Reclaimed Bank Charges SUCCESS stories

Electrode101

Hi all, thanks for having me.

Been reading about all this stuff for about a month now, sent me DPA letter a few weeks ago, already had a response from me Bank "Hafilax" mainly asking me to confirm they can charge me a fiver to send me statements to me. I had to phone and say that as my letter suggested that I had authorised them to charge me the maximum 10 quid they can charge and so they agreed to charge me a fiver. So just waiting for me statements now, but in the mean time I done some more digging around and wondered a few things. I'll tell you a little story about me past, this will help you understand where I'm coming from.
Many years ago, approx 6 years ago I used to earn a fair amount of cash. This as most things in life had a sudden end and caused me lots and lots of stress. One of the stresses this caused was to force me to move house, upon moving house I contacted the hafilax to change my addresses. As with all things hafliax this should have changed my addresses on all me linked accounts. The accounts I had were 1 switch card, 1 Solo Card and 1 Credit card. I always used the switch card and often from this point had charges applied for various reasons, mainly being unemployed for 6 months it was lack of funds in my account. Also my credit card was not being paid and I was unable to claim the insurance I had paid cos I was over me limit on that as well. So they put me accounts under head office control. This meant I was paying 10 quid a month on me credit card and they stopped charging interest on it, the limit was 2700. Six months later I found out that the amount owed was 3700. what hafilax had not told me was that they started to charge interest and fees again and also charging me for the insurance that I could not claim, this meant they was increasing me balance by around 75 to 100 per month without telling me. Anyway I had a right old argument with them about that and they paid back a small fortune and reduced the amount I owed to around 2500, Woohoo. In the mean time my solo card was having a fun time as well, also without my knowledge. It was a cardcash account, an account with no overdraft. Apparently it went over drawn because of a cash withdrawal; however they could not give me the details of this as they had sold the account to a company called Thames credit Limited. This company also could not give me details as they had bought the debt and not the details. Hafilax had sold it with a debt of 390 which now stood and 566. This happened around 4.5 years ago. Hafilax had never sent a letter telling me this account had problems, nor did they stop me Switch card and claim the monies from their, which is what the credit card did all the time whenever they wanted me to contact them. Anyway Thames credit filed a default on my name which has blighted my credit record ever since. Due to my poor credit I had to purchase a car through Yes Car Credit, which charges a stonking 29.9% interest. So over 4 years I had to pay over 10,000 quid for a 5000 quid car. So the question is this, If I can prove the Halifax made a mistake/illegally charged my solo card which put me in debt with them, which caused the default, which pushed me into a poor credit rating does anybody think I could claim the 5000 quid back from them for their mistake and get me credit record repaired.
Currently my situation is Great, I have opened an account with a new bank, I have 1 payment left on me car, I have paid of the 2500 left on me credit card about 3 months ago and am looking forward to being in the black again. I recon my current account has a good few grand to claim back also, not sure about that until my statements arrive though. Anyway any help/suggestions would be well appreciated.

One last thing

HAPPY XMAS TO YOU ALL
:A :A :A :A :A

bommer

Alliance & Leicester Visa Card (MNBA) amount claimed £125.00 received letter saying they will pay £80.00 which I am happy with. Should have cheque shortly.

ZANYSAM

Bank: Halifax
Claimed: £575
Settled: £500
Took ages to provide statements so i contacted the OFI who were not particularly helpful, its taken 3 months but i am expecting my money in the next 2 weeks.
Would like to donate £50 to this site for all their advice, can someone tell me how?

squarebanana

hi i had a capital bank credit card for £200 limit back in 2001, could i do anything with these charges, it has took me a while to get it into a zipped up xml file (excel) could someone have a look as i dont know what to do about the various charges and interest, i origianlly only had around £320 pounds worth of goods on it but have paid a lot back since, i just couldnt catch up plus i took out an early settlement figure to clear it which they said they have
done bit it seems not they say i still owe 300 and odd quid which will knacker up my credit till the day i die or clear it off with them.

is there anything i can do

heres the link to the file:

https://www.080004signs.co.uk/capitalbank.zip

Alan

digitalphase

Bank: Nationwide
Amount Reclaimed: £327
Amount they paid: £360 + £27 pending charge + £50 court fee
The story: Due to someone at my University not doing their job properly my student loan was paid late so I had a few returned direct debits. Nationwide wanted to charge me £327!!! I asked for it to be waivered over the phone and wrote two letters (from Martin's templates) explaining my circumstances but basically got told to get lost. I issued a claim via the MoneyClaim website which cost £50 and a few days after that I received a letter saying that they'd refunded me. The money is in my account now. A few days after that I got a letter saying they're closing my account but I already have two parachute accounts so I'm very happy :j :T

Rex_Mundi

You can definately reclaim all the late payment fees, and over limit fees. You could also claim the interest, but only on the fees. This would be tricky to work out though, and wouldn't add too much to the claim. A quick glance at the interest on the fees works out at about 56P per year for £36 of fees at 1.563% interest. If you wanted to claim for the interest on the fees, you would have to be accurate with your figures to make sure that you don't cause any problems with your claim.

I would concentrate the claim on the charges only to keep it simple (just reclaim for £852).

topcav

Bank: First Direct
Amount Reclaimed: £449 + £60 interest
Amount they paid: £449
The story: I sent a single letter to First Direct Customer Services based around the first letter template and just recieved a letter confirming that they'll pay back all the charges. I had claimed interest too- they didn't mention this at all and haven't included it in the final sum- very happy with the amount though since before reading this site I'd assumed it money down the drain!
Thanks for the help and best of luck to everyone else making claims!
Tom
http://img.moneysavingexpert.com/smilies/beerchug.gif
:beer:

Edinburghlass_2

ZANYSAM wrote:

Bank: Halifax
Claimed: £575
Settled: £500
Took ages to provide statements so i contacted the OFI who were not particularly helpful, its taken 3 months but i am expecting my money in the next 2 weeks.
Would like to donate £50 to this site for all their advice, can someone tell me how?

Thats very kind of you and hopefully there will be something in place in 2007 for users to be able to donate to Martin's charity.

MoneySaving Kids

The users have also voted to approve Martins’ idea to set up a MoneySaving Kids charity, to help educate children about how to be consumers. £5,000 has gone towards a feasibility study, and when that’s completed an update will be included here.

[Deleted User]

Bank: NatWest (current account)
Amount claimed: £1042
Amount paid: £1690

I have no idea why NatWest have paid £648 MORE than I requested ...
but I'm certainly not complaining! :beer:

Having paid £5 for copies of my bank statements going back six years, I wrote to NatWest and asked them to refund £1042 as this was the exact amount that I had been 'overcharged'. They replied by saying that they didn't owe me anything because I had agreed to the bank charges when I opened my current account ... and that these charges were fair etc. etc.

I wrote back and said that I was sure that I was entitled to a refund, and would be prepared to pursue the matter via the Small Claims Court. I pointed out that I had not added interest charges to the sum owed, and that I was quite prepared to waive this amount if the bank would settle the dispute within a reasonable time scale. About one week later I received the offer of £1690 ... which (obviously!) I was happy to accept. :T

Along with the offer came a 'warning' that if I disputed their level of charges in the future, then they would close my account! They also pointed out that the £1690 WASN'T a refund as such, as the amounts I had been charged were "fair and transparent" ... the cash was merely a "gesture of goodwill"

Thankyou so much Martin! :j

ZED.

mixu

Bank: First Direct
Claimed: £505
Settled: £500

The first letter did the trick! Delayed by Xmas post so they'll be opening my second letter this morning...

Many thanks!