Bank Charges Financial Hardship Success Stories

natweststaffmember

ashx88 wrote: »

Hi all,

I started the process of reclaiming bank charges from NatWest about 3 months ago. The total came to about £1700 over two accounts. They sent me the I&E forms, which I filled in and sent off along with all of the supporting evidence. So far so good I was thinking after looking on this site.

I have rent arrears of nearly £700 (got an eviction notice from the council which I sent off to the bank), council tax arrears of £300, outstanding water charges of £500, and over £2000 of non-priority debts, on top of which I have a £4000 loan with NatWest which costs £105 to pay off each month. My income/month is £585 which barely covers my usual outgoings, let along paying off any of these debts.

I got a letter back from them saying that they did not consider me to be in financial hardship because I had had a loan facility agreed within the last 6 months. What this really was; I had a loan out with NatWest to pay back my student overdraft which had been agreed in 2007, but I had defaulted on my payments and owed £280 on it. At the time I had just just started a new temp job, and they froze my accounts so I was unable to access the money from this. I phoned the bank and they basically said if I did not take out a consolidation loan, they wouldn't unfreeze my account and would take me to court for the oustanding loan arrears. In my mind, that meant I had no choice but to accept this new higher loan agreement, which they said would not require a credit check, or that I would be able to keep up repayments. As I explained to the guy on the phone, I was working in a temporary job that was only due to last 8 weeks tops, as it happened, it only lasted 4 weeks.

Please can somebody help?! I phoned the 'Direct Dial' number on the letter I received and got through to a woman who basically said she had no idea how decisions were made, no idea about my case (even after asking for my reference) and no way of helping me whatsoever.

Am I in financial hardship from the information I've given? I will have to default on my loan payment this month as my regular bills have been backing up and I now owe electric and have had my phone cut off. Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks

Can you dig out the loan agreement and then tell me what it says for income and job title and furthermore, what type of loan was it?

pinksteven

Hi All,

I have some excellent news to share, I am a Barclays customer and fell into the trap of accepting the reserve on my account.

Next thing you know I am over my overdraft and using my reserve every month. Found myself getting into a very serious vicious circle trying to get back into my overdraft.

So I wrote to Barclays about three weeks ago asking for approx £1,600 back, of course I used the excellent hardship template.

I got a standard letter back saying they will look into it and get back to me.

I went into the bank today and checked my bank statement, and low and behold I got a "goodwill" payment of £835 from Barclays. I confirmed with the staff that this was for my hardship case.

Now whilst this is no where near what I was claiming for, I am absolutely over the moon. I have accepted the amount, cancelled my reserve and have knocked a massive chunk off my overdraft.

I am now in a position to get myself back on track, I have learned my lesson and will not be getting back into a position like this again.

So there is hope for us all, I hope some other people get some similar success stories to mine.

Pinky

mrsdarbs

natweststaffmember wrote: »

The bank could argue that selling the second property might alleviate financial hardship or increasing the rent on the property and therefore increasing rental income might help alleviate financial hardship.

I tried to sell the second property last year, but because the market had dropped I would have been left in negative equity on my mortgage so I stuck with it. Also my rental income is fixed as the property is shared ownership and I am not allowed to make a profit on the income. THe housing association that own the other 40% are quite strict on this.

jasoniw

Hi there,

I was wondering, in the case of hardship - can you still only claim for charges made before July 07. I only opened my account a few months before that and in these two years have accumulated around £400 of charges.

If you are in hardship, are you allowed to claim for charges between July 07 and now?

Also, can the bank close my account if I try to claim back my charges?

Thanks for your time,

Jason

natweststaffmember

jasoniw wrote: »

Hi there,

I was wondering, in the case of hardship - can you still only claim for charges made before July 07. I only opened my account a few months before that and in these two years have accumulated around £400 of charges.

If you are in hardship, are you allowed to claim for charges between July 07 and now?

Also, can the bank close my account if I try to claim back my charges?

Thanks for your time,

Jason

You can claim from July 2001 until present. The issue with financial hardship is that the account you are claiming on has charges today and that your financial hardship is today which means if the account is closed or unused in the previous 6 months then it is more difficult to prove financial hardship on.

natweststaffmember

mrsdarbs wrote: »

I tried to sell the second property last year, but because the market had dropped I would have been left in negative equity on my mortgage so I stuck with it. Also my rental income is fixed as the property is shared ownership and I am not allowed to make a profit on the income. THe housing association that own the other 40% are quite strict on this.

In that case you have a counter argument to something they could throw at you. Can you make sure you double check if TODAY the issue of selling the property is still the same, ie negative equity? If it is, then argue the case with the bank.

weedenise

:money:Thank you guyzzz SO much!

Bank: RBS
Total Claimed:£2492
OfferAccepted:£1971

ust received my offer letter from rbs £1971....i am delighted with that as they have offered me a full refund without interest...this is gonna make my life somuch easier...thanks so much for all the hardwork that goes into this forum and all the help and template letters :T

Laini

Bank: HSBC
CHARGES: 1429.00
REFUNDED: 1429.00

ktabbie

Hi Everyone,

I have been lurking on here for a while and finally sent off to reclaim my bank charges under the financial hardship regulations. I sent the Abbey the first letter requesting a list of charges and a cheque for £10 and today in the post i had a long statement back only backdating til jan 07.

Has anyone else had this?

karonsteele

Amount reclaimed £3488. Amount received £3880. I first started my reclaim on 23rd Feb 07 by writing to HSBC with one of the MSE template letters. I got little response at first even though I pestered them several times. They eventually refused my claim. I decided to take the bull by the horns and sue HSBC through the small claims court which I did on 24 Jul 07. On 19 Sep 07 the claim was put on hold because of the test case. I didn't bother with it after that as there was no point. Earlier this year in March 09 me and my husband lost our own small business due to the credit crunch so I got in touch with HSBC again and told them we were now in financial hardship. Since then I have received a refund of £3880, in part payments of £650, £650, £650, £1200 and £730. To be honest, they have now paid more than I claimed, but because of the Court case I am entitled to interest on the amount claimed anyway! They have been a bit awkward at times but I have kept pestering them and it worked. You just don't have to take no for an answer and you have to keep going. Without these refunds I would have probably lost my home! So if you're thinking of giving up, don't!
Good Luck, KS Sheffield