Report Bank Charges successes and failures

Bearman83

Thanks Lilttle Mo, I'll follow the guidelines and let them have a piece of my mind. I'm tempted to write to the FSA and FOS about their Collections and Recoveries team spiel tho.....
:cool:

Little_Mo_70

Bearman83 wrote: »

Thanks Lilttle Mo, I'll follow the guidelines and let them have a piece of my mind. I'm tempted to write to the FSA and FOS about their Collections and Recoveries team spiel tho.....
:cool:

Hi Bearman

I fear that giving Santander a piece of your mind will achieve absolutely nothing except for bad relations and as your previous posting asked if you might have any chance of claiming you might need to consider this.

Also if you kept your account with them who knows what you may require of them in the future?

Although your statements clearly show the compounding charges they will also show your spending habits too. Whilst you are unhappy that the charges contributed to the resulting debt are you positive that all your spends were justified? For example: you are unhappy about the charges but why were they incurred. Were some of your spends for leisure and pleasure (we are all entitled to them of course but if you have spent money on these as well as normal living costs you can't complain about being charged for spending money which isn't yours) Do you get the idea. I'm not saying that you have mis-used your account you understand but the bank would look at the overall picture so you would have to take all of this into account when deciding whether to persue your claim and see if you honestly do fit into some of those hardship pointers.

I have a feeling that the debt collection statements are prob. standard but are telling you that, because of the specific reason on which you based your claim, they do not feel you have a case. It's not a secret that those who have debts are persued by debt collectors. Also they are merely stating the obvious regarding credit ratings.

Did they give any reason for not refunding the full amount of charges? The FSA would prob. refer you to the FOS and I have seen something recently, that complainants could get charged if the case is considered weak or time wasting.

If you feel you don't have a strong enough case it might be worth making an appointment to see someone in authority at the bank to discuss an affordable repayment plan. Then you are addressing the problems and getting them sorted once and for all.

Sorry if this all sounds a bit negative but you need to have a very strong case of hardship to succeed in getting your charges refunded.

Whatever you decide
Best of luck
Mo

gramochroi

gramochroi wrote: »

Hi, I had been a customer of HSBC for twenty years, taking home a good monthly salary, when I was made redundant in 2003. I very soon afterwards suffered a complete breakdown and have been unable to work since.

I have incurred costs for going over my overdraft regularly since then and first asked the bank to consider repaying their over the top charges about eighteen months ago. They of course refused, the last contact I had with them was a letter in December '09 and a telephone conversation February '10.

Because I still suffer with depression, I don't always feel up to taking on this battle, but having found this forum, it has given me a bit of a kick and I really feel that I should make another attempt. My claim is based on hardship and the fact that I am forced to live off and sometimes go over my overdraft. Any advice gratefully received!:)

Hi, I know it's been a long time since I posted this, but can't see I ever got any answer from anybody. Am in a much better space now than I was then and am currently fighting some PPI battles. However, would just like to ask, is it too late to go refight the charge reclaiming battle? Many thanks.

Little_Mo_70

gramochroi wrote: »

Hi, I know it's been a long time since I posted this, but can't see I ever got any answer from anybody. Am in a much better space now than I was then and am currently fighting some PPI battles. However, would just like to ask, is it too late to go refight the charge reclaiming battle? Many thanks.

Good to hear you are feeling more positive now, it's a horrid place to be, some people have no idea - which is fortunate for them I suppose.

Banks will only consider very strong hardship cases and even then there is no guarantee of success but there have been some as the forum shows.

Check out your criteria eligibility on here and decide how to word your letter. State things just how they are for you and be prepared to back it up.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/bank-charges#step1

Send all your correspondence recorded delivery and don't bother with phone calls.

Good luck

Mo x

gramochroi

Little_Mo_70 wrote: »

Good to hear you are feeling more positive now, it's a horrid place to be, some people have no idea - which is fortunate for them I suppose.

Banks will only consider very strong hardship cases and even then there is no guarantee of success but there have been some as the forum shows.

Check out your criteria eligibility on here and decide how to word your letter. State things just how they are for you and be prepared to back it up.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/bank-charges#step1

Send all your correspondence recorded delivery and don't bother with phone calls.

Good luck

Mo x

Thank you very much for your response, Mo. Since my original post and whilst looking out paperwork for PPI claim, I found a letter from my bank dated October 09 which I never remember receiving!!

In this letter, they state that I am facing financial difficulty as defined in the Banking codes, but do not accept that charges are the cause of this difficulty. They go on to say I had a disposable income of approx £5 per month. They later say that once legal proceedings between the banks and OFT are complete, they will resolve my complaint as quickly as possible.

There has been nothing further (I'm sure!!!!).

I won't keep bothering you, but, in your experience, do you feel this is worth following up?

Once again, many, many thanks. x

Little_Mo_70

gramochroi wrote: »

Thank you very much for your response, Mo. Since my original post and whilst looking out paperwork for PPI claim, I found a letter from my bank dated October 09 which I never remember receiving!!

In this letter, they state that I am facing financial difficulty as defined in the Banking codes, but do not accept that charges are the cause of this difficulty. They go on to say I had a disposable income of approx £5 per month. They later say that once legal proceedings between the banks and OFT are complete, they will resolve my complaint as quickly as possible.

There has been nothing further (I'm sure!!!!).

I won't keep bothering you, but, in your experience, do you feel this is worth following up?

Once again, many, many thanks. x

It's no bother and, if it were me, I would go ahead and claim using the previous link for guidance. Personally I would just do a new claim. (send all your letters recorded delivery) You must NOT mention anything about unfair or high charges though (no matter how you feel about them) or you will be doomed to fail. Just state how difficult things were and are financially for you, giving an appropriate account of why the escalating charges made things more difficult to deal with in your daily life. Use the FOS guidence and study this very carefully first because obviously you need to put forward a good case. Not just 'it was hard or it was difficult' descibe why and how they impacted on your daily life etc etc.

With you mentioning they stated you had the grand sum of £5 disposable income p/m I just wonder if you had filled out a detailed form of theirs? In which case, you would need to remember what you'd said and build on that explaining the things you needed but couldn't afford etc too. If you have any 'begging' letters + debt collectors letters or anything of that nature of current status send copies of those too.

It's good that, at least, they have acknowledged you experienced financial difficulties, that's a good start and, of course, you are still doing so, which is not good for you but may help your claim.

Even if you fail at least you will have given it a jolly good shot for the cost of some effort and postage.:)

Take care

Mo x

gramochroi

Even if you fail at least you will have given it a jolly good shot for the cost of some effort and postage.:)

Thanks again, Mo. Think I will wait until I have my PPI refund (they told me I am due an offer letter) and then, as you suggest, submit a new claim. x

LoveChild

Amount Claimed: £20
Amount Paid: £120 :j

I had a £20 charge. Not really sure why, I thought for using an ATM, but others tell me it wouldn't have been. Never been charged before or overdrawn as its a brand new account (only opened it last month)
Anyways, I called the bank and now they have not only cancelled the charge but also added £100 to the account.

Thanks Martin, I wouldn't have known what to do if it were not for your super instructions on here. :money:

thanksfroyourhelp

no reply yet

simon122a

Halifax
amount claimed- £2900
amount offered -£1467

I wrote a letter using the guides and templates in this site after refusing to pay into the bank for the last 6 months as they were charging so much it was only covering the interest. i wrote a letter 29/06/12
and received a phone call the following week from customer services. they were very helpful and have even froze interest for 3 months which will help. i am not good at negotiating but someone who is could get alot more! thanks to this site i can see some light at the end of the tunnel!