Do you agree with reclaiming CC charges?

Fungas

aj3001 wrote:

I personally think its wrong that anyone should try and reclaim a charge, which they were told at the time of signing up, would be applied if they missed a payment or went over their credit limit! They should take better control of their finances!

Ok, in some cases of genuine mistakes yes, but not when I read posts about £500 in charges, how else are you to learn?

Is anyone else with me on this?

This analogy is pretty accurate: if a mugger walked up to you and said "I'm going to punch you in the face and steal your wallet", and then did it, they would be no less culpable just because they'd warned you. We all sign up to bank charges because we have no choice. We alll "pay" the charges because we have no choice...until now. Not being a law expert, I trusted my bank to get its facts right when judging how much to charge me if I went overdrawn. I didn't realise that they were not allowed to profit from my mistakes. So, my bank has been breaking the law by profiting all along.

It's not fair to say that I and thousands others had it coming, by 1) knowing that the charges would be made, 2) going overdrawn, because that does not address the fact that banks have been creaming billions from people in this country for years, by breaking the law. And, it's precisely the act of incurring a couple of charges within a month that can start the ball rolling into absolute oblivion; 1 charge becomes 2 next month, becomes 3 the month after and before you know it, you've arranged a huge overdraft simply to avoid paying further charges. Oh, of course, you;re charged interest on your overdraft too.

I'm going to be making a claim, not because I've had problems in the past and it's my chance to get even, but because I trusted by bank to stick to the law, and they blatantly have'nt!

The_Boss

Its a total loophole/technicality because they are getting all of the money back for breaching their terms and conditions, rather than say 50% of it to reflect what would have been a 'fair' amount. Personally, I'd totally blacklist for life anyone claiming back more than £250 of fees because it shows they should not be trusted with money whatsoever

Fungas

vwman wrote:

So who FORCED you or anyone else come to that to sign a credit card agreement then, I'd like to know so that I can stay well clear.......

I guess nobody's *forced* to apply for a credit card, but try going to USA without one...you get absolutely knowhere, and they do not accept Debit cards in lieu of credit cards.

Whilst there are a lot of positives to having credit cards, debit cards, 24hr banking, direct debit facilities, etc. it's not consumers that have demanded this; it's the banks. I used to be perfectly happy paying bills by cheque, through the post and having full control over my outgoings. Then, almost every bill-payer wanted me to go to DD to save them money; I would then be offered savings, too. So I did. That's when charges started to occur in my accounts and again, through intiatives that banks started.

Fungas

The_Boss wrote:

Its a total loophole/technicality because they are getting all of the money back for breaching their terms and conditions, rather than say 50% of it to reflect what would have been a 'fair' amount. Personally, I'd totally blacklist for life anyone claiming back more than £250 of fees because it shows they should not be trusted with money whatsoever

Personally, I'd be happy with a proportion if the figure that they advise me that I've paid over the last six years does *not* take into account of refunds (there's another thing - why should I ever have to apply for a refund if I'm solely to blame?! There's always a good reason why one should not have to pay up to £35 for a few pounds overdrawn).

However, if the figure is a true reflection then I will demand a *full* refund including interest. THEY broke the law; I didn't. And another analogy; when a bill comes from a utility, and you have a dispute, you are able to dicuss it with them and then choose how, when and how much to pay. When a bill comes from a bank, you have little recourse and they take the money anyway! It's always been daylight robbery, and thank Christ somebody is doing something about exposing it.

The Boss - just reviewing one of your other posts, I too agree that huge celebrations are a bit undignified. Also, unwise, as if a high court ruling suddelnly rules that we *are* all culpable, and banks *have* always acted within the law, does anybody seriously think they would not go seeking money back? I don;t for one second believe it would happen, but being a realist I wouldn;t suddenly go out and spend it all. I'd stick in high interest for a couple of years and keep it close by.

YorkshireBoy

The_Boss wrote:

Personally, I'd totally blacklist for life anyone claiming back more than £250 of fees because it shows they should not be trusted with money whatsoever

To be fair though Boss, that amount could be rattled up in 4-6 weeks under the 'old' bank account tariff - and for possibly one infringement.

Whether you agree or not with charges per se, you have to agree that we are where we are now (again, especially with bank accounts) because of the sheer greed of the banks - both in terms of the size of the 'fines', and their application method.

jamalfatty

The_Boss wrote:

Its a total loophole/technicality because they are getting all of the money back for breaching their terms and conditions, rather than say 50% of it to reflect what would have been a 'fair' amount. Personally, I'd totally blacklist for life anyone claiming back more than £250 of fees because it shows they should not be trusted with money whatsoever

Its neither of these things, its a point of law that everyone in this country has to abide by!

50% is hardly a fair amount to get back.

Quite an assumption you've made there that anyone who claims back more than £250 cannot be trusted with money.

The banks would never blacklist people claiming charges, if people are getting charges in first place, even if the banks didnt charge them a single penny, they would still pull in huge amounts of revenue from interest payments alone.

The_Boss

The other thing that gets me is that people scream blue murder if they claim back all these charges and the bank then wants to close their account.

They can close the accounts for mismanagement and this is what they are doing. Do people expect to run an account how they want to, make payments when it suits them and then to get angry because the lender doesnt want customers like them? These guys have serious attitude problems.

virgin_moneysaver

The_Boss wrote:

I totally disagree with it, but the thing that really gets me is the people celebrating receiving back large sums of money.

They should be dignified and accept it, however as their greed comes to the forefront once more they celebrate like they have won the FA cup. Why should people celebrate not being financially organised? Whats worse is that there are usually loads of other people around to slap their backs too.

They may have escaped on a loophole/techincality, but old habits die hard and it wouldnt suprise me if these same people are still regularly going over limits and not paying on time.

I've had proof this week - cust came in to query why his account was o/d, had with him letter from bank saying refund of charges in full but o/d limit now cancelled - the refund had gone into his account a week previous but he carried on issuing chqs with no funds available, he then admitted he hadn't read letter fully about o/d only seen pound signs about the refund - methinks this is why he got into trouble in 1st place!! - pointed him in direction of dept dealing with scenario but pointed out that some banks closing accts as relationship seen as broken down, not just cancelling o/d - he then said he needs to start reading all mail he rec's as usually don't bother opening most of it & don't keep statements at all - its this type of person who get my goat, not the customer who has a genuine reason for getting into a pickle - & whereas the banks had a certain leeway in refunding due to a cust particular circumstance, if like the credit cards a set amount is deemed
"fair", they won't refund ANY - whether youy're a genuine case or just cos you couldn't be bothered to check your spending

Mind, a proportion of this situation has come about since the control of accounts has been centralised & taken out of control of the bank manager, who is more like an office manager these days - but that is a whole different topic

The_Boss

jamalfatty wrote:

Its neither of these things, its a point of law that everyone in this country has to abide by!

50% is hardly a fair amount to get back.

Quite an assumption you've made there that anyone who claims back more than £250 cannot be trusted with money.

The banks would never blacklist people claiming charges, if people are getting charges in first place, even if the banks didnt charge them a single penny, they would still pull in huge amounts of revenue from interest payments alone.

£250 represents numerous account breaches. One or two could be said to be forgetful. Three or four is downright careless. When you get to 8+ then we are talking serious money management issues.

When the OFT have ruled that the fines were approximately 50% too high why is it 'not fair' to refund only half of the persistent offenders charges to relfect this.

s1h

I dont think the banks can be blamed completely, after all there are thousands of people that are able to control there finances and have never had a charge in their life. I just see it in the way that, if there is a way to claim the charges back I am going to do it.