MSE News: £480m in bank charges to be reclaimed 23 February 2010 at 7:26PM in Reclaim Bank & Credit Card Charges 3 replies 1.1K views

Former_MSE_Guy

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"Despite the banks' shock High Court victory last, charges reclaiming is still possible for those in hardship ..."

Read the full story:

£480m in bank charges to be reclaimed

davidgmmafan

"Yet the Ombudsman has said it will only look at specific types of cases: where people are either in financial hardship, charges are disproportionate such as a £35 charge for going £1 overdrawn or if your charges have snowballed (and you're trapped by charges on top of charges)."

This is interesting, the hardship thing is understandable because this is covered by the banking code or lending code. The second point though has no legal basis, this is EXACTLY that the campaigners were saying, that the charges were disproportionate and they lost. Also its good that they are looking at charges which snowball as IMO this was one of the worst features of the charges. On a tight budget, after the initial charge, it simply doesn't matter what some people do they are screwed.

Does anybody know if there is a case stayed is it possible for the claiment to withdraw this in order to try the ombudsmen route? The snowball is exactly what happened to my brother and I want to help him if I can. Its also a little galling that the bank in question, Natwest now charges only £5 for an unpaid item. If this had been the case initially the snowball wouldn't have been anywhere near as bad.

boomclart

I think the most annoying factor is the fact they don't allow you to prioritise your debt to say make sure you can pay expenses to get to work etc, because if you take that away you run the risk of losing your job and then have no way of paying any charges or further bills... That is the biggest 'wrong' of it all IMO.

davidgmmafan

Yeah doing the exact opposite of what debt charities would advise you to do to tackle your money woes is a pretty dumb idea IMO. I've stated several times on here that the bank has no right to appoint itself priority creditor, which is effectively what they do to many people. Sadly nobody in authority seems to give a stuff.