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Am I morally right to try and claim from the bank?
Tweets_2
Posts: 1,144 Forumite
A couple of years ago I was going to go down the reclaim bank charges route as I did think it was unfair that when I was going through real financial hardship (due to an illness keeping me off work) that the bank never helped me out.
We were continually having DD payments bounced back and we'd arranged an appointment with the bank. They were going to offer us a loan and just as we were about to sign on the dotted line she said "you've never been bankrupt?" - to which I added "yes, I'm a discharged bankrupt" and I had been when I declared it when we opened the joint account years before too. The response then was to say they weren't allowed to give loans to discharged bankrupts (even though we'd had numerous loans in that same account without any problems with late payments and were always paid off in time). They did extend our overdraft to 'help us out' though.
We eventually lost our house because I was then made redundant from my work and then our debts started to spiral and get out of control. I admit to ignoring them because it got to a stage where I was harassed continually over the phone and debt companies were even phoning my neighbours to find out where I was living.
A couple of years down the line, I'm on Incapacity Benefit (have been for 5 years now) and my OH was made redundant once again and is now back in employment. When I heard about all this bank charge business a couple of years ago, I did make the first step of asking for 6 years worth of charges but then started to feel guilty that I deserved all those charges for not managing our money better so never took it any further. Then when the banks won in the courts, I'd thought that was the end of it anyway. That was until a few days ago when the RBS closed my joint account and my OH's single account that we'd actually forgotten all about.
The single account was only really used for putting in cheques from a few items here and there from comics he'd sold on ebay. It wasn't an account we kept an eye on but one that was just meant to be there for emergency purposes.
Over a year later, I try to log into our joint account only to find out we have no access to it so I had to phone up the bank. They told me it was to be closed and that they need to talk to my OH about the single account and they refused to talk to me any further - only informing me that it wasn't anything wrong with the joint account. I had a chance that night to look through the single account and it turns out that an ebay buyer's cheque had bounced which caused us to go overdrawn by £11 and as soon as I'd realised that it went overdrawn, I'd put money back into the account to clear the overdraft and assumed that was the end of it. But as it turns out, I'd forgotten about the bank's charges for going overdrawn without authorisation - and here's where my ignoring letters comes into play. I'd never noticed that 5 years ago when we were first going through our financial troubles that the bank had written to us to tell us the overdrafts on both accounts were being withdrawn, only I hadn't noticed that they'd managed to take back the overdrafts because the redundancy monies managed to cover it.
The single account was last accessed in March last year when the money was put back in to cover the bounced cheque and the bank then put their charges on the month after and continued to do so for over a year - so the original overdraft of £11 has now soared to over £350. Because I ignored the statements and letters, my OH never knew there was any problem and now he's having to suffer because of me
I've tried in vain to get them to reconsider and I'm now so angry that I want to punish them. I'm angry that they never told us that this crappy loanguard cover could have helped us when we were first in trouble 5 years ago and I'm angry that they never bothered to pick up the phone to find out why nobody was responding to their letters (for all they knew, my OH could have been dead or I could have been a bitter ex-gf not passing on his mail).
Now the guilt is setting in again though and although I know it's my fault, I'm also aware that they caused alot of needless grief in the first place. Should I just suck it up and move on to another bank account or do I have a right to complain?
We;ve never managed to get out of financial trouble and are basically living hand to mouth - arrears with Council Tax/Rent/Gas/Electric etc and now we don't have access to my Incapacity Benefit or my partner's wages until we get another account. The bank also decided to send a crossed cheque out for the balance of our joint account and we can't access that either unless we go to one of those rip off cheque cashing places or until we have a new account opened.:mad:
I'm glad I got all that out and now I'm off to have a cry. Sorry for the rant.
We were continually having DD payments bounced back and we'd arranged an appointment with the bank. They were going to offer us a loan and just as we were about to sign on the dotted line she said "you've never been bankrupt?" - to which I added "yes, I'm a discharged bankrupt" and I had been when I declared it when we opened the joint account years before too. The response then was to say they weren't allowed to give loans to discharged bankrupts (even though we'd had numerous loans in that same account without any problems with late payments and were always paid off in time). They did extend our overdraft to 'help us out' though.
We eventually lost our house because I was then made redundant from my work and then our debts started to spiral and get out of control. I admit to ignoring them because it got to a stage where I was harassed continually over the phone and debt companies were even phoning my neighbours to find out where I was living.
A couple of years down the line, I'm on Incapacity Benefit (have been for 5 years now) and my OH was made redundant once again and is now back in employment. When I heard about all this bank charge business a couple of years ago, I did make the first step of asking for 6 years worth of charges but then started to feel guilty that I deserved all those charges for not managing our money better so never took it any further. Then when the banks won in the courts, I'd thought that was the end of it anyway. That was until a few days ago when the RBS closed my joint account and my OH's single account that we'd actually forgotten all about.
The single account was only really used for putting in cheques from a few items here and there from comics he'd sold on ebay. It wasn't an account we kept an eye on but one that was just meant to be there for emergency purposes.
Over a year later, I try to log into our joint account only to find out we have no access to it so I had to phone up the bank. They told me it was to be closed and that they need to talk to my OH about the single account and they refused to talk to me any further - only informing me that it wasn't anything wrong with the joint account. I had a chance that night to look through the single account and it turns out that an ebay buyer's cheque had bounced which caused us to go overdrawn by £11 and as soon as I'd realised that it went overdrawn, I'd put money back into the account to clear the overdraft and assumed that was the end of it. But as it turns out, I'd forgotten about the bank's charges for going overdrawn without authorisation - and here's where my ignoring letters comes into play. I'd never noticed that 5 years ago when we were first going through our financial troubles that the bank had written to us to tell us the overdrafts on both accounts were being withdrawn, only I hadn't noticed that they'd managed to take back the overdrafts because the redundancy monies managed to cover it.
The single account was last accessed in March last year when the money was put back in to cover the bounced cheque and the bank then put their charges on the month after and continued to do so for over a year - so the original overdraft of £11 has now soared to over £350. Because I ignored the statements and letters, my OH never knew there was any problem and now he's having to suffer because of me
I've tried in vain to get them to reconsider and I'm now so angry that I want to punish them. I'm angry that they never told us that this crappy loanguard cover could have helped us when we were first in trouble 5 years ago and I'm angry that they never bothered to pick up the phone to find out why nobody was responding to their letters (for all they knew, my OH could have been dead or I could have been a bitter ex-gf not passing on his mail).
Now the guilt is setting in again though and although I know it's my fault, I'm also aware that they caused alot of needless grief in the first place. Should I just suck it up and move on to another bank account or do I have a right to complain?
We;ve never managed to get out of financial trouble and are basically living hand to mouth - arrears with Council Tax/Rent/Gas/Electric etc and now we don't have access to my Incapacity Benefit or my partner's wages until we get another account. The bank also decided to send a crossed cheque out for the balance of our joint account and we can't access that either unless we go to one of those rip off cheque cashing places or until we have a new account opened.:mad:
I'm glad I got all that out and now I'm off to have a cry. Sorry for the rant.
Many a mickle makes a muckle.
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Comments
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I am sorry to hear that things are so bad for you right now. I certainly don't think it's right for you to pin so much of the blame on yourself.
The part that interested me in your post was about the loanguard cover. Can you elaborate on this some more? Have you been paying for it and it never paid out for you?0 -
Hi corbyboy.
I've only just discovered that we've been paying for this loanguard cover after checking through statements yesterday. I posted a thread querying whether it could be PPI and the more I'm thinking about this Overdraft Loanguard Cover, the more angry and upset I'm getting because it does look like it could have helped us with both of our redundancies but it would never have paid out to me for illness because I have a pre-existing medical condition (type 1 diabetes).
I know that if I were asked about the diabetes that I wouldn't have hesitated to answer that I had a pre-existing medical condition so that's making me think that there's no way this Loanguard Cover could ever have been sold to us properly but I'm also thinking that way back in 2005 when my OH was made redundant that this cover (had we been informed of it) would and could have paid for all of our credit card debts/mortgage etc for a year and we therefore would never have been in so much financial trouble.
We visited the bank when we started having problems and at no point were we told that this cover could be put into action and we've definitely been paying for it since before I was ill in 2005 and my OH's first redundancy in the same year. Add onto that my own redundancy in 2006 and my OH's second redundancy in 2008 and all that time we had this 'cover' that we never knew anything about.
When the bank took off their authorised overdraft from our account, they should also have taken off this overdraft loanguard cover but instead they've been taking the money every month for the 5 years since they stopped it.Many a mickle makes a muckle.0 -
A couple of years ago I was going to go down the reclaim bank charges route as I did think it was unfair that when I was going through real financial hardship (due to an illness keeping me off work) that the bank never helped me out.
We were continually having DD payments bounced back and we'd arranged an appointment with the bank. They were going to offer us a loan and just as we were about to sign on the dotted line she said "you've never been bankrupt?" - to which I added "yes, I'm a discharged bankrupt" and I had been when I declared it when we opened the joint account years before too. The response then was to say they weren't allowed to give loans to discharged bankrupts (even though we'd had numerous loans in that same account without any problems with late payments and were always paid off in time). They did extend our overdraft to 'help us out' though.
We eventually lost our house because I was then made redundant from my work and then our debts started to spiral and get out of control. I admit to ignoring them because it got to a stage where I was harassed continually over the phone and debt companies were even phoning my neighbours to find out where I was living.
A couple of years down the line, I'm on Incapacity Benefit (have been for 5 years now) and my OH was made redundant once again and is now back in employment. When I heard about all this bank charge business a couple of years ago, I did make the first step of asking for 6 years worth of charges but then started to feel guilty that I deserved all those charges for not managing our money better so never took it any further. Then when the banks won in the courts, I'd thought that was the end of it anyway. That was until a few days ago when the RBS closed my joint account and my OH's single account that we'd actually forgotten all about.
The single account was only really used for putting in cheques from a few items here and there from comics he'd sold on ebay. It wasn't an account we kept an eye on but one that was just meant to be there for emergency purposes.
Over a year later, I try to log into our joint account only to find out we have no access to it so I had to phone up the bank. They told me it was to be closed and that they need to talk to my OH about the single account and they refused to talk to me any further - only informing me that it wasn't anything wrong with the joint account. I had a chance that night to look through the single account and it turns out that an ebay buyer's cheque had bounced which caused us to go overdrawn by £11 and as soon as I'd realised that it went overdrawn, I'd put money back into the account to clear the overdraft and assumed that was the end of it. But as it turns out, I'd forgotten about the bank's charges for going overdrawn without authorisation - and here's where my ignoring letters comes into play. I'd never noticed that 5 years ago when we were first going through our financial troubles that the bank had written to us to tell us the overdrafts on both accounts were being withdrawn, only I hadn't noticed that they'd managed to take back the overdrafts because the redundancy monies managed to cover it.
The single account was last accessed in March last year when the money was put back in to cover the bounced cheque and the bank then put their charges on the month after and continued to do so for over a year - so the original overdraft of £11 has now soared to over £350. Because I ignored the statements and letters, my OH never knew there was any problem and now he's having to suffer because of me
I've tried in vain to get them to reconsider and I'm now so angry that I want to punish them. I'm angry that they never told us that this crappy loanguard cover could have helped us when we were first in trouble 5 years ago and I'm angry that they never bothered to pick up the phone to find out why nobody was responding to their letters (for all they knew, my OH could have been dead or I could have been a bitter ex-gf not passing on his mail).
Now the guilt is setting in again though and although I know it's my fault, I'm also aware that they caused alot of needless grief in the first place. Should I just suck it up and move on to another bank account or do I have a right to complain?
We;ve never managed to get out of financial trouble and are basically living hand to mouth - arrears with Council Tax/Rent/Gas/Electric etc and now we don't have access to my Incapacity Benefit or my partner's wages until we get another account. The bank also decided to send a crossed cheque out for the balance of our joint account and we can't access that either unless we go to one of those rip off cheque cashing places or until we have a new account opened.:mad:
I'm glad I got all that out and now I'm off to have a cry. Sorry for the rant.
Throughout your post you openly admit that you were at fault. Surely you should be angry at yourself? The banks did their bit, they wrote to you about any changes on your account. Do you really expect them to be ringing round to check that you received the letter? Even if they had, you ignored calls from everyone else, so what would have made them any different?
Well done on facing up to your problems and admitting you were at fault. Put it behind you and look forward, and stop blaming others for your past mistakes.Gone ... or have I?0 -
Hi corbyboy.
I've only just discovered that we've been paying for this loanguard cover after checking through statements yesterday. I posted a thread querying whether it could be PPI and the more I'm thinking about this Overdraft Loanguard Cover, the more angry and upset I'm getting because it does look like it could have helped us with both of our redundancies but it would never have paid out to me for illness because I have a pre-existing medical condition (type 1 diabetes).
I haven't seen other topic but it definitely sounds like you should investigate the mis-selling of this cover. I didn't know they even sold PPI for overdrafts.0 -
Throughout your post you openly admit that you were at fault. Surely you should be angry at yourself? The banks did their bit, they wrote to you about any changes on your account. Do you really expect them to be ringing round to check that you received the letter? Even if they had, you ignored calls from everyone else, so what would have made them any different?
Well done on facing up to your problems and admitting you were at fault. Put it behind you and look forward, and stop blaming others for your past mistakes.
I am angry at myself but at this moment in time I'm angrier at the bank because if I'd known about this loanguard cover then, I wouldn't have had to ignore letters or phone calls and we might not have lost the house. We changed our phone number to get away from the debt companies but the bank were always in possession of our number and we've never needed to ignore calls on this number - although we're probably going to have to change it now because no doubt the bank will now send our details off to another credit agency.Many a mickle makes a muckle.0 -
I've just found another thread on here regarding this loanguard corbyboy but I'm not allowed to post links yet but below is the thread number..
showthread.php?t=423801Many a mickle makes a muckle.0 -
OP, there are clearly important lessons for you to learn from the experiences you describe. At the same time, you have been unfairly charged by the banks. If you have the opportunity to reclaim those charges, I suggest you take it.
And could you not open a basic bank account (without credit facilities) and just use it to cash cheques?0 -
Hi Voyager.
I've got somebody coming around this afternoon from a Debt Advice group who'll hopefully be able to help with setting up new accounts for us but unfortunately because of my bankruptcy (which was discharged in 1994) I can see that I might get refused even for a basic account. That was the reason that I stayed with RBS for so long. She did say on the phone that my benefit can be paid into some kind of post office account but I'm housebound most of the time and my OH wouldn't get to the post office during working hours so that's not a good option for us either.
The FSA told me to phone up RBS and ask them to cash the cheque at one of their branches but they refused. They think that there's grounds for a complaint with that because they should have asked us how we wanted to be paid apparently and the woman couldn't believe they told us to go to a cheque cashing centre either.Many a mickle makes a muckle.0 -
Hi Voyager.
I've got somebody coming around this afternoon from a Debt Advice group who'll hopefully be able to help with setting up new accounts for us but unfortunately because of my bankruptcy (which was discharged in 1994) I can see that I might get refused even for a basic account. That was the reason that I stayed with RBS for so long. She did say on the phone that my benefit can be paid into some kind of post office account but I'm housebound most of the time and my OH wouldn't get to the post office during working hours so that's not a good option for us either.
Can you just confirm that you were discharged in 1994?? That should not have any bearing on the fact of having a bank account. With regards to the PPI then yes you may have a case for a refund of PPI and the PPI forum will be able to help.
The FSA told me to phone up RBS and ask them to cash the cheque at one of their branches but they refused. They think that there's grounds for a complaint with that because they should have asked us how we wanted to be paid apparently and the woman couldn't believe they told us to go to a cheque cashing centre either.
I will have a read of post 1 over the weekend cos there is something slightly strange in the banks behaviour. Was any of the debt in 1994 with RBS Group?0
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