Successful claim under financial difficulty from Abbey?

JudyMeg

I sent the template letter from this site a few weeks ago, as I had incurred £1,445 since January this year. The bank were bouncing my direct debits for my mortgage, utilities, telephone, insurance, council tax etc. Each one was presented twice in a month! Any money I earned and paid in was simply swallowed up. Prior to January, I had pretty much been in credit at the bank. The credit crunch had hit me and I was owed £2,500 by people. I tried to sell my car with no luck.

I have been taken to court over my council tax and have been threatened with cutting off my electricity and am in arrears with my mortgage. It couldn't get much worse!

I had a letter this morning which said we therefore regret that we are unable to consider your request for a refund on the basis of financial difficulty and are unable to progress your complaint until the outcome of the test case is known!

Then in the second half of the letter they say that they appreciate my current financial situation and as a gesture of goodwill, they will be refunding unauthorised overdraft bank charges totalling £1,445 (which is what I claimed), and stop any further charges up to 18 October. It says also that my complaint is on hold pending the outcome of the test case.

This seems to be a bit contradictory. Has anyone else had a letter like this?

natweststaffmember

JudyMeg wrote: »

I sent the template letter from this site a few weeks ago, as I had incurred £1,445 since January this year. The bank were bouncing my direct debits for my mortgage, utilities, telephone, insurance, council tax etc. Each one was presented twice in a month! Any money I earned and paid in was simply swallowed up. Prior to January, I had pretty much been in credit at the bank. The credit crunch had hit me and I was owed £2,500 by people. I tried to sell my car with no luck.

I have been taken to court over my council tax and have been threatened with cutting off my electricity and am in arrears with my mortgage. It couldn't get much worse!

I had a letter this morning which said we therefore regret that we are unable to consider your request for a refund on the basis of financial difficulty and are unable to progress your complaint until the outcome of the test case is known!

Then in the second half of the letter they say that they appreciate my current financial situation and as a gesture of goodwill, they will be refunding unauthorised overdraft bank charges totalling £1,445 (which is what I claimed), and stop any further charges up to 18 October. It says also that my complaint is on hold pending the outcome of the test case.

This seems to be a bit contradictory. Has anyone else had a letter like this?

Can I ask you to write out the exact wording excluding your own details and I can see what they are talking about?

milly88

Well that is a result at least you have had the return of charges and they have frozen your charges until Oct 18th. They have done as much as they could to help you in your situation. :beer:

By the way did you suffer any charges prior to January?

Now 18th October, could be a significant date, as they may have had wind of the date that the test case decision at the HOL will be heard.

So well done you.

Milly

JudyMeg wrote: »

I sent the template letter from this site a few weeks ago, as I had incurred £1,445 since January this year. The bank were bouncing my direct debits for my mortgage, utilities, telephone, insurance, council tax etc. Each one was presented twice in a month! Any money I earned and paid in was simply swallowed up. Prior to January, I had pretty much been in credit at the bank. The credit crunch had hit me and I was owed £2,500 by people. I tried to sell my car with no luck.

I have been taken to court over my council tax and have been threatened with cutting off my electricity and am in arrears with my mortgage. It couldn't get much worse!

I had a letter this morning which said we therefore regret that we are unable to consider your request for a refund on the basis of financial difficulty and are unable to progress your complaint until the outcome of the test case is known!

Then in the second half of the letter they say that they appreciate my current financial situation and as a gesture of goodwill, they will be refunding unauthorised overdraft bank charges totalling £1,445 (which is what I claimed), and stop any further charges up to 18 October. It says also that my complaint is on hold pending the outcome of the test case.

This seems to be a bit contradictory. Has anyone else had a letter like this?

JudyMeg

Thanks Milly, No I didn't incur any charges prior to January with this bank.

I think the 18th October is the end of my statement period, so does not have anything to do with the test case.

I appreciate you taking the time out to reply to my post.

JudyMeg

Thanks for your reply natweststaffmember. Here goes!
'Thank you for your recent contact regarding unauthorised overdraft bank charges on your account. Our understanding is that you are currently experiencing financial difficulties and you are requesting a refund of the unaithorised overdraft bank charges incurred on the above mentioned account. We are satisfied that the charges to which you refer have been raised correctly and are in accordance with the terms and conditions relating to your account.

We have carefully considered all of the information you provided and your financial activity with Abbey, together with information obtained from credit reference agencies to assess your claim.

We therefore regret that we are unable to consider your request for a refund of charges on the basis of financial difficulty and we are unable to progress your complaint until the outcome of the High Court test case is known.

If your circumstances change or you can provide new information and further evidence, then we will be happy to review your complaint.

We have carefully considered your financial activity with Abbey, together with information obtained from credit reference agencies, to assess your claim. As a result we appreciate your current financial situation and therefore, as a gesture of goodwill, we will be refunding unauthorised overdraft bank charges totalling £1445.00. We have arranged for the payment to be made direct to your account to assist you.

This amount is based on the unauthorised overdraft bank charges you have incurred in the twelve months prior to the date of our receipt of your claim for financial difficulty.

In addition, we will cancel any unauthorised overdraft bank charges to be applied to your account until the end of the statement period 18 October 2009.

Your complaint under reference number 0000000 remains on hold pending the outcome of the test case. We will keep you updated about the proceedings with the Office of Fair Trading. You can check the latest position on our website at www etc,'

They did also include info about debt counselling and what to do if I am not happy with the reply, but the above is the relevant text in the letter.

Thanks for your interest in my case.

JudyMeg

esmerellda

Well done

stu1975

well done you, sounds like that letter is template letter and they have forgoton to take a paragraph out lol

JudyMeg

Yes, that could explain it.

Thanks. JudyMeg