Why Reclaim Bank Charges

W_s_n

Interesting read these last 9 pages.....

What i've found with my own situation with DD is that the company that I pay the bill by DD to, if that fails then they charge me a small fee, but then the bank also charge a huge fee for bouncing the DD.

So then not only would I still have to pay the bill, i've got to find another load of money to give the bank. Seems mad to me! :mad:

I wouldn't have minded but when I opened the account there was no mention of charges if payments were refused.

Cleany

Dan_Bailey wrote: »

Regarding my post above, it still appears as though bank charges make up a fairly large proportion of revenue raised from from current accounts. In 2006 I'm sure the banks were all still reporting huge amounts of profit, so's whos to say the money raised through bank charges was not really neccessary to support or subsudise the current account system, or to pay for any kind of directly attributable cost but simply converted straight to bottom line profit? Profit that seemingly was not retained within the industry sufficiently to cover the imminent banking crisis and lead to the huge government bail-outs? On what basis did the banks recently argue that bank charges are a fair and viable way of raising revenue?

I think banks shouold be allowed to make profit on customers who dont manage their accounts. Just as business make profit from people who don't shop carefully.

But even so ...

natweststaffmember wrote: »

In 2006 bank charges amounted to about 30% of the total amount of fees on personal current accounts. They made more from not paying interest on accounts in credit.
The banks argued and successfully that bank terms and conditions are part of the core terms and so they are not disproportionate, and the Supreme Court agreed.

If you think about it how could it be any other way? How could it be that the customers of a company get to determine the price, terms and conditions of a service provided to it by a company? That would have been the case if the bank would have lost.

Ridiculous!

Dan_Bailey

natweststaffmember wrote: »

In 2006 bank charges amounted to about 30% of the total amount of fees on personal current accounts. They made more from not paying interest on accounts in credit.
The banks argued and successfully that bank terms and conditions are part of the core terms and so they are not disproportionate, and the Supreme Court agreed.

Correct me if I'm wrong but by that I take it they mean "if its in the contract, its in the contract - tough luck". Talk about stating the obvious but I thought the whole point of the campaign and the OFT test case was to object to these unfair T&Cs, of which NOBODY in the country (except for maybe people using overseas current accounts possibly?) really had any chance to opt out of? To resolve a high court test case with such a basic dismissal just proves what a waste of time the whole affair was!

Dan_Bailey

Cleany wrote: »

I think banks shouold be allowed to make profit on customers who dont manage their accounts. Just as business make profit from people who don't shop carefully.

Could you provide an example of this please? From reading some of your posts above you seem to indicate people using vouchers, two for one deals, discounts, price comparison tables etc are doing this at the detriment of full price paying customers and somehow ripping off
industry (you can't have it both ways etc). However these offers are very often planned marketing strategies designed to improve market share by interesting new customers in their product or undercutting the opposition - something most organisations will gladly pay for.

natweststaffmember

Dan_Bailey wrote: »

Correct me if I'm wrong but by that I take it they mean "if its in the contract, its in the contract - tough luck".
No it means that if you are talking about price or level of the charge then your argument is wrong. The charges may be unfair due to the way they are applied but the level of the charges is not arguable.

Talk about stating the obvious but I thought the whole point of the campaign and the OFT test case was to object to these unfair T&Cs, of which NOBODY in the country (except for maybe people using overseas current accounts possibly?) really had any chance to opt out of? To resolve a high court test case with such a basic dismissal just proves what a waste of time the whole affair was!

The OFT explored a collective challenge based on charges being penalties in Law(they aren't) and on the level of charges(which they lost on). Many banks changed their Terms and conditions and the overall objective of the OFT could not be achieved by further litigation at the moment.

Cleany

Dan_Bailey wrote: »

Could you provide an example of this please? From reading some of your posts above you seem to indicate people using vouchers, two for one deals, discounts, price comparison tables etc are doing this at the detriment of full price paying customers and somehow ripping off
industry (you can't have it both ways etc). However these offers are very often planned marketing strategies designed to improve market share by interesting new customers in their product or undercutting the opposition - something most organisations will gladly pay for.

I want to buy a computer for example. Now I can go to the shops and buy one in minutes, and almost certainly not get the best value and pay too high a price for what I have. This method taked little effort and costs money. Or I could research what I want and shop around, wait a while and put some effort in. This method will take a lot of effort but save me money ...

Likewise ...

I can pay attention to how much money I have, keep a record of my expenditure, and not go over my agreed credit limit. This method takes some effort, but will not incur bank charges. Or I could pay no attention to how much money I have and will be more likely to incur bank charges. This method takes little or no effort, and is likely to result in incuring bank charges unless I am wealthy.

What some people would like, it seems, is to be able to make little or no effort in paying attention to how much money they have and let someone else pick up the tab if it goes wrong. That failed in the supreme court because it was wrong.

Dan_Bailey wrote: »

Correct me if I'm wrong but by that I take it they mean "if its in the contract, its in the contract - tough luck". Talk about stating the obvious but I thought the whole point of the campaign and the OFT test case was to object to these unfair T&Cs, of which NOBODY in the country (except for maybe people using overseas current accounts possibly?) really had any chance to opt out of? To resolve a high court test case with such a basic dismissal just proves what a waste of time the whole affair was!

It doesn't serve your argument well to call a supreme court ruling a "basic dismissal". You may want to believe that the ruling was given without investigation, consultation, and effort on the part of people with wisdom and experience, but wanting to believe something is true doesnt make it true.

It's more likely that the supreme court ruling wasnt a "basic dismissal" as you describe it, and that it involved a lot of time and effort.

hicskis

Yes and No - on the same premise with very little effort in this computerized world the banks could have a facility in place, in their wonderful computers, that rejected payments that made a person go overdrawn in the first place.

Not much effort.

Now imagine going into that shop to buy your computer and you've got no money - simply you wouldn't be able to buy it because perish the thought - your card would not be accepted.

By Cleany:
It's more likely that the supreme court ruling wasnt a "basic dismissal" as you describe it, and that it involved a lot of time and effort.

And Money - The banks are a very powerful lobby my friend.

[Deleted User]

natweststaffmember wrote: »

The OFT explored a collective challenge based on charges being penalties in Law(they aren't) and on the level of charges(which they lost on). Many banks changed their Terms and conditions and the overall objective of the OFT could not be achieved by further litigation at the moment.

The recent guidance from MSE clearly states the fee level can be used as part of a CCA driven claim of unfair charges:

• Fairness can ALSO be about price
  The big advantage of looking at fairness under the CCA is it can also look at whether the price of a charge is fair. The original test case fell simply because the Supreme Court ruled that price couldn’t be looked at under the UTCCR regulations – yet that doesn’t apply here.
  Therefore you can argue that the cost of charges are disproportionate to the service provided in other words the “they charge £35 for a letter, but it only costs them £2” argument.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/oft-bank-charges

hicskis

The original case fell because charges were deemed an integral part of the core contract.

Arguing that the price was disproportionate in regards to the service will be very difficult if not barred.

[Deleted User]

hicskis wrote: »

The original case fell because charges were deemed an integral part of the core contract.

Arguing that the price was disproportionate in regards to the service will be very difficult if not barred.

But only under UTCCR, if you challenge under CCA or other you have a no precedence set as far as I'm aware.