Claim back any unfair bank charges! Article Discussion Area

indenial_2

elDeeJay wrote:

Hey folks. Interesting stuff. Havent read through this thread (no thank! 42 pages!), but my GF went £11.50 past her over-draft this week and has been charged £30 (and told she will be charged a further £30 for every day it remains that way) by Lloyds TSB.

Do we have any hope of claiming this back?

Hi there!

Although I haven't dealt with Llyods personally, I would say you have every hope of claiming these charges back. It does not cost the bank £30 a day for you gf to be over her overdraft!! Send them the letter (preliminary approach) from the templates on the bankactiongroup website (in the library under forums) editing it to your gf's circumstances and take it from there. Good luck!

Reverend_Darkman

indenial wrote:

I took out the bit about the contract with the bank as I didn't know the dates either, so just missed it out.

As for the breakdown of charges, you don't have to worry about that at this stage I don't think. I never got asked for a breakdown - I imagine that is only if you have to prepare a court case. Again, something I didn't bother with and never got asked.

S

thansk for that - I've now come accross the bit I reserve the right to claim interest" which then wants....

The claimant claims interest under section 69 of the County Courts Act 1984 at the rate of 8% a year from {date when the money became owed to you} to {the date you are issuing the claim} of £ {put the amount} and also interest at the same rate up to the date of judgment or earlier payment at a daily rate of {enter the daily rate of interest}.


what do I put in as the daily rate - the 8% ?

It_seem_like_a_good_ides

What’s the situation with this and debts, which have defaulted, and/or passed to collection agencies or been sold-on, surely a large part of the debt will be unlawfull.

The big fear that is stopping me taking charge of my debts at the minute is after years of burying my head in the sand, the amount I will have to repay will be nothing like what I borrowed. As they tend to throw charge after charge at you for not paying / acknowledging your debts (as you probably know only too well).

Would it be the case that you have to pay the person who ones the debt now and then try to claim it back from the original lender? – this doesn’t seem right as they may have sold the debt for less of the value, then if you claim money back from them they may be paying back money they never had

Can this system also be used to dispute ridiculous interest charges applied after you have defaulted?

star_gazer_5

Hi

Have had a quick scan through the thread to see if anyone has posted about Alliance & Leicester - couldn't see anything recent.

I had considered chasing A&L for bank charges, not a huge amount but over the 6 year period probably around £200 - however, I have seen a few articles in a number of papers / journals and apparantly A&L are not contesting cases but, when they have paid back the charges, the customers receive a letter a few days later to advise that they have 30 days and the account will be closed.

I thought this maybe a few isolated cases, but spoke to a friend who confirmed, that he had claimed back charges several months ago and indeed had received a letter from A&L terminating the account. He's going to see if he can find it for me to post the content.

He then attempted to open another account with a couple of banks, who "Mysteriously" refused on grounds of "Credit checks blah, blah..." bearig in mind he has never had any sort of credit problems, has a regular income etc. He did find a bank who arranged to transfer his account, and A&L attemped to charge him as it took him more than 30 days to sort this all out as they wanted him out - They closed and froze the account and only after threatening to seek legal redress, did they back down, as he had a large amount in a linked savings account, that A&L advised would take them 6 weeks to raise a cheque and send it to him!!!!

He has since over the past few months noticed that he has had a number of credit checks refused, and is now starting to suspect that perhaps the banks are starting to share information on "unruly customers" who question the power of Banking Institutions. :-(

YorkshireBoy

star_gazer wrote:

He has since over the past few months noticed that he has had a number of credit checks refused, and is now starting to suspect that perhaps the banks are starting to share information on "unruly customers" who question the power of Banking Institutions. :-(

Your friend needs to send for copies of his credit reports from the Credit Reference Agencies.

Experian say (in their "Your credit report explained" booklet - downloadable from https://www.experian.co.uk but you get a copy with your £2 statutory report) that if a lender closes your account, they will mark your file with an '8'.

The same code '8' is also put on your account when you have defaulted.

It's possible that other lenders' automatic credit scoring systems can't distinguish between the reasons for the "default" note on your friends file, meaning manual underwriting is necessary (but only if you ask for it).

Lindylou54

Hi I have just located 5/6 years worth of bank statements from NatWest, and up until last November have been continually overdrawn. I have two questions. We have been charged interest for every month of the last five or so years, but on the basis that we have been outside our 'zone', I suppose that is our overdraft limit.

My questions are:-

1. can we claim this interest back, because as I have looked at the charges they have increased steadily over the last five years, together with payments for refused direct debits (£30 a time).?

2. Can you reclaim bank charges on a business account, as my husband has recently folded his business for financial reasons and he must have paid shed loads of charges over the last five years?

Chrysalis

I asked my bank if they have me on any blacklist since I have struggled to even get a BT line, they said I was on a non public list O_O (i thought all lists were available)

So I now plan to go ahead with my nationwide account cash card only for few months then after a few months of usage ask them for a debit card, when it issues I plan to get all my charges back of lloyds tsb and use that to pay off my loan with them and be free from their shackles. If they dont close my account I will keep as a backup and use nationwide for main. But I cant ditch lloyds until I get a replacement visa card.

Beauts

mindymoo101 wrote:

does this also apply to credit card companies? If so, should I follow exactly the same procedures?

I'm also interested in this, i've payed a good amount to MBNA in late charges in past years, can we reclaim?

Hillyone

Have been in ongoing correspondence with Nationwide but so far no joy, and am now at the point of being fed up with trying. They referred me to the "Members Service" - who, of course, toe the party line .. "we've been open and transparent about charges, etc. etc" "You might like to change account to another provider, etc. etc.". Has anyone tried referring to the Financial Ombudsman with any success? I really don't have the confidence to go the Court route.

tifkitten

can anyone tell me where to send my letter reclaiming charges...do I send to branch address or head office....Thanks