It's not just Bank Charges you can reclaim!

mjoddson

The roof has been blown off bank charge reclamation and I can really see it coming to an end soon.

MSE needs some other good cause to sink its teeth into and I've got one!

I have recently taken out my car insurance with Budget. I applied online and made an unintentional mistake. I required my car for work so called them as soon as I had noticed commuting was not on the policy it was an extra £9 fair enough. What they didn’t tell me is that I was to be charged a major change charge of £25! That quite frankly made me see red.

I tried ringing Budget requesting my money back and got the usual ‘put it in writing’ so I did and have been waiting some time now on whether they are going to pay up. Each time they are running out of time to respond I get a letter saying they are still investigating.

Has anyone else had charges like this?

Will keep you posted of when not if I get my money back.

Thanks
Mark

lisyloo

I don't think you have a valid claim.
This is not an illegal "penalty charge" it is an admin fee for the work involved.

I think they could easily justify £25 for the work involved given all the legislation they have to comply with about personal details.

Although this was unintentional it has incurred work which needs to be paid for.

Good luck, but I don't think you will be successful.

bribri_2

I am intrigued by the possibility of admin charges being reclaim-able.

I want to cancel a holiday booking. I have cancellation cover. The holiday cost is £75 but there is a standard "admin" charge of £50.

The argument with the banks is that, particularly with computerisation, their charges do not reflect the true cost of the work involved.

In the initial letters we write we ask them to justify their charge and they do not.

Surely this is a similar case and should at least be explored.

Any comments?

x_Wilco_x

I recently transferred my pension from private policy to local governement employer policy and was charged £3300 (of my pension pot) in the process. I took the hit because the employer pension is (still) a final salary pension but when I wrote to ask them to justify the fees they said they were 'initial set up and management fees' that the company had occured and would normally have been taken over the life of the policy! Apparantly it was all clear in the policy paperwork when I took the pension out!

If they are no longer managing my pension then I can surely no longer be costing them anything (???). And 'initial set up fees' of over £3300 sounds an awful lot!!!

Should I carry on fighting this - they have told me I need to go to the financial ombudsmen...

Richy8654

I would try it! At the worst they will only say no and you'll have to pay the charge.

Ive just moved into a new house and had trouble paying the council tax to get it upto date before april and every time they sent a reminder or a letter threatening court they where adding a charge. So when i got paid i rang them up and said i was prepared to pay the original amount owed but no charges and that if they insisted on charging me i would make no payment at all, and they accepted my offer.

This has opened up a can of worms for me as due to recent events in my life ive been gathering quite a collection of missed payments (and charges) so now im trying to claim them all back! Including the bank, a finance company, a store card and i even got charged by my pension company which really got my back up because its my money and if i do miss a payment its me thats loosing out!

Any way good look with your holiday charge and a little tip, The holiday market is very competative and most travell agents will go out of their way to avoid bad press and keep their customers. The best thing to do is tell them if they charge you for cancelling your holiday (you could even make up some rare circumstance for the cancellation to make them look bad) you will write to as many news papers as you can think of, you could even mention the consumer watch dog (these are the last people they'll want on their back). I would do this over the phone and if it doesn't work then start sending similar letters as you would the bank.

However ive found most companies will drop charges if you simply refuse to pay them and make a formal complaint. We just need to stand up for ourselves people have become to acustomed to paying charges now is the time to fight back!!

Good Luck

Richy8654

WILCO I would take it to the ombudsmen as they will look into it for you and as far as im aware they do this for free.

However they may come back saying they where justified in charging you so be prepared to just accept it.

Hopefully this won't happen though! Good look and let me now how it goes, Richy

dunstonh

x_Wilco_x wrote: »

I recently transferred my pension from private policy to local governement employer policy and was charged £3300 (of my pension pot) in the process. I took the hit because the employer pension is (still) a final salary pension but when I wrote to ask them to justify the fees they said they were 'initial set up and management fees' that the company had occured and would normally have been taken over the life of the policy! Apparantly it was all clear in the policy paperwork when I took the pension out!

If they are no longer managing my pension then I can surely no longer be costing them anything (???). And 'initial set up fees' of over £3300 sounds an awful lot!!!

Should I carry on fighting this - they have told me I need to go to the financial ombudsmen...

Its a contract event and certainly not illegal. You wont get anywhere with a complaint.

mjoddson

I GOT MY MONEY!

Don't you guys learn anything Bank charges are technically legal but you always get them back and so are admin charges and I got my £25 BACK Woo Hoo!!!