Report Bank Charges successes and failures

Premier_2

singhy20 wrote: »

hi Guys,

I just wanted some advice to see if i'm not wasting my time.

I initally tried to claim for O/D charges against Halifax - around £1800 under the hardship fund as I was unemployed at the time in 2009. They refused me point blank stating they have treated me fairly.
I basically gave up, espically as the banks won the high court case against o/d charges.

But I did manage to get my self a job and slowly got my self out of debt. But I lost fracture my leg last winter and lost my job and again my finances sort off spiralled out of control and since then halifax have charged me a futher £700 of o/d charges, I admit I did stick my head under the sand a little hoping it all go away. But for being £350 overdrawn, halifax charged me £343 in charges from July to September which I believe is a crazy amount.

Anyway what i wanted to know is it worth me trying to claim again?

Kind Regards,

Gee

You need to better understand why the Halifax didn't refund anything in 2009 when you applied. If this situation is the same today, then they will probably come up with the same answer should you claim again.

Remember there is no obligation on the bank to refund any bank charges to those in financial hardship.

If you believe the situation is different this time as to the last time you were refused, then why not try again? Where succesful, reports suggest banks may pay back up to 6 months of recent charges to those in genuine financial hardship (and a refund is deemed the most appropriate solution)

sarahm-g

My message is "Don't give up"!!!

I got a £20 charge for going overdrawn by about £8 in March 2010. I paid it off in full, with the intention of then closing the account, however, I then got charged again the next month for having gone overdrawn due to the previous charge! This the happened again, because of that charge and it kept happening. Eventually I was £70 overdrawn because of several charges realting to going overdrawn only once by only £8. I wrote to the bank many times (I don't like doing it over the phone, I prefer everything in writing) explaining what had happened and each time I was send a standard letter of reply saying they woudn't do anything. All the while the charges were building up. Eventually I got letters and text messages telling me to call their collections department to pay up, however they are only open during work hours. I called customer services when I wasn't at work instead and they weren't helpful at all, in fact I spoke to one supervisor who was simply rude! He refused to listen to me, kept interupting and as I was getting more and more upset he was smirking and I could tell he was pleased that I was getting upset. Eventually, after 3 weeks of waiting for the call back they promised and just getting another letter demanding I pay up, I rang customer services again who finally told me that collections was in fact open on a Saturday, I just had to call them via customer services instead of directly. I got through to collections this morning who said that if I pay back one £20 charge, they would write off the rest (about £250 all together)!!!

So don't give up!!!

Good luck everyone!

Sarah

cord123

Hi,
I have a claim going through with Halifax. I wrote to them and they never responded so I then called them and they told me that I had no chance of getting a refund. I then wrote to the Ombudsman. They have written to me saying that they have written to the bank and await a reply... does anyone know if this is a good sign and how long I can expect to wait for more info? I have claimed back £1800 which is charges that we incurred while my baby was in hospital, we constantly called them during this time for help and advise and got nothing back from them at all.... I would love to win this battle with them cause they caused more stress for us and we worried more about it that we should have while we had a baby in GOSH..... I would love to give them a big two fingers!!!!

GlynD

Sent a letter to Bank of Scotland on 5/5/11 using a well modified template from this site. Yesterday I received a call from a foreign sounding gentleman representing the bank. Now normally I do not speak to anyone who sounds foreign unless they confirm to me that they're not calling from an "out of country" call centre (UK Jobs For UK People is my philosophy) but on this occasion, smelling money, I held back my natural instincts to complaint about a cheap foreign labour force who can barely speak the Queen's English. (I promise it's not xenophobia). Turns out that the bank want to immediately refund £250 of the £575 I claimed. They're doing that as we speak.

NOTE: Be careful, this gentleman wanted me to say that this was a full and final settlement so he would have it on tape. I emphasised that I was only accepting this as an interim payment and would pursue the rest of my claim plus whatever else would be discovered once the bank had provided missing statements.

In general though I found him very helpful and I would urge any other Bank of Scotland customers to use the template letters.

Word of Warning: they're claiming that "Fairness" is no longer a criteria since the Supreme Court decision. Claiming that alone could lead to a bit of a fight.

I hope this information helps someone else as much as this site has helped me. Now: onwards with a credit card claim.

Amyg_3

cord123 wrote: »

Hi,
I have a claim going through with Halifax. I wrote to them and they never responded so I then called them and they told me that I had no chance of getting a refund. I then wrote to the Ombudsman. They have written to me saying that they have written to the bank and await a reply... does anyone know if this is a good sign and how long I can expect to wait for more info? I have claimed back £1800 which is charges that we incurred while my baby was in hospital, we constantly called them during this time for help and advise and got nothing back from them at all.... I would love to win this battle with them cause they caused more stress for us and we worried more about it that we should have while we had a baby in GOSH..... I would love to give them a big two fingers!!!!

Hi, I'm new to this forum, please be gentle with me!

I have a complaint with the ombudsman at the moment where they have just written to me saying they are still waiting for information from my bank. I hope it's a good sign, though probably just part of the process.

I sent 3 letters to lloyds claiming £2300 where i was told each time that they had acted properly, and they quoted the court ruling. I complained to the ombudsman after i received two letters from Lloyds dated the same date but one telling me my complaint was being invesitgated, and the other telling me they had investigaged fully!

I am on a debt management programme at the moment and am no longer with lloyds but am paying off an overdraft i had with them each month.

Will keep my fingers crossed for victory!

candystripes24

Hi everyone,
I am making a claim from Nationwide using my current and past hardship circumstances.
Thanks to the back charges calculator and the template letter on here I wrote a 3 (a4) page to N/W.

They replied this morning asking me to fill out an Income and Expenditure form - no problem filling that out ..but also this question "When you started experiencing financial difficulty and what has caused this situation"
I'm thinking this might be a 'trick' question so they can argue the charges were valid etc ?
Advice welcome please
many thanks and good luck to all

hamburg113

Hi

I found that a member asked same question in this forum some months ago.

Pls use search box to find this questions with comments

zppp

candystripes24 wrote: »

Hi everyone,
I am making a claim from Nationwide using my current and past hardship circumstances.
Thanks to the back charges calculator and the template letter on here I wrote a 3 (a4) page to N/W.

They replied this morning asking me to fill out an Income and Expenditure form - no problem filling that out ..but also this question "When you started experiencing financial difficulty and what has caused this situation"
I'm thinking this might be a 'trick' question so they can argue the charges were valid etc ?
Advice welcome please
many thanks and good luck to all

The position is that they are not obliged to refund anything, even if you do prove financial hardship. However, giving them a full outline of your details is imperative. If you refuse, they are likely to reject your claim, and it would also impact on your right to refer the case to FOS if you are still unhappy.

candystripes24

Thanks for your reply.

candystripes24

hamburg113 wrote: »

Hi

I found that a member asked same question in this forum some months ago.

Pls use search box to find this questions with comments

Thanks for the tip - I can't find the other member's question (and answers) but I did want to mention in my reply to the Nationwide how I would pay off as much debt as possible with any refund which would leave me better off each month and it seems other members have done this and had success with their claim.
I hope that helps me too..
Appreciate your suggestion: