halifax and lloyds help with financial ahrdship reclaiming!

ailsajayne29

Hi

I've been in the process of trying to reclaim £2000 in charges from the halifax and have today decided to go ahead with trying the same route for lloyds for £260, im currently on a dmp with the cccs and wondered if it is worth sending a copy of my financial statement in with my letters?

I left halifax as i had been struggling with my loan and cc's and following a period of repeatedly going od every month by increasing amounts of money they threatened to remove my od and take all my wages, so I moved to lloyds and set up my dmp.

Gemerally its not been too bad with lloyds with just the odd charge due to my own stupidity, unfortunately four months ago sky ''forgot'' to change my payment date and tried to take the dd twice while i was working away, so i got the 40 quid charge which then meant i was 40 quid down for next month and other things couldnt be paid. Ive just been in to the bank with all my financial statements etc and the customer services manager basically said its your own fault and picked through my statements for months saying i spent too much on food and fuel and in other shops such as waterstones (wouldnt believe that I am trying to get promoted at work to get more money therefore need to take some courses and need books for those courses) and that they ''wouldnt help me as I clearly do not wish to help myself and will be back in a few months claiming i need help'' I walked out in tears and am now so angry I WILL be going after them for all the charges ive had since i opened my account, even the ones that I had accepted were my fault.... He also claims that £65 worth of uplanned od charges is acceptable for being £7 overdrawn for 5 days.... they sent me one letter.... thats all its cost them as I have also paid them interest on the amount I was overdrawn.

Has anyone got any advice to help me get my money back off both lloyds and halifax?? I have the letter templates but am looking for any other help I can get, because honestly if I cant stop this happening and get some things paid off I really have no idea how Im going to stop this all carrying on!

Apologies for the massive rant Im just so angry and upset that they can pick through and criticise how i spend my money and that despite everything I am doing to sort things out the progress I have made is contantly being beaten down by the banks... :mad:

ailsajayne29

um that should have said that halifax refused my offer of a monthly reduction and told me to go to someone like cccs, they are recieving money every month towards my od... I just realised it sounded a bit like i just legged it!! Their answer to the initial offer from cccs was no, so i was advised to leave when they said any money paid in would be taken by overdraft repayments!! funnily enough the amount they took in charges over a year is about £400 more than the amount i owe them from my overdraft! and th cant see a link.. hmmmm!

natweststaffmember

ailsajayne29 wrote: »

um that should have said that halifax refused my offer of a monthly reduction and told me to go to someone like cccs, they are recieving money every month towards my od... I just realised it sounded a bit like i just legged it!! Their answer to the initial offer from cccs was no, so i was advised to leave when they said any money paid in would be taken by overdraft repayments!! funnily enough the amount they took in charges over a year is about £400 more than the amount i owe them from my overdraft! and th cant see a link.. hmmmm!

Do you have priority debt arrears(mortgage.rent, council tax, utilities)?

ailsajayne29

no, i did but thanks to the advice from the cccs i cleared those, but as my financial statement that i will be sending with my letter shows i have £64 a month spare after bills, food and travel expenses, that £64 has to go to my other debts to clear those, so any charges cutting into those mean that i cant pay other bills and i think i qualify for hardship as the money halifax owes me is from one year when i broke up with my partner, had to move house and take a lower paid job due to end of contract. It started with me going about £50 od one month and just got worse to the point where i was od by up to £400 most months, after 6 mtnhs of this amd me not paying my rent trying to clear this debt and get all my other arrears back up, halifax wrote to me saying they would remove my overdraft, they then told me i had to repay £400 a month with no financial statement taken, i agreed as i saw it as my only way to not loose all m wages and end up loosing my house, after a month i realised i def couldnt afford this and when i tried to expain was told o had to get an independent financial statement, which i did and ended up on my dmp with cccs. I ended up having to move out of my flat and into shared accomodation as well as pay the arrears on my rent. Sorting this out has not been easy and over the last year ive lived very close to the edge, including missing reapyments to my dmp due to charges etc from lloyds, now im back up to date on my rent arrears but am still struggling to keep everything paid, and as i have no savings everytime anything goes wrong i struggle for example car repairs, my car broke down a few months ago so my tv licence and aa membership dd bounced kick starting the cycle of charges, I did incur charges fairly regularly on my accounts between opening the account in july 2009 and april this year, but i had sorted that out and was running my accounts properly. but as i tried to explain today if i had not been charged back in aug i would not still be incurring charges now and i cannot get out of the cycle of having between £40 and £60 worth of charges on my account every month, and im really concerned that it will get worse, it is almost like every time i think im sorted and that it just might be ok everything goes wrong. Due to so many earlier missed payments with my dmp i cannot miss anymore or my agreement will be terminated and i will end up being taken to court for my debt repayments and i am doing all i can to avoid this.

i think what upset me the most today was the attitude of the customer service manager and the way he went through my statement, making me justify where i had spent my money, I could have completely understood if i had £100's of payments to clothes shops or hmv or other shops that dont sell essential items, unfortunately things like books and the fees for my professional body are essential as i cannot get promoted without the knowledge and the professional accreditation. What he failed to realise is that it is not my employers responsibility to do these things it is mine, therefore i do need to spend money on these things. I also resented being told that i had spent too much money on food and fuel in his eyes, I spend way below the recommended amount on my dmp financial statement and have no choice but to pay fuel for travel to work. It also amazes me that every time i do get a letter from the bank it says that i should contact them if im struggling with money, but when i do im told they cant help at all, while at the same time upgrading my accounts to ones that have fees (the one where they give u aa and mobile phone insurance that is below what i need) therefore adding £14 a month on to my expenditure and adding mobile text packages so i can keep better track that add £5 a month on to my accounts.

sorry im ranting again! i hate having all this anger and worry over my financial future, i just want to be in the position to have a little breathing space to get everything back on track and know that if i need to fix my car or pay for something unexpected i dont need to worry and if i can get these charges back form both banks i just might be able to do this... failing that a lottery win would be very nice! :-)

natweststaffmember

ailsajayne29 wrote: »

no, i did but thanks to the advice from the cccs i cleared those, but as my financial statement that i will be sending with my letter shows i have £64 a month spare after bills, food and travel expenses, that £64 has to go to my other debts to clear those, so any charges cutting into those mean that i cant pay other bills and i think i qualify for hardship as the money halifax owes me is from one year when i broke up with my partner, had to move house and take a lower paid job due to end of contract. It started with me going about £50 od one month and just got worse to the point where i was od by up to £400 most months, after 6 mtnhs of this amd me not paying my rent trying to clear this debt and get all my other arrears back up, halifax wrote to me saying they would remove my overdraft, they then told me i had to repay £400 a month with no financial statement taken, i agreed as i saw it as my only way to not loose all m wages and end up loosing my house, after a month i realised i def couldnt afford this and when i tried to expain was told o had to get an independent financial statement, which i did and ended up on my dmp with cccs. I ended up having to move out of my flat and into shared accomodation as well as pay the arrears on my rent. Sorting this out has not been easy and over the last year ive lived very close to the edge, including missing reapyments to my dmp due to charges etc from lloyds, now im back up to date on my rent arrears but am still struggling to keep everything paid, and as i have no savings everytime anything goes wrong i struggle for example car repairs, my car broke down a few months ago so my tv licence and aa membership dd bounced kick starting the cycle of charges, I did incur charges fairly regularly on my accounts between opening the account in july 2009 and april this year, but i had sorted that out and was running my accounts properly. but as i tried to explain today if i had not been charged back in aug i would not still be incurring charges now and i cannot get out of the cycle of having between £40 and £60 worth of charges on my account every month, and im really concerned that it will get worse, it is almost like every time i think im sorted and that it just might be ok everything goes wrong. Due to so many earlier missed payments with my dmp i cannot miss anymore or my agreement will be terminated and i will end up being taken to court for my debt repayments and i am doing all i can to avoid this.

i think what upset me the most today was the attitude of the customer service manager and the way he went through my statement, making me justify where i had spent my money, I could have completely understood if i had £100's of payments to clothes shops or hmv or other shops that dont sell essential items, unfortunately things like books and the fees for my professional body are essential as i cannot get promoted without the knowledge and the professional accreditation. What he failed to realise is that it is not my employers responsibility to do these things it is mine, therefore i do need to spend money on these things. I also resented being told that i had spent too much money on food and fuel in his eyes, I spend way below the recommended amount on my dmp financial statement and have no choice but to pay fuel for travel to work. It also amazes me that every time i do get a letter from the bank it says that i should contact them if im struggling with money, but when i do im told they cant help at all, while at the same time upgrading my accounts to ones that have fees (the one where they give u aa and mobile phone insurance that is below what i need) therefore adding £14 a month on to my expenditure and adding mobile text packages so i can keep better track that add £5 a month on to my accounts.
Why keep the account cos that would add £14.00 a month to your budget?
sorry im ranting again! i hate having all this anger and worry over my financial future, i just want to be in the position to have a little breathing space to get everything back on track and know that if i need to fix my car or pay for something unexpected i dont need to worry and if i can get these charges back form both banks i just might be able to do this... failing that a lottery win would be very nice! :-)

I am going to sound like that guy today but my gut feeling says that they will in all likelihood say no due to there being no priority debt arrears and the fact you have a surplus on the income and expenditure which many people do not have with financial hardship. Having said that, please ask them the question cos if you do not then you get nothing anyway before the conclusion of the OFT test case issues.
and take a look at this thread on Legal beagles is the info I got from the various banks so it should help if you are reclaiming under financial hardship.
http://www.legalbeagles.info/forums/showthread.php?p=131540#post131540
Do you have credit card charges, store card charges and/or catalogue charges?
There is no hold on them so reclaim them now.

ailsajayne29

thanks, I have told them i dont want the silver accounts as cant afford the charges, unfortunately all my suprlus has to go to the credit cards and loan i have on my dmp. my prob is if they take charges away i have no spare cash to pay them out of so something else cant be paid and it starts the cycle again! Ive sent my letters today with attacked expenditure sheets, i thought that as i was still incurring charges regularly and could not meet all exsiting commitments ie the cards loan and car payment on my dmp that it would count as hardship? Ive been reading a post on here this morning the annex two of the financial statement thing (sorry not certain exactly what it was!) that said if u had incurred more than a certain amount of charges over a month it meant you were in hardship? Halifax didnt try to contact me initially for six months despitethe fact i was paying out £200+ a month in cahrges to them and exceeding my od every month by similar amounts!

unfortunately i have no idea what charges i may have had on my cc's, i think most of them were after the last ruling meaning that i was only charged £12 anyway? which is a shame!

natweststaffmember

ailsajayne29 wrote: »

thanks, I have told them i dont want the silver accounts as cant afford the charges, unfortunately all my suprlus has to go to the credit cards and loan i have on my dmp. my prob is if they take charges away i have no spare cash to pay them out of so something else cant be paid and it starts the cycle again! Ive sent my letters today with attacked expenditure sheets, i thought that as i was still incurring charges regularly and could not meet all exsiting commitments ie the cards loan and car payment on my dmp that it would count as hardship? Ive been reading a post on here this morning the annex two of the financial statement thing (sorry not certain exactly what it was!) that said if u had incurred more than a certain amount of charges over a month it meant you were in hardship? Halifax didnt try to contact me initially for six months despitethe fact i was paying out £200+ a month in cahrges to them and exceeding my od every month by similar amounts!

unfortunately i have no idea what charges i may have had on my cc's, i think most of them were after the last ruling meaning that i was only charged £12 anyway? which is a shame!

There was no ruling on credit card charges so those £12 ones are reclaimable plus I would claim every single charge on the credit cards.

ailsajayne29

So you can still ask your credit card company to refund the £12 then? Barclaycard had been told there was a problem with my dmp and for the first time since i set it up started charging me? its not massive amount but that would help if i can get that back! as my virgin and capital one card are now with independent agencies can i still write to the original company for my statements? because i got rid of most of them a while ago!

natweststaffmember

ailsajayne29 wrote: »

So you can still ask your credit card company to refund the £12 then? Barclaycard had been told there was a problem with my dmp and for the first time since i set it up started charging me? its not massive amount but that would help if i can get that back! as my virgin and capital one card are now with independent agencies can i still write to the original company for my statements? because i got rid of most of them a while ago!

I had better rephrase that, every single overlimit, late payment fee and add interest on top. The guide to reclaiming allows you to do this.

Halifaxlad28

Hi

Hope you can help.

I was a customer with Halifax Bank for the past 5-6 years and recently closed this account down, is there anyway I can still apply to try and reclaim and bank charges?

Secondly can this affect my credit rating if I do for the future?

Thanks

James

natweststaffmember

Halifaxlad28 wrote: »

Hi

Hope you can help.

I was a customer with Halifax Bank for the past 5-6 years and recently closed this account down, is there anyway I can still apply to try and reclaim and bank charges?

Secondly can this affect my credit rating if I do for the future?

Thanks

James

Yes on reclaim bank charges and no on future credit rating.