Financial Hardship - Bank or Ombudsman No Help!!

willywilson

Has anyone else tried to get help with 'Finacial Hardship' claim, we recently asked the Financial Ombusman to help with our case to prove 'Financial Hardship' with our bank after being constantly penalised with bank charges which were putting us in arrears all the time. We recently could not pay our Council Tax and therefore went back to the bank after reading comments/advise on this website saying we may be eligiable for the 'Financial Hardship' clause in paying our charges. We had put our claim in about 6mths before the freeze. Our bank agreed we were eligable for the 'Financial Hardship and we filled out the Expenses Form over the phone, they wrote back to say they would pay us a figure plucked from nowhere, which was so small it would not have helped, we then contacted the Ombudsman who agreed that this was not sufficient against our claim and would look into it on our behalf. Subsequently, the Ombudsman has now replied saying that he has been 'persuaded' by the bank (not agreed!)that we are not eligiable for 'Financial Hardship' and that after the bank paid 'thier' agreed pitance into our account, the case was closed. Can anyone give us some advice please on how we now proceed as the amount paid into our account is not even going to cover the charges they keep taking, let alone what we claimed for and, which was not agreed as a settlement of the claim, and now we seem to have come up against a brick wall with the Ombudsman too! who is supposed to be there to help!!

:mad:

Any advice would be gratefully recieved.

dunstonh

The FOS is not a charity designed to help you. It is also not designed to help the bank. It is an independent complaints reviewer designed to look at the cases based on laws/rules and fairness.

If the FOS's adjudicator doesnt agree with you then you can ask for your case to be referred to an ombudsman. However, statistically its unlikely an ombudsman would overrule the adjudicator (tends to be on more complicated cases where the ombudsman is more qualified and experienced and can see things differently - although the provider/adviser can appeal to them as well and can change to rule in their favour if it was the other way round).

You will need to give more detail on your circumstances for anyone here to give you more help. You may wish to try the debt free wannabe section as they have some really nice people in there who can help people in bad debt situations like yourself.

natweststaffmember

willywilson wrote: »

Has anyone else tried to get help with 'Finacial Hardship' claim, we recently asked the Financial Ombusman to help with our case to prove 'Financial Hardship' with our bank after being constantly penalised with bank charges which were putting us in arrears all the time. We recently could not pay our Council Tax and therefore went back to the bank after reading comments/advise on this website saying we may be eligiable for the 'Financial Hardship' clause in paying our charges. We had put our claim in about 6mths before the freeze. Our bank agreed we were eligable for the 'Financial Hardship and we filled out the Expenses Form over the phone, they wrote back to say they would pay us a figure plucked from nowhere, which was so small it would not have helped, we then contacted the Ombudsman who agreed that this was not sufficient against our claim and would look into it on our behalf. Subsequently, the Ombudsman has now replied saying that he has been 'persuaded' by the bank (not agreed!)that we are not eligiable for 'Financial Hardship' and that after the bank paid 'thier' agreed pitance into our account, the case was closed. Can anyone give us some advice please on how we now proceed as the amount paid into our account is not even going to cover the charges they keep taking, let alone what we claimed for and, which was not agreed as a settlement of the claim, and now we seem to have come up against a brick wall with the Ombudsman too! who is supposed to be there to help!!

:mad:

Any advice would be gratefully recieved.

Which bank is it?
Did you complete a new income and expenditure form(household income)?
How much did they offer and did you write to them outlining why you were not accepting it?