Bank charge offer - should I take it?

oakdale_minx

Keep going! I have three claims still outstanding - they have ALL been stayed by my court which is horribly frustrating, but it is worth ploughing on to the end.

sandralovescats

Keep going! The bank has not got a leg to stand on!

prudryden

mossy wrote:

To me it sounds like they are trying to shut you up and give you a small payout when you are entitled to more.

I think prudryden's suggestion of politely acknowledging their offer and making a counter offer is a good way to go. I think it very likely that they'll accept your counter offer especially if its somewhere inbetween what you originally asked for and what they are offering.

If you are freaked out by the thought of going all the way with this claim and are worried about messing it up then a counter offer could be the ideal solution. This way you are still going to get more money out of them but without the stress and worry of messing it up and ending up with nothing.

I guess it would be best to find some advice/help/template on making a counter offer and how to word it as like you said you don't want to fluff it up. Even if they decline your counter offer atleast the court will see that you have tried to be reasonable.

Good luck!!!

Judi - Mossy's comments are all very good points!!

The potential x factor in your case doesn't seem to be whether or not you get back what is perhaps rightfully yours but whether you have the strength to carry on through the negotiation stage. (It seems that the discovery stage has finished, at least for the moment.)

The fact that you are currently in a debt situation, without the current means to eliminate, puts you in at a disadvantage. Does the bank know this?
If they know this, then the inhouse lawyer (I don't expect they are using outside lawyers for this) will hope that you will settle for less. Psychologically, "a bird in hand is worth two in the bush"

Couple of points you may want to consider:
(1) If the restitution you have asked for is TRULY due you, without any doubt, then, so be it, you will get it. However, expect that the negotiation will start off friendly and, eventually, may get rougher. e.g. unless you accept, you will get nothing. (This is the psychological game lawyers play.)
(2) You probably are dealing with an inhouse lawyer who, it seems to me , has already informed his superior that you have a good case. Thus, the offer on the table. Lawyers, contrary to what their letter said, may make "goodwill gestures" of £20 for a late payment penalty, but not £4,600+.
(3) You definitely need to get someone on your side, should you continue, to give you the support, especially someone who knows the terminology and the psychology behind the different moves.
(4) It is very, very unlikely to reach the inside of any court. This would mean the bank allocating the case to an outside corporate law firm (very expensive for them).
(5) If you were not in debt - then I would say stick to the full amount, but as Mossy said the stress may be too much because sometimes in house lawyers get a little punch drunk with their letters. Sometimes scary but meaningless.
Best of luck

CLAPTON

just a bit curious about the interest ..i must say i dont know how its meant to work but...

if you were owed 4,700 for six years (presumably the worst case then 8% per annum interest works out at £2,700 and as i say thats assuming the full amount of 4,700 was due for for full six years.

but as i say i dont really know how the interest is meant to be worked out.

judi24

I'm not sure either how the interest is worked out - I used a spreadsheet from the CAG templates. From what I can gather its not simply 8% per anum but compound interest worked out daily. From the day the charge was levied.

Maybe someone could explain this better for me.

I do keep checking the spreadsheet to see if I have done something wrong but all I did was put in the amounts and dates and it calculated the interest for me. Cos I did think this amount was a bit high.

My bank does not have any Idea about our debt. Only the overdraft is with them, so this would not be too much of an issue.

I have posted on the cAG site for advice from people who know what to expecy from the YB but no-one has replied yet.

All your advice is very helpful though

Thanks to you all

nomoneytoday

CLAPTON wrote:

just a bit curious about the interest ..i must say i dont know how its meant to work but...

if you were owed 4,700 for six years (presumably the worst case then 8% per annum interest works out at £2,700 and as i say thats assuming the full amount of 4,700 was due for for full six years.

but as i say i dont really know how the interest is meant to be worked out.

Right idea. Its actually going to be slightly less as not all the charges were made on day 1.
Say £600 of charges in year 1, plus 8% interest = £648
In year 2 you would have £600 of charges, plus interest on £1248
So I doubt £4000 worth of interest.
If £4700 of charges were applied on day 1, then as above 8 years interest is £2700. Assuming they charges were applied constantly the interest amount will be around half of that.

mossy

It sounds to me that you have used the right tools to work out the interest so even though it sounds very high I guess these things snow ball out of control. I've never personally understood the sense in a bank charging you when you've had a slip up or cashflow issue its hardly helpful is it , especially when their charges are sometimes illegal and completely out of proportion. :mad:

Only you can finally decide what to do chick and I wish you the very best of luck either way. I think you are amazing and brave to have spent the time and energy to work out all the charges etc. Many people would have called it quits long before even asking for any money back from the banks so woo hoo that you are going to get YOUR money back!!! :j

Whether it be their offer, your counter offer or the full amount you're going to get some money back which will help your own financial situation and hopefully as more people do this the banks will realise that its time to stop taking advantage of their customers and change their charging practices!! :T

Turtle

Hi, at the risk of offending here, you did spend money that was the banks and not yours, charges aside, it is reasonable in my opinion to pay some interest on the money that you borrowed. If you are arguing that the interest rates are too high then I would go for a counter offer as they've offered you the charges back, plus you'd be paying a more reasonable interest rate if you asked for, say half the interest back.

judi24

Turtle wrote:

Hi, at the risk of offending here, you did spend money that was the banks and not yours, charges aside, it is reasonable in my opinion to pay some interest on the money that you borrowed. If you are arguing that the interest rates are too high then I would go for a counter offer as they've offered you the charges back, plus you'd be paying a more reasonable interest rate if you asked for, say half the interest back.

No offence taken and I agree with you to some extent. I did go overdrawn etc and so did use money that wasn't mine. I also entered into a contract with the bank accepting that I would be chaged for doing this.

However what I am not accepting is the amount of the charges - for example when we were on holiday abroad last year my husband was paid on a thursday instead of a wednesday. The bank returned 3 direct debits due to paid on the wednesday charging me £35 each. This then put us over our overdraft limit for 10 days til we got home. They cahrged £8 a day for this. They also charged £25 standing charge and £6.98 in interest for exceeding my overdraft level.

Total £211.98 for being paid a day late!

None of the banks have turned up in court and expalined how much it actually costs to maintain an account in this type of situation - I doubt it would be anywhere near £211.98.

What I may do is ask them to expalin thier charges and offer to pay a fair charge - for example half of the interest amount at least then they can't claim that i'm not willing to pay any charges for fefaulting on the accounts.

savvykaz

Fair suggestion judi.
I am currently claiming £2,500 in unfair charges from Nat West and I really could not get my head round working out which interest could be re-claimed and which was a fair charge for going overdrawn! so I didn't bother claiming any but the 8% at the MCOL stage.