Bank Charges Reclaiming Guide discussion

chillxxx

gjs1701 wrote: »

Tried again to clain from Nationwide. Originally claimed in Jan 2008, was in hardship then, but the claim was declined pending the outcome of the court decision.

I claimed with new template letter (the legal arguement), with some additions of my own, but no mentions of hardship. I am not currently in hardship.

Today, I received a response from Nationwide. They say: 'Before we can proceed with your refund request we need you to provide us with further information as to when you started experiencing financial difficulty and what has caused this situation.'

So what next? My inclination is to write back and say I am not claiming on the grounds of hardship, but reiterate the legal arguement.

A second option would be to dig out my copies of my original hardship details and explain that I was in hardship at the time of my original claim.

Any thoughts, suggestions?

I would guess that Natinwide has drafted two auto reposnses one for hardship another for the legal agruments and have pressed the print button on the wrong letter.

I would dig out your statements, see if you where in a cycle you couldn't break out off. High light and increased borrowing i.e credt card etc to break out of these cycles. If you reference your previous letters to them and the letter recieved from them. Don't state your no longer in hard ship let them figure this out. Send off and hardship documents

If they conclude your not in hardship, and offer nil refund you can write again asking why they thought you in hard ship etc and respond and to respond to the legal arguments. It should hopefully break you away from the masses and make it hard for them to respond. It will also be quite embarsihing if they have sent the wrong letter out and may not want your case to go in front of the ombushman. As it demonstrates poor complaints handling Hope this helps

markdsmith_2

markdsmith wrote: »

Please help.

Last year I was claiming against Nationwide for bank charges. These totalled £3,175 with interest. Nationwide wrote back stating that because of the court case they wouldn't be paying me out.

I therefore wrote back stating that I was claiming under hardship as I was struggling to pay the debts I had and the recurring charges were making things worse. In fact, the charges always seemed to come out just before my DDs were due, so I ended up paying more charges as these took me over the limit again. If the charges hadn't have been imposed, then the DDs would have gone through with no problems at all.

Again they wrote back stating that they wouldn't pay out as they believed my income was sufficient to cover my payments and would leave me £400 per month to feed and clothe myself, my wife and my three teenagers (do they have kids?). This contradicted my statement that showed if I paid the full amount on my debts I would in fact have less than £100 a month for this. At this point I opened another account just in case of them closing mine due to the complaints.

I transferred all my DDs to the new account and have not suffered since. When the account was transferred, I had an overdraft with Nationwide which I could not afford to pay off all in one go. I therefore wrote to them stating that as they would not repay my bank charges, that I would be unable to settle the overdraft facility in full and requested they offer me a solution to the problem upon which we could both agree. I never heard anything from them until this week when I received a demand from a debt collection agency for the whole amount of the overdraft (which was about £1500 but is now over £1800!!).

I have written back to the Nationwide reiterating my hardship case stating that I can in no way pay back that amount in one go so I am again reclaiming the charges. This is after the 8 week period from their last letter stating they would close the file if I did not respond, albeit I did send the letter about not being able to pay the OD if they didn't pay out.

I suspect I will once again get the "no we will not pay you" letter. What will my options be then (if any)?

8th Feb 2010 UPDATE - I wrote to the Chief Executive via his email address last night and got this reply this morning:

"Thank you for your email, addressed to Graham Beale, our Chief
Executive.

Mr Beale was sorry to learn of your concerns and has therefore asked us
to arrange for the matter to be investigated. You should receive a
response very shortly, although this will be by telephone and/or letter
rather than email to ensure confidentiality."

I wonder what the outcome will be? Has anyone else tried this route?

Had a call from Nationwide. Guess what? They don't think I have a case for hardship!! Suprise suprise. I pointed out that were it not for the charges which came out the day before my DDs then my DDs would have passsed without a hitch. however as the charges DID go through then I incurred further charges, etc etc. They then said I had an income of £4800 per month!!!! I wish!! I asked her to clarify how she came up with this figure and she said she has averaged out my income over hte last two years to come up with that. Challenged this and now she is going away to look at things again and will reply to me by the end of the week in writing. A dear John letter no doubt.

If this happens should I go to the FOS or write to them again asking them to review their position or else?

Update on my case. I received a rejection letter from Nationwide stating that although they are "sorry to hear about your current circumstances" they "have to be fair and consistant" in their approach. They claim ""we believe you have suffcient income to cover your essential monthly expenditure".

They now say I should deal with the debt collecting agency KKPR.

What's my next step? There is no way I can afford to pay back the money they are claiming.

The overdraft is £1800 and I'm claiming £2950 + interest in charges (going back to Jul 07). One of the criteria for hardship cases is if you incurr more than £500 a year in charges. Is this correct? Please help.

natweststaffmember

sianysian69 wrote: »

Still heard nothing on this , please can someone help i really need to get this sorted ASAP.

Sian

You could always respond to them that you have received their letter and will respond to them shortly with your response to extend the timeline.

pool-hustler

chrisharri wrote: »

Yeah Natwest are being very difficult. I wouldn't listen to the call centre people, they just do what they're told. I would send of the new template, using either the human arguement, the new legal arguement or both.See what response you get from Natwest then, and take it from there.

I must be a complete moran but I can't find the new template...

chrisharri

pool-hustler wrote: »

I must be a complete moran but I can't find the new template...

Oh No! Don't worry, I 'm not sure how to poat a link, but if you go to the recaliming section, find the reclaiming bank charges, then scroll down, eventually you'll find them, sorry I can't be more use!

chrisharri

Hello Again everyone.
Here's where I'm up to with my reclaim against Natwest for £1300.
First letter was sent April 2009 by me to Natwest, the usual resonse that there was the issue of the test case, blah blah blah.
Next letter recieved 7th Jan from Natwest explaining the out come of test case. I was very impatient and using the template from Govan Law Centre sent it off. First response from Natwest was asking if I was in financial hardship- No.
I called Natwest, the lady said that If I changed the wording and added the word challenge something might come of it.
Next I sent them the new template from here explaining again why I want to reclaim. I got my response yesterday morning, rubbishing everything our new template says, saying the arguements aren't valid, etc.
Defating, but I'm not giving up yet!

michaels

What about charges for late payment of monthly loan repayments - can bounced DD/late payment fess be reclaimed by those suffering hardship?

mista_mason

hi there, im with santander and i was woundering can you still reply and still have chance of reclaiming after the 8 week period, because in my last letter it stated at the bottom...
''if we do not hear from you within 8 weeks we will consider your complaint closed''

and its been 10 weeks now since..?

hope you can help

natweststaffmember

michaels wrote: »

What about charges for late payment of monthly loan repayments - can bounced DD/late payment fess be reclaimed by those suffering hardship?

Yes they can be on bank accounts but hardship does not apply on its own right for hardship claims but may form the basis for a hardship claim on the current account.

natweststaffmember

mista_mason wrote: »

hi there, im with santander and i was woundering can you still reply and still have chance of reclaiming after the 8 week period, because in my last letter it stated at the bottom...
''if we do not hear from you within 8 weeks we will consider your complaint closed''

and its been 10 weeks now since..?

hope you can help

What is the date on the letter?