Report Bank Charges successes and failures

terrias8

Thought I would share our success with you. My daughter went into overdraft on £410 with the BOS in March 2012 and by September 2013 she had been charged a total of £1213 overdraft fees! She had tried hard to make payments to keep this figure down but couldn't keep up due to personal problems & illness. I helped her to eventually pay it off (that is what mothers are for :)) in October 2013.
I saw your site about reclaiming from the banks and had a go. Used your templates & our own personal letter and fired it off to BOS in August this year. Waited 8 weeks and still not reply from the bank so I used your template again and sent off all of the details to the Financial Ombudsman in late October. We received a reply straight away stating that they would be in touch with the bank and get back to us. On 24th of Nov. we received another letter from them stating that they have asked the Bank of Scotland to send them the info they have on this complaint. Well, that must have worked because yesterday, my daughter informed me that the Bank of Scotland had put £915 into her bank account! Needless to say she was overjoyed and decided to accept it. So it does work and only took 3 months in total. Thank you Martin :T

Aquamania

terrias8 wrote: »

Thought I would share our success with you. My daughter went into overdraft on £410 with the BOS in March 2012 and by September 2013 she had been charged a total of £1213 overdraft fees! She had tried hard to make payments to keep this figure down but couldn't keep up due to personal problems & illness. I helped her to eventually pay it off (that is what mothers are for :)) in October 2013.
I saw your site about reclaiming from the banks and had a go. Used your templates & our own personal letter and fired it off to BOS in August this year. Waited 8 weeks and still not reply from the bank so I used your template again and sent off all of the details to the Financial Ombudsman in late October. We received a reply straight away stating that they would be in touch with the bank and get back to us. On 24th of Nov. we received another letter from them stating that they have asked the Bank of Scotland to send them the info they have on this complaint. Well, that must have worked because yesterday, my daughter informed me that the Bank of Scotland had put £915 into her bank account! Needless to say she was overjoyed and decided to accept it. So it does work and only took 3 months in total. Thank you Martin :T

Did the FOS say when they would be in touch again after their last contact of 24th Nov?

Probably more good news is on the way :beer:

You should really be telling the FOS of this payment by the BOS if it relates to your complaint (as you would have been told to do by the FOS), but if the BOS haven't been in contact and discussed the situation or explained the payment, then how can you be sure it was related to your coimplaint?

Maybe best to start with the BOS and say there is a credit you don't recognise.

If not, don't go spending that money just yet as you can't be sure it is rightfully yours. She can't unilaterally decide to just 'accept it' and believe it his hers.

CandyB101_2

Thanks to this site, we are now the proud owners of a motorhome ... due to receiving almost £4000 back from Lloyds/Blackhorse ... can't wait for spring ... here's to more holidays next year ... ☺

vivalasvegas2015

I down loaded Martins letter, printed of statements going back to 2008, highlighted all charges, posted to HSBC. 3 weeks later noticed £200 over draft refund in my HSBC account. Next day received letter to say that if I sign and return they will give me another £200 as a good will gesture. Rang them today and explained I did not think it was enough. They are crediting me tomorrow for £500 ! Very happy indeed.

introuble2015

Hello I'm just considering writing to my bank with Martin's letter to request a refund of overdraft charges from 2012, which led me to taking out credit cards to cover cost of living. I'm now struggling to repay all the debt I have. My question is, we will likely remortgage with the very same bank within 6 months - if I were to pursue this claim would this impact negatively on our remortgaging with this bank or indeed any other. Thanks for any advice.

Parttimeknight

Wrote to the Halifax in January 2014 asking for £700 worth of Planned and unplanned overdraft charges for the past 3 years back.

Received a call within 3 days stating they were not in a position to refund valid planned overdraft charges but would refund me the unplanned overdraft charges from the previous year as well as the future charges due to be taken in February and March.

£100 refunded and charges wiped for the next month.

They were very helpful and sympathetic to my situation once I explained that charges were feeding charges and I was entering a cycle that I couldn't break.

Didn't push them for the unplanned charges back (£1 per day for using an overdraft) as I was pleased to get back into a manageable situation.

Karalara

Hi, a couple of years ago I tried to reclaim my husbands bank charges back from lloyds. Can't remeber off the top of my head how much it was but in the thousands. After lots of letters we were told they wouldn't refund.
I would say that we are in hardship as due to the amount of charges we had to use other credit and now we have an iva which we are unable to pay due to my having to have lots of time off work due to an illness. Am I able to try again? He no longer has the account with lloyds though. Please can someone help me x

Nasqueron

Karalara wrote: »

Hi, a couple of years ago I tried to reclaim my husbands bank charges back from lloyds. Can't remeber off the top of my head how much it was but in the thousands. After lots of letters we were told they wouldn't refund.
I would say that we are in hardship as due to the amount of charges we had to use other credit and now we have an iva which we are unable to pay due to my having to have lots of time off work due to an illness. Am I able to try again? He no longer has the account with lloyds though. Please can someone help me x

You can try for any current charges yes (maybe last 6 months) but the banks won the case on unfair charges back in 2009, they won't overturn their previous rejection

suregena

Hi!

I am about to attempt this. I am a bit nervous since I know they are being a bit funny about it now...

I have gone through my statements and I have been charged, since 2012, about £2,800 in bank fees (informal overdraft fees.)

It all kicked off with the loss of our child tax credits as we had been overpaid the previous year, I was not making much in an income to begin with, and paying for childcare, and more outgoing than ingoing would go in... and one fee lead to another, and another, and another, which there was NO WAY I could afford (some were £170 for 1 month)... which created this massive snowball effect. At one point, I had to move money from a credit card just to bring my balance up to the bottom of my overdraft. Unfortunately, I couldn't move any more in, so then when all outgoings went, I was right back to where I started. 2013, 11 out of 12 months, I was charged informal overdraft fees ranging from £60 to £170. It was impossible to climb out of. I just didn't make enough. We were also having to buy food (we have two children) on the credit card, because even when my pay from work went in, it didn't actually bring me much back into my overdraft. My credit cards are maxed out as a result. It seemed no matter what we tried, it felt like we couldn't get our heads above the water to breathe.

This year, they recently changed how they calculate overdraft fees (I am now unemployed. I could not afford to work. I couldn't pay for a travel pass due to my bank account, etc) and they are MUCH more reasonable and things have improved MASSIVELY as a result. However, we have recently had to speak and organize a DMP through stepchange. It has been a very trying couple of years.

I started looking into the previous couple of years and the absolute horror that we went through with the fees. I read the thread about reclaiming.

I have gone through all my statements, like I said, and highlighted every month's charge.

What do you think the approach is I should take? Should I just write to my bank (HSBC...)? Or do I go straight to the Ombudsman route? Or is it hopeless?


Thank you for reading this far - it's much appreciated.

FredsMom

Hi all, first post! Just wanted to share my success story in reclaiming some unplanned overdraft fees from Halifax.

I read the article about reclaiming bank charges (sorry it won't let me post the link) and figured I would give it a go as I had nothing to lose bar the price of a stamp.

I went through my online banking account and made a list of all the unplanned overdraft charges from the last 3 years (as far back as it would allow me to go). I sent this list along with a letter (based on the template in the article) detailing how the bank charges had contributed towards my current situation of financial hardship and requested a refund of £745. The letter was sent to my local branch last week and I got an email to contact their Customer Service Dept last night.

I rang them this morning and spoke to a very helpful lady who explained that while the charges were lawful she could see from the account that I was struggling and offered a refund of the last 12 months charges, totaling £275 as a goodwill gesture. She also put a block on any further unplanned overdraft charges, planned overdraft charges and account fees for the next 3 months. Of course I accepted the offer and the money was in my account within 15 minutes.

I hadn't been too optimistic, but followed the guidelines and gave examples as listed in the template (always in my overdraft, charges adding to snowball effect etc) and was very pleasantly surprised.