Can anyone advise? - Barclays query

Nolcat

This post is really to seek out some advice, before pursuing any letters of complaint to Barclays re: unfair charges. Am posting on behalf of my partner.

He graduated in 2001 and around the time of graduation visited Barclays Bank where he held (at the time) a student account. An advisor there advised him that it would be best for him to convert his then student overdraft into a graduate loan which he was now eligible for. Presumably they convinced him this was this best thing to do as he agreed.

However, they then proceeded to also afford him yet another substantial overdraft on his now graduate account. In essence, doubling his debt in more or less one full sweep!!
All this and he still had no full time employment to speak of, having just graduated.

Is it just me or is this extremely irresponsible lending?! I'm not sure if this type of behaviour was regulated then (or even if it is now) but I find it incredibly stupid on the banks part that this was allowed.

I appreciate that my partner could have easily declined either offer - hindsight is a great thing. But I guess he trusted their advice at the time.

The reason I ask your opinion is that over a period of some years after this all happened in 2001, he then struggled to pay off his overdraft, not surprisingly given the constant stream of overdraft charges he then incurred. He still has the letters of notification (every time a charge was applied). I was astonished at the amount of them (£25 a go!).

Has anyone had similar experiences? Can anyone advise whether its even worth pursuing this with the bank in an attempt to try and get some of the charges refunded?! Is there something about charges in excess of £12 being deemed unfair?

Apologies for all the questions but I'm more familiar the PPI claims than the bank charges.

Thanks in advance if anyone can shed any light!

Atidi

Nolcat wrote: »

This post is really to seek out some advice, before pursuing any letters of complaint to Barclays re: unfair charges. Am posting on behalf of my partner.

He graduated in 2001 and around the time of graduation visited Barclays Bank where he held (at the time) a student account. An advisor there advised him that it would be best for him to convert his then student overdraft into a graduate loan which he was now eligible for. Presumably they convinced him this was this best thing to do as he agreed.

However, they then proceeded to also afford him yet another substantial overdraft on his now graduate account. In essence, doubling his debt in more or less one full sweep!!
All this and he still had no full time employment to speak of, having just graduated.

Is it just me or is this extremely irresponsible lending?! I'm not sure if this type of behaviour was regulated then (or even if it is now) but I find it incredibly stupid on the banks part that this was allowed.

I appreciate that my partner could have easily declined either offer - hindsight is a great thing. But I guess he trusted their advice at the time.

The reason I ask your opinion is that over a period of some years after this all happened in 2001, he then struggled to pay off his overdraft, not surprisingly given the constant stream of overdraft charges he then incurred. He still has the letters of notification (every time a charge was applied). I was astonished at the amount of them (£25 a go!).

Has anyone had similar experiences? Can anyone advise whether its even worth pursuing this with the bank in an attempt to try and get some of the charges refunded?! Is there something about charges in excess of £12 being deemed unfair?

Apologies for all the questions but I'm more familiar the PPI claims than the bank charges.

Thanks in advance if anyone can shed any light!

Hello Nolcat.

First of all I must disagree with your assumption that doubling your partners approved overdraft facility doubles his debt overnight.

Your partner spending money he doesn't have is the only way he can double the debt.

An approved overdraft is often a much cheaper form of borrowing than doing so on an unapproved overdraft.

The bank won't be refunding any bank charges that were correctly applied from over 10 years ago, so save the price of the stamp