Has your bank closed your account?

fabianne

Barclays sent me a Termination notice for both my business and personal accounts with them.
The Business account is in dispute and is going to Court soon to reclaim the bank charges from that.
The Personal one is now being treated as a creditor in my self organised DMP.
If/when I get the charges back-where will they be paid into?
I would prefer to use this money to pay off some money to ALL my creditors-not just Barclays get it back. Is this possible??

Mel77_2

Leaf wrote:

Thank you for your comments, Mel.

I understand and appreciate where you are coming from. However, I would like to make a few comments myself.

Since automation of accounts and the lack of personal contact, the interests of banking do not seem to lie in favour of customers but in profits. While I appreciate that banking is a business, a business survives by attracting, not alienating, customers. So, in effect, banks appear to be focusing on profits and not the customers that, long term, bring in profits. Investment, in reality. Look at the backlash that is happening now. Short term high income for banks, long term payout for unfair charges, poor customer relations and a lack of confidence to stay and invest in any one particular bank has led to this current trend.
Mismanagement of finances needs addressing. But placing people in a position where debt spirals is as irresponsible as those who mismanage. I am not condoning a 'nanny stae' but I am slating large independent multi million pound institutions who reap the benefits from exploiting vulnerable people to amas billion pound businesses.

Leaf

To be honest, I see your point but I disagree with you.

If you run your account within the agreed limits then you are getting excellent value for money, in this case the customer is the real winner, FREE banking. Free banking is a British thing, nearly all other countries charge for this facilty.

This is where the issue of charging comes in, in effect the people who run their account poorly, who in a lot of cases knowingly exceed their limits are in effect subsidising the people who run their accounts well.

Also vunerable people are not subject to this, it is their own choice, you can quite easily just have a basic account, this is your right with any bank, which doesn't have overdrafts, cheque books or debit cards which won't allow you to get overdrawn.

Lastly wrt the Billions of £'s the banks make, look at the bigger picture all of them make more money abroad then then in the UK, E.g Barclays 7.5B of which 1.7B was UK, so 5.8B is made abroad but taxed in the UK. All this tax is used for everyone of us in our schools, NHS etc.....

I still agree though that £30-£40 is too much, but don't have a problem with the banks charging people who do not run their account well and blame the banks for their own mistakes....

Wavy_ll13

Do First Direct close your account as just had the letter back from them saying no to my claim, that it's legal etc. Am about to either send letter for full amount plus interest (just over £5k) or letter asking for a partial recompense - anyone have any dealings with First Direct? - so far they haven't mentioned anything about closure but from what I've heard they are starting to play hardball. Any help greatly appreciated - many thanks Dave

dilly1

A&L paid back my bank charges of £821.27 last week, had a letter this morning saying account will be closed on the 11th April. Have another account, so it's not a problem for me, expected it to be closed ,so had already changed all my DD over to my other bank, would say if your with A&L make sure you have another account to fall back on

gwynney

Well it looks like after A&L realised I cashed the cheque they sent they have decided to close my account, hey ho now I will claim the other £1600 that was above the small claims limit. I suppose if they hadnt closed my account I probably would have let it lie at £5k win and gone after my credit card companies

Paul_Herring

[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Nationwide backs down on closures (Guardian Sat 10th March)

[/FONT][FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]

Guardian wrote:

[/FONT]Nationwide has backed down in the row over customers reclaiming their bank charges, and says it will not be closing the current accounts of people who have won refunds.

[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif] [/FONT]

System

Mel77 wrote: »

The simple answer to why the banks will continue to close accounts, regardless of what the FOS say is that the banks have (and this has never been challenged as of yet, whatever your viewpoint on the charges) done nothing illegal, they set the T&C and you abide by them, if not you have broken the agreement simple.

All the banks have to do is to make sure the complaint is treated within the complaints guidelines, carefully word why they are closing your account and thats it, do you really think it the law is on your side if you are threating to sue them because you have breached the terms and conditions, in other countries you could be sued for attempting to defraud the bank by knowingly going over your limit.

Also on this point, what will happen if they charge you again, are you going to continue to sue them everytime you want your charges back, do you really think they want customers like that, I'm sure they'd rather have customers that run their accounts properly who don't try to sue them.....

Well that's my 2p worth, although I do believe the charges are too high you really can't blame them for taking a tough stance on this!

Get a grip!!!

ayesha5274

Hi, I'm new to this, a bit late in the day it would seem reading all the posts!!

I have 2 Abbey Accs and am claiming a total of £1400 , however I also have about £2k overdrafts on each which are always near to their limits. Bit concerned as to where to turn for a 'parachute acc' which would provide the same overdraft as I haven't the funds to repay them instantly if Abbey close my accounts. Help.

Do we, the account holders, have any defence against the closing of our accounts? The accounts have been running within their limits for some time now and the charges we are claiming for relate to a period 4 years ago when finances were less stable than now.

Twinkly

With regard to closing accounts complain to the Financial Ombudsman. Banks which close the accounts of complaining customers are being ordered to pay compensation of at least £200 a time.

for source article see here dated 1st March 2007:
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/campaigns/bankcharges/article.html?in_article_id=417981&in_page_id=507

If you have an overdraft you cant pay immediately then it would become a debt like any other with the same scope for negotiation of repayment. Given the charges incurred for an authorised overdraft as it stands now, it may be cheaper in the long run to manage as a straightforward debt with regular payments based on your income. Just a thought

Wigstig20

Hi am new so don't really know if this is the correct place for this question.

I have my own current account with RBS but also have a joint account with them with my partner. If I reclaim my charges off my own account and they try to close it, can they do the same with the joint account, and would I just be able to transfer my DD's etc from my account to the joint one.