their charges do not accurately reflect the cost of the work involved.

Their response was a classic in my eyes and if you want to use this in the quotes section Dchurch, you are more than welcome.

"We are waiting for the OFT to advise us that these charges are illegal and until that point we will not be amending this"

"In some instances it does not cost us £25 to reclaim a late payment but in some cases it does and even more so we have a uniformed charging structure to ensure that we are covered as best we can"

When I replied that I believe that the OFT have expressed their concerns with the punitive charges and that I dont believe that I should be charged for the recovery of monies of other people, they just said "can you tell me why you let yourself make late payments?"

I just responded because you enforce ridiculous processing times and if you took the payment from the day of the cheque being received, we wouldnt be having this conversation" He then redirected the conversation back to the fact we couldn't progress this further until he had spoken to the legal dept.

I just replied that it was fine and that if the answer was not in my favour then I would see them in court!

Oh what fun this is..

Frugal_Fox

Okay - I'm taking action now.

Spoke to the Halifax this morning regarding the charges, and - as expected, have been told that these charges are valid, however they will agree - as a 'goodwill gesture' to not present the charge for the unauthorised overdraft at the end of this month - a saving of £28.

I've started my own thread - purely as I do not want to 'clog' up this really important thread, and enable to me to keep check of where I am!!

Off now to send the first letter to the Head office, asking for my funds over the last 6 years to be returned to me. The stupid thing is, is that really if they'd only offered me half of the original funds, I'd have been more than happy. I broke the terms, no one made me - but their charges are excessive. Now because they have dug their heels in, I will go for the whole lot.
FF

homer_j_3

Frugal_Fox wrote:

Okay - I'm taking action now.

Spoke to the Halifax this morning regarding the charges, and - as expected, have been told that these charges are valid, however they will agree - as a 'goodwill gesture' to not present the charge for the unauthorised overdraft at the end of this month - a saving of £28.

I've started my own thread - purely as I do not want to 'clog' up this really important thread, and enable to me to keep check of where I am!!

Off now to send the first letter to the Head office, asking for my funds over the last 6 years to be returned to me. The stupid thing is, is that really if they'd only offered me half of the original funds, I'd have been more than happy. I broke the terms, no one made me - but their charges are excessive. Now because they have dug their heels in, I will go for the whole lot.
FF

well done on taking the first step.

I would say though that whilst you are correct in saying that you have broken the contractual agreement, it is not to focus on the reasons why you did but the fact that the banks are profiting out this illegally.

If you havent done so already, I would recommend signing up to https://www.bankactiongroup.com and registering to get into the library section for the letters there. Registration is required so they can see the numbers that are going for it as such.

Keep us all updated on your progress as it willl encourage others to do what you are doing when you win..

tylerdurden_167

I have just seen BBC2's Working Lunch and they had a feature on the banks being sued, it was very interesting. I presume the guy that was on it is the one from BAG.

Tim_L

kaznelson wrote:

If this case proceeds whilst other cases are being heard would the banks really try and adjourn these cases for this reason?

Surely the costs involved in delaying "smaller" cases would still outway refunding the customer?

There's no cost. All the bank does is turn up at court to defend the action, and note that someone else has taken them to court to establish the principle underlying the smaller case. Then they ask for a adjournment until this principle has been established by a higher court.

Switch

Tim_L wrote:

There's no cost. All the bank does is turn up at court to defend the action, and note that someone else has taken them to court to establish the principle underlying the smaller case. Then they ask for a adjournment until this principle has been established by a higher court.

Guess its time to get any claims wrapped up PDQ.

dchurch24

tylerdurden_167 wrote:

I have just seen BBC2's Working Lunch and they had a feature on the banks being sued, it was very interesting. I presume the guy that was on it is the one from BAG.

Can I just reiterate that Stephen is not part of the BAG, he is a mod in our forum.

dchurch24

Did it mention the BAG site do you know?