Not such a success after all! What next?

natweststaffmember

krisskross wrote: »

Indeed, but in the case of the OP I am a great believer in The bird in the hand etc.
Where I am from that used to be a gay pub.
I do believe people will get a proportion of their bank charges refunded eventually. Just not so sure it will be every penny plus 8% interest.

If the charges are deemed unfair the bird in the hand may not necessarily lead to what some people have called "restitutionary" damages. I think we are certainly looking at statute of limitations and 8% but I also think that when the final final decision date comes that there will be a stop date for payouts. What I mean is that interest payable up to a specific date.
Under UTCCR the breach means that the term is gone and anything under that term is refunded HOWEVER it will be up to national courts to decide the when issue(or timescale).

krisskross

natweststaffmember wrote: »

If the charges are deemed unfair the bird in the hand may not necessarily lead to what some people have called "restitutionary" damages. I think we are certainly looking at statute of limitations and 8% but I also think that when the final final decision date comes that there will be a stop date for payouts. What I mean is that interest payable up to a specific date.
Under UTCCR the breach means that the term is gone and anything under that term is refunded HOWEVER it will be up to national courts to decide the when issue(or timescale).

When the charges issue is finally decided what do you think will happen when people go over limits, don't have enough to cover DDs etc? There will need to be some system in place won't there?
Will debit cards just be refused at the supermarket checkout if there is insufficient funds? A lot of people say this what they want but I can see there being an outcry about starving children etc, unable to put money on pre-payment meters.

natweststaffmember

krisskross wrote: »

When the charges issue is finally decided what do you think will happen when people go over limits, don't have enough to cover DDs etc?
The issue is about a term that is fair. For example, we may see that certain charges will disappear or that the interplay of charges will not come in, ie unpaid item triggering "informal requests for overdrafts"(which is nonsense) may not happen.
There will need to be some system in place won't there?
There will need to be a system in place in which the term is deemed fair and that could potentially be about the way the charges work.
Will debit cards just be refused at the supermarket checkout if there is insufficient funds?
Why should it not be refused? The card remains the property of the bank so why should that be an issue? The POS system has gone down in the historic past and my card was refused so not entirely sure that is really relevant.
A lot of people say this what they want but I can see there being an outcry about starving children etc, unable to put money on pre-payment meters.

The system that we have at the moment means that you can incur charges on charges, where you can incur a charge in excess of the item going out.
At the moment we are looking at whether the terms can be assessed. Then the terms may be assessed and this is where we may have a scenario in which a charges term may be deemed fair but it may not be fair in the way it interacts.
The argument is complicated and I think the OFT will win but the banks won't entirely lose in terms of some of the ideas out there.

MissCW

Thanks for all your replies. To me really this a point of principle, its not really about the money because physically I probably wont see any of it.

However when this situation with most of my charges happened and the account got closed, I was in a real mess (long story, due to an ex boyfriend).

I did everything I could to get the Natwest to help, and they didnt want to know. Charges were going on the account on a daily basis, they wouldnt freeze the account although I asked them to. At the time I was tearing my hair out about it and they were absolutely horrific to me.

Thats why I would like to get them all back, probably like a few people because of how I was treated and the effect its still having today, on my credit rating etc. Its not about being greedy or anything.

dunstonh

You'll think it a resoundingly successful result if the banks win the court case on bank charges.

Even if they dont win the case, the ruling will not mean that no charges can be made. Just a cap. So the outcome could be that the difference is only refunded rather than the full amount which most people claim for.

natweststaffmember

dunstonh wrote: »

Even if they dont win the case, the ruling will not mean that no charges can be made. Just a cap. So the outcome could be that the difference is only refunded rather than the full amount which most people claim for.

Dustonh, that is actually completely incorrect. If the banks' lose then the secondary part of the litigation should deal with fairness of the terms specifically and about redress. There is no cap since the penalty for unfairness in UTCCR 1999 is that the term is not binding on the customer and charges under the term must be refunded. The question at issue with regards to secondary litigation as well is how far that can go back to. The banks would have to introduce new fairer terms and that is the point the previous terms would be unfair. I think the problem is that we have not had the first judgement but we are not looking at an OFT report on credit cards where the OFT did not litigate.