Massive victory for Bank Charge reclaiming News Article Discussion

natweststaffmember

I was there at the RCoJ to see JUSTICE SERVED on the banks. It was nice to see MSE Wendy there and apologies I did not introduce myself to you Martin(I was in the corner with the Legal Beagles lot ).
Today is a good day but please remember one thing; the banks can petition the House of Lords to Appeal the decision(I would be surprised if they didn't and be more surprised if they were successful in doing so). County court claims remain ON HOLD.
However, get your claims in now, cos I think the Judgement today has thrown a grenade into the whole charging structures of the bank(that doesn't even say the half of it re CCJ's, Debt Collection Agencies and people who are being harrassed for them for debt wholly made up of charges). It was a good day today and we are a lot more closer than I thought we would be yesterday to a final response.

A.Jones

marsupial_mama wrote: »

I hate that. If they agree to take credit card payments, then they should bear the cost! This should be illegal!

Hasn't ebay forbidden sellers' charging paypal fees? Same thing here

Then they just up the price so that everyone pays the credit card fee (like most supermarkets do), whether they pay by card or cash. There are costs associated with all payment methods for businesses, but some are higher than others. You either charge the same costs to all buyers and average them out, or charge buyers who decide to use the expensive services extra. Small business often go for the latter, big businesses the former.

eBay forbids sellers charging PayPal fees not out of fairness to the buyer, but because buyers were being persuaded to pay by other means as it was cheaper for the seller and for the buyer. But eBay were not getting their cut, so they did something about it.

Head-Out-Of-Sand

brightonman123 wrote: »

fight fight! burn down the banks! lol

Ha ha! Hang on, where do we hide our money when the bank's burned down? Can't we be reasonable and, you know, just slap them about a bit, threaten to send the boys raaaand if they don't start playing nice?

A.Jones

Head-Out-Of-Sand wrote: »

But it benefits them for us to place our money in their banks - surely the interest they earn off our payments kinda pays for this! (I'll admit I'm not any kind of genius when it comes to working out how much a bank earns/spends on me!) IMHO, the charges don't reflect their costs. They reflect their greed.

The benefit they get from investing your money is reflected in interest rates to you. It is nothing to do with the (fair) charges they will be allowed to charge. If they lose the case and have to charge fair amounts, then you have to expect (fair) charges when you use a bank. Wasting cashier time paying in cheques when there are alternative methods should cost you - and the bank could charge you a fair amount to do so. £1 for 2 minutes could easily be considered fair when you think of the costs involved in placing a cashier in a bank on a high street.

They may offset costs of doing business on the High Street by reducing interest rates, but this is unfair to people who do not use the costly cashiers / high street branches. So a bank may offer higher interest rates by either sacrificing costly services, or by charging the people who use the costly service in a fair manner proportional to those costs.

tripled

Halifax already don't let people use the counter for most transactions if they hold an Easycash account. For regular accounts, if they charged a couple of quid for counter service I wouldn't see the problem myself - it would probably cost me about 4 quid a year.

stressedred

i reckon the goverment will allow an appeal, the banks are in dyer trouble at present. then again probably 20 million uk citizens are.

Jamo_250

Hi Dan, Great news!!!

My bank charges me £30 if I miss a direct debit payment. Would I be able to claim some of this money back as feel that this is unfair!!!

Cheers Jamo

Nathan_Spleen

stressedred wrote: »

i reckon the goverment will allow an appeal, the banks are in dyer trouble at present. then again probably 20 million uk citizens are.

The government have no jurisdiction to 'allow' the appeal.

On a separate note here is the 'note' that accompanied today's judgment that deals with the issue of the stayed cases in the County Courts. Sorry about the formating.

OFT v BANKS

NOTE

This note was read in open court on 26 February 2009 by the Master of the Rolls on behalf of the Court of Appeal.

1. The court is conscious that there are a large number of actions in the county court which raise the fairness of various bank charges and which are at present stayed or on hold pending the outcome of the OFT proceedings.

2. When those proceedings were before Andrew Smith J he twice referred to the position in the county courts. We refer only to the second occasion. He handed his judgment down on 24 April 2008 and at a subsequent case management conference held in late May 2008, at which permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal was given he said this:

“ … as we are all conscious, the proceedings in the county courts have been on hold, if not formally stayed, pending guidance, we hope, from this litigation, and at each stage, I had been considering whether there is any reason that that position should change. I hardly need to acknowledge again that the management of the county court proceedings is not for me or the High Court but for the county courts. But the reasons that those actions should not proceed seem to me as strong as they were and will remain so until any appeal by the banks on whether regulation 6(2)(b) applies is resolved.

We understand that that guidance was subsequently communicated to the county courts by letters on behalf of all the Banks. It was in our opinion very sensible guidance.

3. The Banks’ appeal to the Court of Appeal has now failed and we have now refused permission to appeal to the House of Lords. The Banks are of course entitled to apply to the House of Lords for permission to appeal. While recognising (as Andrew Smith J did) that management of county court proceedings is not in the first instance for us, any more than the High Court, it does seem to us that there is much to be said for the present position in the county courts to remain as it is until the House of Lords has decided whether to grant permission to appeal and, if it does, until the
determination of the appeal. We also think that, if the decision of the Court of Appeal stands, there is much to be said for the status quo to remain until the OFT has carried out its assessment of fairness.

4. We have asked Moore-Bick LJ, as the Deputy Head of Civil Justice to consider the position, and he has decided to send a letter in the following terms to all Designated Civil Judges:

“As you may already know, the Court of Appeal has dismissed the appeal in the Bank Charges litigation, holding that the OFT is entitled to investigate the fairness of the terms which provide for the payment of charges for unauthorised overdrawing etc. There was no appeal on the penalty issue on which the Banks won below.

Permission to appeal to the House of Lords has been refused, but the matter does not end there, both because the Banks may petition their Lordships for permission to appeal and because unless the decision of the Court of Appeal is overturned, the OFT will now have to complete its investigation in order to determine whether the charges are unfair or not.

As you will appreciate, apart from knocking out the penalty argument, the proceedings have not yet produced a final answer one way or the other to the claims pending in your courts. You may be faced with applications to lift the stays which are currently in place. Circumstances may differ, but you may think that, insofar as claims turn on whether the terms in question are unfair under the Regulations and therefore unenforceable, there is much to be said for continuing the existing stays pending a decision by the House of Lords and/or the outcome of the investigation by the OFT.”

5. In so far as it is for us to express a view, and without prejudice to any decision which may be made on the facts of a particular case, we entirely agree that that is a sensible approach.

6. In these circumstances we invite the Banks to communicate the position set out in this Note to the county courts.



Sir Anthony Clarke MR,
for the Court of Appeal
26 February 2009

borgbaiter

A.Jones wrote: »

Then they just up the price so that everyone pays the credit card fee (like most supermarkets do), whether they pay by card or cash. There are costs associated with all payment methods for businesses, but some are higher than others. You either charge the same costs to all buyers and average them out, or charge buyers who decide to use the expensive services extra. Small business often go for the latter, big businesses the former.

eBay forbids sellers charging PayPal fees not out of fairness to the buyer, but because buyers were being persuaded to pay by other means as it was cheaper for the seller and for the buyer. But eBay were not getting their cut, so they did something about it.

ebay also own paypal so it may have some connection dont you think

robo21

Can Anyone Tell I Tried To Reclaim My Bank Charges And Was Told I Would Get Nothing If They Dont Win There Case Can I Try Again To Reclaim Them