Bank Charges Financial Hardship Success Stories

DanDaniel

TOTAL RECLAIMING - £4141.50


I have just been reading through the posts as i have done for a few weeks now and starting to feal a little pessimistic about my claim. :rolleyes:

Back in July i wrote to Halifax and requested a breakdown of the charges to my account. They were pretty quick in response and i soon totted up over £3000 in charges over the last 3 years ( length of time i have been with them ). I became enthuesiastic about the thought of getting some of the money back and started to use the templates to reclaim.

The main reason for me putting in the claim was due to the fact that all of these charges each month were taking me over my overdraft. Bills and cheques were coming back unpaid and i entered a bit of a vicious circle. In fact so vicious that it was in the month following i managed to accumulate £1000 in charges alone. After writing asking for my money back they sent a letter explaining that the charges were fair and because i was claiming hardship wanted a financial breakdown filling in. I did this swiftly and returned it to them. In the couple of weeks following i began being charged again and again, i could have just managed to pay my bills if it wasnt for the fact i was having to pay charges from the few weeks before. Im sure you can see how this snowball mounted up. I wrote a letter to them expressing my need to deal with this pretty timely as the more time passed the more charges i accumulated.

I rang Halifax after they left me with £1.91 to pay my bills and feed my family of 2 babies for the two weeks left in the month. They said there was nothing they could do and were unable to help. 2 days later i was desperate, i had no means of credit and do not have family in a position to borrow money from. I asked Halifax if they could give me a temporary uplift on my overdraft so i could break this chain of bills bouncing and being unable to eat. They looked at it for me but again said no way. I was put through to there money management team.

I spoke to the money management team and spoke to a real nice lady. She went through a pretty extensive survey of my outgoings and income etc and agreed that the bank charges alone were crippling me and the only way to sort out this sorry mess was to not pay my bills so charges to my account wouldnt be made ( easier said than done ) Unfortunateley they were in no position to help in any other way. She put me through to the overdraft people again to see if they could temporarily increase my overdraft to again stop this cycle.If i could break the cycle of charges i may even have a few pounds each month to slowly reduce the overdraft. Again i was refused.

20 minutes later she called me back unexpetantly. She appologised and said that her colleague had told her that she had to remove the charges from my financial breakdown as these couldn't be included. It didnt change anything but just needed to let me know they couldnt be used in my expenditure.

So after sending all my arrears and unpaid bills into them, today i received a letter from them saying that they still believe that the charges are fair and they are sorry i am experiencing financial difficulty. They recommeded i contact there Money management people for advice ( already done ). I sent another begging template letter off today asking them to re-look at my claim. Who knows what will happen now.

I just wanted to share this with you all as i have kind of given up hope now. My mortgage wasnt paid today for the first time 11 years and i have nothing left to get through the rest of the month. Halifax have done NOTHING to help me through this. I would have liked to have thought my openness with them and being pro-active would have ensured swift help before it became to late. Thanks for nothing Halifax. Not even the offer of no charges for a month !

Going to see what happens with the letter i have just sent but not holding my breath. Please excuse my rant and moan. Dan

zigzagzen

DanDaniel wrote: »

TOTAL RECLAIMING - £4141.50
Going to see what happens with the letter i have just sent but not holding my breath. Please excuse my rant and moan. Dan

Dan,

That's no rant. It's a description of someone in financial hardship who is not getting justice.

Have a look at the way I handled my claim ... one or two pages back ....

1. I moved my incoming and outgoing money to another bank

2. I told my bank if they didn't play nice they would never see a penny but I really wanted to re-establish my banking with them as aside from the charges I liked their service.

3. Once you owe them money and there is nothing they can take (you don't have spare income) you have a stronger hand in some ways.

Differently to me I would suggest you then demand a final offer from them and go to the FSO.

By moving your current accounting elsewhere you can break the cycle. The old account will look like crap til the bank sort it out but they will have an incentive to do it - getting your money coming back in the bank. Clearly running the new account within your budget is important.

Just some thoughts but without knowing all your details it might not be good advice .... however, it worked for me.

Over £2,000 paid out including all charges levied since I started the claim, those charges being registered with the debt collection agencies as "bank errors" to repair my credit and £500 compensation for the crappy way the bank handled the claim.

ZZZ

sally205

natweststaffmember wrote: »

I have added some thought and I agree with you, if you do not ask the question then you do not get the response.

NatWeststaffMember, me again. Do you think it is worth me sending them my up to date priority debt arrears (changed since i submitted my form a few weeks ago) and asking them to review their offer with this in mind?

This way they surely cant' take away their original offer, they can only say yes or no to reviewing it? (As I won't sign and include my acceptance form with this letter?)

penguinofdeath81

hi - i'm new to MSE posting, so i hope i don't ask anything too seemingly stupid or whatever.

i'm at the point now where i have received my list of charges going back to 2001ish, and i've totted up the number of charges to an amount of approx £3500.

i have a few questions though...

1) when i have to write back to the bank to say that i feel that they owe me whatever amount, do i need to include the list of charges they sent me (photocopied), or do i need to just type out all the charges individually (which is a LOT) or can i just give the amount i've worked it out to be? how have other MSE members done it? if someone could let me know that'd be cool.

2) re the hardship aspect - i have moved to a lower-paying job (on about min wage, or thereabouts) and i work less hours per week as i attend college one day each week term time. since that, the amount of outgoings i have, all household and utility bills, etc amount to about what i take home after tax - and this is without including money for food and petrol each week. i can't pay my credit card bill back, beyond the minimum each month, although i am trying where i can to pay it back. there have also been several occasions where i have gone over the limit of the card, either due to the cc fees, ppi, or just my own spending.

my question is whether this this classifies as 'hardship', by the bank definitions?

if someone can help me with these, that would be great, as these are the 2 factors that thus far have meant i haven't applied yet.

thanks
V

natweststaffmember

sally205 wrote: »

NatWeststaffMember, me again. Do you think it is worth me sending them my up to date priority debt arrears (changed since i submitted my form a few weeks ago) and asking them to review their offer with this in mind?

This way they surely cant' take away their original offer, they can only say yes or no to reviewing it? (As I won't sign and include my acceptance form with this letter?)

Yes 100% definitely. I would still accept this but ask them to raise the amount since your situation has worsened since you originally asked them to look into it as financial hardship.

natweststaffmember

penguinofdeath81 wrote: »

hi - i'm new to MSE posting, so i hope i don't ask anything too seemingly stupid or whatever.

i'm at the point now where i have received my list of charges going back to 2001ish, and i've totted up the number of charges to an amount of approx £3500.

i have a few questions though...

1) when i have to write back to the bank to say that i feel that they owe me whatever amount, do i need to include the list of charges they sent me (photocopied), or do i need to just type out all the charges individually (which is a LOT) or can i just give the amount i've worked it out to be? how have other MSE members done it? if someone could let me know that'd be cool.
You need to send a list of the charges you are reclaiming. The guide does help you out on this issue on the site.
2) re the hardship aspect - i have moved to a lower-paying job (on about min wage, or thereabouts) and i work less hours per week as i attend college one day each week term time. since that, the amount of outgoings i have, all household and utility bills, etc amount to about what i take home after tax - and this is without including money for food and petrol each week. i can't pay my credit card bill back, beyond the minimum each month, although i am trying where i can to pay it back. there have also been several occasions where i have gone over the limit of the card, either due to the cc fees, ppi, or just my own spending.
Include that facts and think about reclaiming the Credit card charges and look at the PPI and see if you are eligible for all the things on it otherwise you might also have a PPI misselling claim to work on
my question is whether this this classifies as 'hardship', by the bank definitions?
yes and no, to be honest. You have lifestyle change ie lower paid job but from the above no priority debts ie mortgage/rent, council tax, utilities. However, ask the question cos they can either say YES or No.
if someone can help me with these, that would be great, as these are the 2 factors that thus far have meant i haven't applied yet.

thanks
V

Put in a claim. They cannot close your account nor should they take away your overdraft

siouxsieZ

Just some hope to those claiming from HBOS.

I too, have been down the long route of claiming under the financial hardship ruling and after numerous letters, was referred to the Money Management team where I gave them a detailed breakdown of all my income and expenditure. They offered to waive all bank charges for the next 3 months but I wrote back thanking them but saying that I would still be in financial hardship in 3 months if I couldn't clear some of my priority debts i.e. mortgage, council tax, utilities. They replied by sending me a financial ombudsman information leaflet so I sent off a complaint form to them with copies of my correspondence with the bank. They got in touch last week to say that a case worker had been assigned to my complaint and that someone from the financial ombudsman would be contacting the bank. Then out of the blue yesterday, I received a letter from the bank asking me to telephone and they have agreed to pay all my priority debts directly. I had to send them statements showing the arrears and they said they will send a cheque direct to each of them. :T

It amounts to about £4000 and I have a claim in for £9000. They said that when a decision for the court case is finalised, if ruled in favour, I would get the remainder then.

Although it isn't a complete success story it is such a relief to be able to have my mortgage etc., up to date and takes a lot of pressure off. :j

Does anyone know when we are likely to see a conclusion to this?

penguinofdeath81

1) when i have to write back to the bank to say that i feel that they owe me whatever amount, do i need to include the list of charges they sent me (photocopied), or do i need to just type out all the charges individually (which is a LOT) or can i just give the amount i've worked it out to be? how have other MSE members done it? if someone could let me know that'd be cool.
You need to send a list of the charges you are reclaiming. The guide does help you out on this issue on the site.

thanks very much for your advice, but if i may be a bit more specific... i know that the list of charges should be included, my question was directed more towards the format of the list - do i just photocopy all the pages they sent me with charges on and send them as the 'list'?

i apologise if this may seem obvious, but i'd just like to make sure i do it in the correct way.

thanks again.

natweststaffmember

siouxsieZ wrote: »

Just some hope to those claiming from HBOS.

I too, have been down the long route of claiming under the financial hardship ruling and after numerous letters, was referred to the Money Management team where I gave them a detailed breakdown of all my income and expenditure. They offered to waive all bank charges for the next 3 months but I wrote back thanking them but saying that I would still be in financial hardship in 3 months if I couldn't clear some of my priority debts i.e. mortgage, council tax, utilities. They replied by sending me a financial ombudsman information leaflet so I sent off a complaint form to them with copies of my correspondence with the bank. They got in touch last week to say that a case worker had been assigned to my complaint and that someone from the financial ombudsman would be contacting the bank. Then out of the blue yesterday, I received a letter from the bank asking me to telephone and they have agreed to pay all my priority debts directly. I had to send them statements showing the arrears and they said they will send a cheque direct to each of them. :T

It amounts to about £4000 and I have a claim in for £9000. They said that when a decision for the court case is finalised, if ruled in favour, I would get the remainder then.

Although it isn't a complete success story it is such a relief to be able to have my mortgage etc., up to date and takes a lot of pressure off. :j

Does anyone know when we are likely to see a conclusion to this?

some guestimates say next year but if the OFT case currently in court goes in favour of the banks then it is over with perhaps.
I have highlighted parts of your post to give some people hope that they can overturn a NO or an offer and negotiate it higher.
Very pleased for you :beer:

natweststaffmember

penguinofdeath81 wrote: »

thanks very much for your advice, but if i may be a bit more specific... i know that the list of charges should be included, my question was directed more towards the format of the list - do i just photocopy all the pages they sent me with charges on and send them as the 'list'?

i apologise if this may seem obvious, but i'd just like to make sure i do it in the correct way.

thanks again.

Date/charges/amount

Something like that.