Is worth asking banks to waive charges

Gaz70

I was thinking, is it worth ringing the bank and asking them to waive pending charges to save going through the rigmaraul of reclaiming them?
i'm blinking skint maybe they will have a bit of sympathy?
im with natwest and normaly pretty good with my dd have a seperate dedicated account for them, as they cost too much to miss and everyones charging for paper bills etc. im hoping that will be the next thing what turns out to be unlawful.

natweststaffmember

Gaz70 wrote: »

I was thinking, is it worth ringing the bank and asking them to waive pending charges to save going through the rigmaraul of reclaiming them?
i'm blinking skint maybe they will have a bit of sympathy?
im with natwest and normaly pretty good with my dd have a seperate dedicated account for them, as they cost too much to miss and everyones charging for paper bills etc. im hoping that will be the next thing what turns out to be unlawful.

If it is the first charge on your account: Yes
If you haven't had one refunded then YES
If it was caused by a bank error then YES
If not then recalim tham.

Tabbitha

I did this yesterday with Abbey. Their policy is they will refund 1 charge per rolling 12 months as a I hadn't claimed any back since March 2007 !!! She crediting 2. Basically I had two items paid and it had gone over my overdraft, they charge £5 for items under £10, £15 per item under £30 and £35 !!! for items over £30. It's shocking as before there flat fee's were high, but now they charge according to item value. I'm not a repeat offender just didn't watch the income / outgoing's well this month so 1 day out and over it went !

Lesson learnt in my case but £70 redeemed, so it is worth a call HTH

Gaz70

thank you for the help.
i phoned my branch today and spoke to a very helpful young man in a noisy call centre who did his best to sound stern with me, but did waive the 40 quid. PHEW !

th1982

I'm in the process of trying to get some charges refunded from Abbey also - I'm interested by what tabbitha said since I was charged £25 for them clearing a cheque for £25 (rather than £15 since it was under £30) - though it maybe because it was a cheque rather than cash/DD?!

I'm more annoyed as I was charged a further £50 on top as "monthly unauthorised overdraft fees" because the 2 day period i went over my limit for spanned the statement dates so they class it is 2 months - considering it was for 2 days and I was only actually over my limit by £2.25 it's extremely steep and I don't see how they can justify it.

However I contacted the branch and telephone banking and all they could do was refund the £25 fee for the cheque (which hasn't actually materialised despite the girl on the phone assuring me it would be refuned within 48 hours). So far complaints has got me as far as a recorded message about the ongoing court case. Due to my work it's tricky to find time to call them but needless to say when I get chance I will be trying every number I have until I get a person who can help me (or it'll be contacting the financial ombudsman with my complaint).

I'd say it's always worth challenging it though as there's a few times i've had charges due to bank screw ups and computer errors, as well as the odd mistake myself, and generally they've refunded the money as for the most part i'm very careful with my money. you don't know if you don't try i guess!!