Barclays 'reserve' charges - can I reclaim??

mjkent

Hi,

Barclays have a scheme running known as a reserve amount on there current account. I have an overdraft limit of £950 and a reserve amount of £500. Meaning that I have £1450 avaialable. What I didnt realise recently was that I have gone over the £950 and Barclays charge £22 for every 5 days that the account in the reserve limit.

Does anyone know if it is possible to reclaim the £22 charges as it is not an unplanned overdraft fee or overdraft excess fee.

any advice would be very much appreciated.

sillylittlejill

Hi I was wondering about this as well, does anyone have the answer?

xxx

Nathan_Spleen

No harm in trying. The Barclays reserve terms & conditions are not under the complaints handling waiver so they can't refuse to deal with your claim 'pending the outcome of the test case' and in theory neither could they get a stay if you took your case to court, for the same reason.

willo65

I would have thought as this is an additional service they offer (the Reserve) and when they implemented these there was an option to decline. You then used this service and should have been aware of the costs involved then you haven't got a leg to stand on.

Nathan_Spleen

The option to 'opt out' was sent out to account holders in an envelope that mirrored junk mail and so the option to decline would arguably not have been aware to the customer. This has been a complaint repeatedly made on the forums and with an opt out rate of just 10% this would seem likely.

The reserve is far from transparent and staggeringly complicated despite the bank's claims that the reserve ''simplifies'' insufficient fund charges. Barclays neverless felt the need to introduce a micro site in an attempt to explain ''how it works'', even having to go to the ridiculous lengths of producing videos to show what happens in particular circumstances.

For this reason I very much doubt the terms & conditions would pass the 'plain intelligable' language test, let alone the test of fairness.

vison

I have a Barclays account and the letter I recived did not look anything like junk mail. It clearly stated "changes to your account"

I also disagree that it was complicated.

It tells you what your reserve is and how the fee will be charged (£22 for every 5 days)

what they will pay up to

how much you will pay if they dont pay an item.

Dont get me wrong I am no fan of Barclays, but I stongly disagree with soem of the comments made here.

boyblitz

I just tried this today and had no luck. Please excuse grammar and spelling this is a very fast typed slightly angry story.

story of woe (lol):
17th i go into my reserve by £25 and on the same day i clear the funds. 18th my bank account still shows a sexy cleared account. 19th i get a letter stating that i have gone into my reserve on the 17th and will be charged 14 days after my next bank statement. So i went to barclays southampton branch and explained the above and how i think this is a bank error. The lady then started informing me of small print and how i cleared my funds on a weekend and the money did not go in until after 6:30 therefore the funds would not technically clear till the next day. This lead to a debate on how the bank shows available funds and a pretend "pre-cleared funds" amount. End of the day if the bank says i am under my limit and the funds are cleared then they should be cleared.

*take a deep breath long sentence warning*
I feel the reserve fee should not be charged unless the funds that are apparently cleared (but really in barclays eyes are waiting to be cleared) bounce from the bank to bank transfer.

Anyway the lady refused to refund and was very 'by the book' on the terms and conditions. Fair enough but i wanted a second opinion so i asked for a superior but was told they are in a meeting. I then asked for another member of staff and was told they are all serving, so i would have to go through the ticket waiting queue again.

So i went through the queue again and got what looked like a nice man. This man didnt even look at my account when i explained the situation he just replied with very generic "we changed our system to give people x amount of days to pay and we will not refund unless it is a bank error". After loads more generic replys i said "look your a personal banker, your badge says you would like to help, so please help me. stop giving me the replies of a lawyer and give me personal advice.". He grinned at this so i responded "obviously you are about to p*$£ out laughing" and i got a very deep "no this is not funny and you are starting to offend me". I told him i was sorry, but nothing is being resolved after an hour of talking to 2 people. His almost final blunt words were "My personal advice is that you are wasting your time!" I thought great im wasting my time as a customer, i picked up my things, left a provided leaflet in disgust and he said "you forgot this" as i walked away i told him to shove it somewhere (i later regret this heat of the moment exchange).

The final part to this story is the phone call to cust services where i explained the above and was informed that as a customer i should not be told im wasting my time (even though in all fairness i asked for the truth and got the truth). The lady on the phone even claimed she would phone the branch to inform the manager for a response on this. But i told her i was not interested in speaking, receiving a letter from the branch or banking at that location again. Apparently she still had to phone the branch for an internal complaint.

There you go, i will pay my charge and figure out a way to transfer my student bank account to another company.

Good luck. Brad

ivarletap

I had a very similar experience as "boyblitz". I recieved a letter today informing me of the charge. I currently have a overdraft limit of £2000 and went over by £30. This was basically due to a direct debit that contributed to my balance going over the limit and into the reserve amount.

Last year I paid my parents TV license (for what reason I cannot remember as they have always paid it) and because of that, the renewal for this year automatically went through my account. I was completely unaware of this and it did not even come to mind that such a thing would happen.

I went into the branch and explained this to one of the advisors who told me she couldn't anything in the branch and advised me to take it up with customer services using the telephone number on the letter I received. She allowed my to use the phone in branch as she knew it was an 0845 number (thank goodness because it took ages to get through). She said she had known of cases where they have revoked the fee and told me to stress that I am a student and my loan hasn't come through and to just fight my case.

I then spoke to one the operators who was clearly just someone they employed for telemarketing calls! He was completely incompetent! He barely understood english or had any common sense. He was just a by-the-book kind of guy who told me they revoke the fee if it was a error by the bank or if I was debited fraudulently. After spending a few minutes with this guy and getting nowhere I asked to speak to his supervisor. After being put on hold for a very long time.

Now speaking to the supervisor who sounded like he was a citizen of the same country, I then explained my situation again and pointed out that I have never been overdrawn past my limit ever and if I was aware that this would happen, I would of made sure the funds were available. He reiterated the same advice given to me by the operator and suggested what the previous guy had, that I call the TV licensing company. This was such a ridiculous notion and I made that clear to him by saying "I understand that they should have made me aware I was going to be debited but my issue is not with them, it is with you, and they can't do anything about the fee." He then said "You are lucky they were able to debit your account and really, you should of been aware of your direct debit. I know you can pay it in a number of ways, I pay mine monthly." I was so angry but what he said I couldn't think of a response and just said sarcastically "Thanks for your help, bye." Who can remember the 'annual' date of their direct debit, especially if they I had no idea it was going to continue.

I still can't believe this, how they charge such a extortionate amount to a student (or anyone regardless) when they don't have money in the first place. I've been searching the net to find any loop-holes in there policies but have yet to come across anything.