Letter from Barclays with an 8 week deadline - HELP

kashie

Hello,

Had this letter from Barclays this just before Christmas -

Bank Charges Complaint

We refer to your complaint relating to bank charges which was previously stayed under the terms of the Finacial Services Authority (FSA) Waiver. We consider your original complaint to have been about a level, and accordingly the fairness or lwafulness, of these charges. The Waiver has now lapsed and we are therefore writing to you to respond to your complaint as we indicated we would do when we made you a goodwill payment to assist you with your financial difficulties.

As you will be aware from when we last wrote to you about your original complaint, we (and several other banks) enterd into agreed legal proceedings witht Office of Fair Trading in relation to bank charges on 27 July 2007 in order to determine their legality.

Following the Supreme Court decision on 25 November 2009, there is now a final outcome for these legal proceedings which means that the bank charges you have complained about do not amount to penalties at common law and that their level cannot be assessed for fairness under the Unfair Terms Consumer Contract Regulations (UTCCRs). We do not believe that there is any legal basis on which the amount of the charges can be challenged and we are satisfied that the bank charges you seek to reclaim were properly charged. The final outcome of the legal proceedings confirms our position.

We are therefore not upholding your complaint and we will not be refunding the bank charges you have complained about.

If your complaint relates to an issue other than the level of charges or you wish to discuss this matter further, please do not hesitate to contact us on the number above. You may also find the following link to our website useful in answering any questions you may have www.barclays.co.uk.

Our aim is to resolve all complaints internally, although we recognise this may not always be possible. If we are unable to agree a way forward you may be able to ask the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) to review your complaint and we will help you if you would like to do this. Before you decide whether or not to take your complaint to FOS, you may find it helpful to consider the information about this subject on their website FAQs complaints about bank charges.

If we do not hear from you within the next 8 weeks I will consider your complaint to be resolved and accordingly I will close our file.

Yours sincerely

Neil Henderson
Retail Banking Customer Relations Director





Ok so this is the letter -- what do I do now - I have no intention of letting this go yet as there is supposedly still hope of reclaiming.

Are there any template letter that I can use to reply???
And is there any hope of getting my money back.

I must add that I did get part settlement for financial difficulties back in May of this year.

Any help greatly appreciated - Thanks The Financial Ombudsman Service For the most part, don't bother.
The Ombudsman is an industry arranged service which is under-resourced, takes too long, lacks clear transparency.
You have no idea what evidence the FOS has received from the bank or how your complain has really been handled.
The FOS is the preferred complaints route for the banking industry.
The county court is to be preferred by consumers for its speed, openness, the quality of its awards and also because it will award 8% interest on top of any damages won by you.

The Ombudsman should normally be used to solving little technical difficulties or customer service problems which you have expereinced with your bank.

Follow this link to read the damning revelations made by an Ombudsman whistleblower.

natweststaffmember

Martin has stated further advice will be published later this month(next week I think) so hold fire for now.

SO stay positive is the message

Premier_2

kashie wrote: »

Are there any template letter that I can use to reply???
And is there any hope of getting my money back..

No and No.

Well, lets pad that out a bit as I'm sure people will jump on me if I don't
(they probably still will anyway ).

There are no valid template letters currently available, but hopefully there may be some on this site 3rd week of January.

"the best thing to do is plan for getting nothing, but cross your fingers" and, even under the new legal arguments that the template letters will be constructed around "For money management's sake, its very important to assume you won't get a payout – though we hope there is still a chance"

Have a full read of the latest bank charges reclaim article if you haven't already done so:

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

ALIBOBSY

To be honest it was always a legal arguement and there were never any guarantees about payment. It was the banks stalling tatics and their idea that it was better to settle rather than actually turn up in court which meant the early claims got the cash back.

The consumer action group has the full court judgements and the newer legal angles if you want to have a look over there.
The crux seems to be to do with the way these charges were presented to the customer as use of the terms "breach of T & C's" and penalty charge (used by many in the earlier T & C's prove they knew customer believed the charges to be penalties and they in fact represented them as such, but however they have now (successfully) proven they were in fact always service charges.

As the arguements rely on a customer being misled and missrepresentation as well as an individual relationship with the bank the OFT have declared it would need to be looked at on a case by case basis in court so they feel they can't proceed. So back to square one really.

Have a read over there and await Martins update for now

good luck

ali x

Premier_2

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

To be honest it was always a legal arguement and there were never any guarantees about payment....

Hindsight. Powerful isn't it?

Where were you when all this started?

Bank Charges
Reclaim them, they're unlawful, get up to six years' money back

...The core rule is if there’s a breach of contact under English or Scottish law, any charge should not exceed the cost of the breach. In other words, banks can only impose charges which are in proportion to their costs...

When you look at all this together, bank charges are unlawful, and that means the bank did not have a right to take your money. Yet it did, and it did it automatically, thus you are entitled to get your cash back....

http://web.archive.org/web/20070603080219/http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/bank-charges
(Please note this is an archived webpage and the contents are no longer valid)

Edit: Mind you, there was some good sensible advice being advocated in that article, even from the start:

The best route is don’t get charged in the first place

Earlier I used the analogy that, if someone tells you they’re going to punch you before doing it, it doesn’t make it lawful. While that’s true, a sensible precaution would still be to get out of their way.

Similarly, it’s best to behave defensively when you deal with your bank. It’s far better never to have to face charges in the first place than to try and reclaim them. Remember a bank’s job isn’t to look after you, it’s there to make profits for shareholders...

Alpine_Star

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

The consumer action group has the full court judgements and the newer legal angles if you want to have a look over there.

Could you give us a link to their new legal angles?

natweststaffmember

Interesting article Premier from the archive. It states this as well:

• Lots of charges in one go. The best way to explain this is with an example, from a caller to a Radio 2 phone-in I did. She had gone grocery shopping without realising she was at her overdraft limit, and was therefore slammed with a charge for each and every separate expenditure she made, meaning there was even a £35 charge for a two quid bag of carrots. The overall result was a simple shopping trip caused £100s in charges.
• Then the charges snowball. Imagine you go over your overdraft once and are then charged fines for bounced cheques and direct debits. This leaves you £100 down, a sum you can’t afford to repay, leading to more fines the next month, and so it continues, snowballing. This tragic scenario can put people thousands in debt for one simple mistake (read one woman’s story in my blog).

Very nice link. Many people come here and came here after the fact so those with one charge were advised:
"if you get a bank charge for the first time, rather than trying this fight, just call up, apologise, tell the bank you’ve got a good record and politely ask for a refund. Often it will give it."

Most on here are not in that first category but some are and are still advised accordingly.

Margaret44

I have also rec'd this same letter from Natwest today giving me 8 Weeks to reply. Would it do any good to go ahead with the County Court?

Alpine_Star

If your claim is only with the bank and you have not yet filed a court claim I would wait for MSE to publish their updated response letters - which should be available in a week or so - and exhaust the bank's complaints procedure before thinking about going to court.

kashie

Have there been any update on this issue - I think I have like a week left to reply to the bank - what do I say - and what do I need to do?????

PLEASE HELP

Premier_2

kashie wrote: »

Have there been any update on this issue - I think I have like a week left to reply to the bank - what do I say - and what do I need to do?????

PLEASE HELP

There was an update over a week ago.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/bank-charges

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