Claim back any unfair bank charges! Article Discussion Area

Lumbworth

Hi, I've a couple of questions. First of all, I need to send a letter to find out the fees and include the £10 for hsbc. How do I make this £10 payment? By cheque or sned cash in post? And who do I pay it to?
Also, 4 or 5 years ago when I was in uni I incurred many charges for going over my limit with barclays. I was sent to debt collecters and after a while I struck a deal with them to pay 2000 when i owed 3200 and they would forget the rest. Would I be able to claim charges against the bank for before even tho they let me off 1200?

foreveryoung_3

Hi, just to say I took the first letter into my branch of Lloyds TSB and handed over 10.00 cash and got a stamped copy of reciept. that was a week ago, I rang the bank today and spoke to the manager and explained how the charges have effected me and my family, also the snowball effect from the companies the DD were going to have charged me. Explaining that last week when they charged me 75.00 that I could not buy food for my kids. None of thi8s has been directly my fault as I am on benefit now and payments have been erratic or short. My claim is with the relevent department and I was told I would hear in the time stated. He said were you the ladty who paid in cash I said yes as I did not want to risk a cheque bouncing and paying again to get the charges back, he did at least chuckle and appeared sympathetic and did recognise there was a fault in the benefit system if payments were late or wrong as you do not find out untill the day its due in, whether is gone in ok or not.
I sent a postal order to Capitol One, but have not yet heard back from them yet.
Abbey have sent me some statements but I am waiting for the ones in the micro watsit which they say will follow shortly.
I am quite happy to go to court to show exactly how the unfair charges have made me almost go bankrupt, yet if I get back all the charges I wont be in debt at all. I am sure a judge will see how these charges put families into poverty as that is where im at now.

mjanet

christhomas wrote:

I have been reading some of the posts and cannot see an answer to this one. I sent the letter titled "subject access request" to get duplicate statements and requested they detail any involvement by their staff etc. - you know the letter.

I have received one back and I know it's a delaying tactic however I am not sure how to reply, could someone give me some pointers please. This is the Nationwide and they have replied ...

"In addition, if you have had dealings with other areas within Nationwide who may hold information on you please let us know so that we can check for your personal data in these areas. In order to find any additional information we will need:-

The address of any branch other than the branch where you opened the account, which you have used on a regular basis
Dates of your contact and details of other areas of the Society with which you have had dealings e.g customer service team, lending control, member service, on line bank
Any other information which will assist us in locating your personal information"

I have had the account for over 20 years, have used many branches, use the online banking nearly every day, have had 2 loans from them, complained about an entry in my bank statement once etc. etc. What has this got to do with bank charges. And does anyone have the first idea how I answer this letter without jeopardising my claim?

Thanks
Chris

All they need is your name , d.o.b , and all addresses you have used . Write back giving them what information they require (that you know ) in your LBA . Do not let them delay you , stick to your timetable

mjanet

Byronbaby wrote:

I have an AMEX card with £2900 on and i know they charged me a late fee 2 months ago for being a day late as my DD left the bank late. Will a sensible phone call resolve this or do i have 2 send a letter? Also do they have the right to close my account if i send the letter and demand the money back off them as i can not afford to pay back the £2900 all at once?

In this case a phone call .Do not accept any less then they have taken .If need be ask for a supervisor .If no joy then post back here or go to https://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk

mjanet

jaygrunt wrote:

Just a quik question(sort of)

I owe barclays a bit of money with a now closed account(because of going over my overdraft,unpaid DD cos of lack of cash and getting charged they eventually closed it).which i am paying back monthly through Payplan
..can I claim for all of the charges made against me and reduce this amount or is there certain criteria involved?
Also is there any chance they could ask for the amount back in full (around £1500(less the charges) - which i couldnt afford to pay them)

Many Thanks

Jay

Yes you can claim it back but advise you to inform payplan of your intention.If they have defaulted you and the money owed is mainly made up of bank penalties then you can also go to having the default removed,AFTER .

mjanet

lynsayjane wrote:

hi folks, i'm new to this. so new in fact i haven't actually worked out (or admitted) how much debt i'm in. but i figure joinin this site is a good place to start

anyways, my question is, i'm with bos/halifax and have been for about 7-8 years. i looked at my statements i have going back about two years and have near £500 of charges (so goodness knows what the six year total is) but i also have an overdraft with them large enough for me to panic if i tried to get the charges back and they closed my account. i would not be able to pay it off.

what are the chances of them closing my account?

kisses

There is a high chance , so you should open another parachute account so you are prepared.People are now starting to fight the account closures if you look on https://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk you can read up on how they are doing it , the grounds and what stage they are at.If you send a SAR and work out how much they owe you then by the sounds of it this should cover what you owe them.If that is the case and they start asking you to pay the money back you can formally inform them the amount is in dispute so then they are unable to take further action until the dispute is settled.Thus giving you the chance to reclaim and pay them and hopefully have some left , if not at least you have cleared a debt .

mjanet

gerturdeanna wrote:

Hi folks,
just thought i update you on my claim for bank charges.

Today I recieved a reply for my DPA letter from the Abbey.
It says
" Thank you for your letter dated the 8th June 2006.
I understand that you have requested copies of your bank statements since 2004. I haven't. I sent the standard DPA letter asking for a list of all charges etc stating that bank statements would be accepted but I wanted the complete list. Never mind.I have arranged to send you copy statements for the period 2005 to present date as these records are currently held on our system and should be with you within 10-14 working days.

As our system 'archives' information after a certain period, the records prior to 2005 are only available from microfiche records. There is a fee for providing theses, which is £5 for 1 monthly statement or £10 for multiple monthly statements. Thankyou for sending in your cheque for £10 which will enable us to proceed with your request.

You have also asked for details of 'manual interventions' that may have been made to your account and I am sorry that we are unable to help with this request.

I can explain that if we consider 'manual intervention' to mean an action that is not automatic or computer driven. Not all manual interventions are recorded, for example, if a member of staff looks at a paper document relating to your account a record is not always required. Similarly some interventions may relate to work carried out by a department other than indidviduals where no central record of activity is kept because this is not the kind of information we need nor, more importnatly, that a customer would usually request.

You mention the ''Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations 1999''. We do not beleive that our charges are unfair under these regulations. When you opened the account with Abbey, you were provided with Terms and Conditions that detailed the charges that become applicable should you breach the terms of the account. Abbey is up front and transparent about all its banking charges as set out in the tarriff of charges. Abbey's bank account is good value and our charges compare fairly with other banks.For most people, banking is free and they do not incur penalty charges.

If an enquiry escalates to a claim in the County Court, we will review each case individually and if we feel that our relationship has broken down completely, we may decide to give notice to close your account under the terms and conditions.
Yours sincerly,
....@''
So what do you reckon...is this just a standard 'whatever' letter?
Cheers Gerturdeanna

Yes its a standard fob off letter , and it won;t be the first you will recieve .CAG is temp down at the moment but the microfiche argument is an old one .ICO says it is a relavant filing system so they still have to provide it .When CAG is up again go in and do a search for microfiche and you will find letters on what to right back.Let us know how you get on

EDIT
Just realised they have said £10 for multiple , this is same as SAR so yes go for the multiple

mjanet

Lumbworth wrote:

Hi, I've a couple of questions. First of all, I need to send a letter to find out the fees and include the £10 for hsbc. How do I make this £10 payment? By cheque or sned cash in post? And who do I pay it to?
Also, 4 or 5 years ago when I was in uni I incurred many charges for going over my limit with barclays. I was sent to debt collecters and after a while I struck a deal with them to pay 2000 when i owed 3200 and they would forget the rest. Would I be able to claim charges against the bank for before even tho they let me off 1200?

Do not send cash .A chq made out to your bank is fine , providing you have the funds in of course.
Yes over your uni days claim against the bank.

Lumbworth

mjanet wrote:

Do not send cash .A chq made out to your bank is fine , providing you have the funds in of course.
Yes over your uni days claim against the bank.

I'm still a little worried about barclays. Would they be able to ask for the 1200 back if I did claim against them? A deal was struck to write that amount off. Also, i have a barclaycard. Would it have any affect on that?

zonecrew

Sent all of my letters off on the 6th June, to date I have not had any correspondance from the bank. I sent the letters via recorded delivery and all have been delivered.
Is it now a case of waiting for the statements to arrive or should I contact the banks direct if I have not had any confirmation that they received my request?

the last thing I want to happen is for me to wait 40 days then get in touch with them, only to find out they are denying receiving the DPA letter

what do you think??