Bank Charges Again

dchurch24

Hi,

Thanks to everyone who has sent me PM's asking for info on how to get their charges back.

I have been inundated with requests (to the point that my messages regularly exceed the allowed limit and some drop off quite quickly), and so I apologise to those that I have not been able to reply to personally.

Just to summarise:

Join the yahoo group, "bankchargeshell", a link to which is provided at the https://www.bankchargeshell.co.uk site.

In that group there are over 120 members, all of which are in the process of or have already reclaimed bank charges, including myself.

There are also template letters and spreadsheets there for working out the 8% apr allowed by the 1984 County Courts Act.

The crux of the matter is that these charges are of dubious legality being a punitive charge and are (IMO) not truthfully intended to reclaim administration costs alone.

There really is safety in numbers and if the majority of people who incur these charges fought back, I think we would see the end of them very quickly.

There have been many, many people who have reclaimed these punitive charges from banks recently, and so there will almost certainly be someone in that group that has reclaimed charges back from the bank that you use.

Please, don't post comments along the lines of 'you deserve all you get' and 'you should manage you account better', as these are largely irrelevant to the matter at hand (that being the legality and fairness of such charges.)

Everyone is entitled to those opinions, but they don't help in this instance.

Regards,

$17mma

Hello again! :wave:


I have logged onto "bankchargeshell" but cant find the letter templates or the spread sheets....?

Can you point me in the right direction please?

dchurch24

The pro-forma letter is here:

http://www.govanlc.com/pro-forma%20letter%20to%20bank.htm

I may have to send the spreadsheet to you, although I believe there is one 'somewhere' in the yahoo group, 'bankchargeshell'.

$17mma

Dchurch


Ihave tried to reply to your PM but your mail box is full

dchurch24

Sorry about that - I cleared it out a fair bit this morning!!

It should be ok now.

jcr16

hi , i am really confused ~( doesn't take much ) over the last 3 years up until last xmas we used to regually get lots of bank charges. sometime about 5 or 6 a month at least and at £25- £35 a pop it really didn't help us out. although it proberly our fault not managing our money correctly. although we now do alot better and not had a charge in nealry a year. but i not sure what i need to do to claim the money back or even if i can. if you coule advise me a bit more i'd be so gratful.

$17mma

dchruch24 will pop back soon to give you all the info..

dchurch24

Hi, first thing first, join the yahoo group "bankchargeshell" as someone on there will have been banking with the same bank as you and will know their 'form'.

You need to write them a letter explaining why you think the charges are not enforcable (pro-forma letter link above) and request the money back within 7-14 days (your choice - I go for 7 days, that's more than enough time) or you will start legal proceedings against them.

When they refuse, go to the HMCS.gov.uk site and create a user and start proceedings against them.

Example wordings for the court can be found on https://www.bankchargeshell.co.uk.

Within a little while, they will attempt to settle out of court. If not, and it does go to the small claim court, then you will win and get your money back.

Simple.

realaledrinker

Is there a downside to suing your bank in that they are quite at liberty to ask you to take your debt elsewhere & you then struggle to find another bank??

dchurch24

The only way in which it affects your credit is that you can use the money to pay off an overdraft that perhaps wouldn't have been there had it not been for the charges.

I found that I was bombarded with loan applications in the post shortly after getting my charges back from Abbey.

They are not allowed to use that information in a credit check, and there are severaly rules governing personal data in the Data Protection Act that would 'legally' stop that from happening.

$17mma

What is the easiest way in obtaining a list of all charges including interest?