MSE News: Bank charges: banks win test case appeal

superdood

Like almost everyone else I think this decision is absolutely outrageous!
It's a huge blow to everyone who has a claim on hold.....but am I right in saying here that this court case was purely for deciding whether or not the OFT can assess the charges on fairness, NOT whether the bank charges are unfair or not. So, if I am right, it still stands that only a court can decide whether or not a charge is fair? If so, does it not mean that those who have claims on hold or haven't yet made a claim, can still pursue a refund through the local courts or the FOS once the hold is lifted? Is this correct or am I clutching at straws here?
Or is this the end of the road now?
I for one, as always, shall be waiting for MSE members to translate everything into laymans terms for me before I start licking my wounds:rotfl:

Harry_Powell

ejmdkb wrote: »

Gutted... I was on for around £8k... all my own fault I know, but would have come in nice for my forthcoming wedding. Instead now - another loan I guess.

Or you could just have an MSE wedding and not waste a fortune (that you don't have) on a single day. :rolleyes:

berkshirelady

Good god, how bad does it have to get? Over the last 15 years we've had endowment mis-selling, PPI scandal, Equitable life, massive taxpayer bailouts, not to mention yesterday's little update from Mervyn King about a secret £62 billion loan to HBOS & RBS that nobody knew about. I would love to know what charges they had to pay on that loan; I bet they wouldn't have had to pay massive default charges back to us, the taxpayers, if they couldn't pay it back?

Those pansies in the Commons (from all political parties) need to get off their !!!!!! and intervene NOW.

DISGUSTED-ANGRY!!!

PS Martin I heard you on Radio 5 live breakfast show, before the judgement was announced. An impassioned speech, good on you.

putty71

Okay so we now need to find out who is the fairest of all banks. We then all move our accounts to them basically screwing the rip off merchants, hoepfully the government owned ones to. Maybe then the spineless gits will listen.

Are we gonna do this??????

ailsajayne29

Stiffedbysupremecourt wrote: »

This is such a shocking decision for a number of reasons. C_Mabebejive, picture this scenario you get £120 every 2 weeks for job seeker's allowance, something happens requiring you to spend a large chunk of your money and your account goes £10 overdrawn, the bank will charge £35 for this so you now have £45 coming out of the next payment of £120 going in. This becomes a cycle that the banks are now allowed to perpetuate. As someone who has had a hardship claim unfairly put on hold by their bank prior to the test case I am absolutely furious with this decision. What a good thing we have this new judicial body to protect the public interest eh? I bet they all have financial interests in the banks that would be affected, or at least they do now if they didn't before the case (if you know what i mean).

hear hear!! its extremely unfair to say that its our fault!

Also I noticed on the bbc site the judge said that in choosing to hold a current account we agree to pay charges... can someone tell me how i can get my pay, pay my bills etc without a bank account? seeing as when i was on a basic bank account my charges were actually more that on a current account (halifax for that one) and with lloyds on a basic account i get a £10 buffer in case anything comes out that measn i wont get charged but once i was moved to a current acc im liable to be charged £15 plus £6 a day if something comes out (even just a pound or less).

I am sick to death of being screwed over by this country, bieng charged for every single essential thing and being charged if something goes wrong and having nowhere to turn if things get really bad, which lets face it is the case for most people now, even those who were once fairly well off are now suffering because the banks messed up, wheres my government bail out because things went wrong for me????

patchy987

so, is this is now then ??

i cannot believe after all the other rulings in our favour that this now happens, makes me worry that banks will now raise charges

caz2004

People should take all their money out of the banks and use them as little as possible in protest. Without customers they cannot function. Its time we stood up for ourselves!!!

dirtydavey

C_Mababejive wrote: »

Whats the problem?? ive hardly ever paid bank charges. If the banks had lost, they were threatening to charge everyone to recoup some costs of operating accounts.

Can someone tell me why i should pay charges when i run my accounts in such a way as to not endure charges..just so that others can run their accounts less efficiently AND get compensation payments for so called unfair charges??

Dont be silly, NO one has ever said that you should pay for me to go over dwarn. The argument is that I should not pay for you to have free banking.

If it costs the bank £2.50 every time I go over drawn I will be happy to pay that. But it does not.

The problem here is that I am paying for you to have free banking! And thats what this is all about! I think you have massivly missed the point. We dont what a free ride, and we also dont want to give a free ride to you. We want whats fair, we will pay what it costs the bank for us to go over. (even though must of us have begged our banks not to make payment if there is no money in the account)

crustieuk

i am horrified by the decision, but surely we can still appeal to europe, lets face itm if the banks had lost they would have appealed again, come on guys dont let them win this easy there must be somethin that can be done.

Rafter

Looks like the banks are still gonna have to clean up their act going forward, but that given current accounts would have been loss making without these charges in the past, the law isn't going to allow consumers to get a windfall from previous charges being refunded.

"The Government appeared to take a robust stance against banks after the ruling. Sarah McCarthy Fry, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, said: 'Consumers, who have been waiting a number of years, will be extremely disappointed with this outcome. It's clear that in the past, banks were not thinking enough about their customers. That needs to change for the future. 'While the decision on past charges has not gone in favour of consumers, we are determined to ensure the system is made fairer in the future. The Government will work with the OFT and Financial Services Authority to reach a new framework for fairer bank charges going forward.' "