Has your bank (esp Lloyds) ignored your hardship claim?

ally663

natweststaffmember wrote: »

Why are you writing to them with a 25% less settlement?
Under Financial hardship they can offer £0.00 of the charges. DO NOT negotiate anything that reduces the final amount.
If Halifax have not dealt with your complaint ask the FSA to relook at it.
If you have argued that a lifestyle event lead to less income and then charges leading to priority debt arrears that are not being paid off then argue that point. You total charges back to July 2001 but the financial hardship being as I have suggested. You need to complete and income and expenditure form:
http://www.bba.org.uk/bba/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=259&a=3545&view=print
Bottom of the page PDF file Budget Planner.
Ask for a final response.
Are you repaying any of the arrears off?

Hi Thanks for the advice but I have done all of the above. When you say am I repaying any arrears? Do you mean arrears for my priority debts? Of course.
If I write to the Halifax they send exactly the same letter back about the Money Management Team, who do not call. I have five so far.

natweststaffmember

ally663 wrote: »

Hi Thanks for the advice but I have done all of the above. When you say am I repaying any arrears? Do you mean arrears for my priority debts? Of course.
If I write to the Halifax they send exactly the same letter back about the Money Management Team, who do not call. I have five so far.

Do not reduce the total of the charges you are reclaiming. Did you send an I&E form?
Are the priority debts not being paid off?

ally663

natweststaffmember wrote: »

Do not reduce the total of the charges you are reclaiming. Did you send an I&E form?
Are the priority debts not being paid off?

Yes they have had an I&E form in the past, the priority debts are being paid as and when I am able to.

natweststaffmember

ally663 wrote: »

Yes they have had an I&E form in the past, the priority debts are being paid as and when I am able to.

are the debts increasing/decreasing or staying the same?

liberty_lily

We put a hardship claim in with LTSB early in 2009 for charges of nearly £10,000. We have priority debt arrears of over £2000 which we are only making random payments towards and our household income has taken a dive of over 60%.

Soon after submitting our request for a refund of charges LTSB closed our account and have persisted in chasing us for the balance of our o/d (around £4000, against an agreed limit of around £3500), despite sending us the usual blurb about 'we think you might be experiencing financial difficulty.' During the course of the last few months they have sent us so many 'fob-off' letters I could wallpaper a small room with them.

We tried calling Andover who we had been advised deal with hardship claims - they informed us that they do not deal with hardship claims and that all claims are on hold until the test case is resolved.

Our complaint is now with a FOS adjudicator.

We have reported LTSB to the FSA for breaching the waiver and were told they would pass our complaint to the team responsible for monitoring firms' compliance with the waiver.

To be honest I don't think there is any chance we will get anything back from LTSB before the test case is concluded, but if they choose to take us to court for our o/d at least we can put in a counterclaim for our charges!

HAVEFAITH

liberty_lily wrote: »

We put a hardship claim in with LTSB early in 2009 for charges of nearly £10,000. We have priority debt arrears of over £2000 which we are only making random payments towards and our household income has taken a dive of over 60%.

Soon after submitting our request for a refund of charges LTSB closed our account and have persisted in chasing us for the balance of our o/d (around £4000, against an agreed limit of around £3500), despite sending us the usual blurb about 'we think you might be experiencing financial difficulty.' During the course of the last few months they have sent us so many 'fob-off' letters I could wallpaper a small room with them.

We tried calling Andover who we had been advised deal with hardship claims - they informed us that they do not deal with hardship claims and that all claims are on hold until the test case is resolved.

Our complaint is now with a FOS adjudicator.

We have reported LTSB to the FSA for breaching the waiver and were told they would pass our complaint to the team responsible for monitoring firms' compliance with the waiver.

To be honest I don't think there is any chance we will get anything back from LTSB before the test case is concluded, but if they choose to take us to court for our o/d at least we can put in a counterclaim for our charges!

I'm fighting a hardship case with Lloyds tsb on behalf of my relative. I am at the stage where they have asked for a financial statement. Trust me I will be go all the way until a result is reached. Your case interests me and will watch you posts and progress, please keep posting away here. Thanks & the best of luck!

liberty_lily

HAVEFAITH wrote: »

I'm fighting a hardship case with Lloyds tsb on behalf of my relative. I am at the stage where they have asked for a financial statement. Trust me I will be go all the way until a result is reached. Your case interests me and will watch you posts and progress, please keep posting away here. Thanks & the best of luck!

Hi HAVEFAITH,

Thank you for your good wishes - the best of luck with your relative's claim also!

At least you have been asked to provide a financial statement, which is more than Lloyds did with us. We sent them one anyway and they still ignored it!

Take care,

liberty_lily x

Against_Bank_Charges

Hi Martin - Whilst I work for a CMC, I can definately confirm that Lloyds are "Flaunting the Hardship Rules"

I have nearly 400 Client cases where they are claiming Financial Difficulty, yet Lloyds have failed to refund a single charge.

Some of my favourite responces include:-

"Lloyds are putting ALL hardship claims on hold"

"What do you mean by financial difficulty ?"

"As the client has been able to afford to pay the £4850 of charges - clearly they aren't struggling!! "

"We are concidering a review of stand point on financial hardship as a number of other banks seem to be offering refunds"

On a slightly more positive note - many other high street banks are very reasonable in their dealings with clients who are genuine in the request to have their cases reviewed under the hardship rules

natweststaffmember

Against_Bank_Charges wrote: »

Hi Martin - Whilst I work for a CMC, I can definately confirm that Lloyds are "Flaunting the Hardship Rules"

I have nearly 400 Client cases where they are claiming Financial Difficulty, yet Lloyds have failed to refund a single charge.

Some of my favourite responces include:-

"Lloyds are putting ALL hardship claims on hold"
That one is an old chestnut and the FSA confirmed that they hadn't when I asked them.
"What do you mean by financial difficulty ?"
Well, can you define it? What does your client mean by financial difficulty?
"As the client has been able to afford to pay the £4850 of charges - clearly they aren't struggling!! "
Did the client repay the charges or did they have funds elsewhere?
"We are concidering a review of stand point on financial hardship as a number of other banks seem to be offering refunds"
Not heard that one but it is a corker.
On a slightly more positive note - many other high street banks are very reasonable in their dealings with clients who are genuine in the request to have their cases reviewed under the hardship rules

Does any of your clients have priority debt arrears(mortgage or rent, council tax, utilities)?
I want to understand the way you get paid as well. If someone gets an interim payout do you enforce your bill since you haven't concluded the case since no cases can be in full and final settlement of the case?

Against_Bank_Charges

Hi NatWestStaffMember

Thanks for your comments on my post.

Can I 1st of all say that NatWest themselves are one of those High Street Banks that I have found to be very understanding and sympathetic to clients in difficulty - FYI it is NatWest who have refunded the highest payouts - several over £6000.

So for obvious reasons I don't want to upset the good working relationship I have with them.

I cannot say that every single one of my clients who are claiming to be in financial difficulty - would stack up, in my defence I get them all to complete income & expenditure forms, write a letter explaining what was the cause of their hardship and how it has impacted their circumstances. This does not rule out those who are pretending and I except that fact.

For the avoidance of doubt those quotes I used were from variuos cases against Lloyds. The list could of been a lot longer.

As for my fees - I used to offer this service free of charge, that was ethical - but economic suicide !! Now I charge 15% of any monies returned. I'm not the cheapest, nor the most expensive, and partly because I'm new to this forum, but mainly due to the volume of clients I am dealing with I am really not looking for any extra clients.

My frustration - which is why I was drawn to this thread - is due to the sheer arrogance of Lloyds, and dissregard to their own clients welfare.

There has been plenty of feedback from their clients, stating as soon as thius is sorted they will move away from Lloyds.