Reclaim Unfair Bank Charges Discussion Area

Edinburghlass_2

You can put in a claim for charges on a credit card for the likes of late payment fees.

Any valuation on a property when buying is the market value at that particular time, the surveyor cannot be held responsibility of the market value some three years later.

As regards claiming back charges on a mortgage account you might be better having a look on https://www.consumeractiongroup.com for more information.

IDIDIT_2

Richiefitz3007 wrote:

danjm20, thanks for pointing out something. I've just put together a moneyclaim against Barclaycard. I also put Barclaycard at the defendant but have now changed it too Barclays Bank PLC (Barclaycard).

IDIDIT, i'm also doing moneyclaim against Lloyds and your story gives me inspiration!!!

I was actually about to give up!! It was taking a lot of time and each time I sent a letter they came back with more questions and the usual rubbish that the charges are listed in the terms. As long as you can show most of the amounts you will win. Some months I was charged over £100 for failed DD's, I asked for a break down on how they get to this figure,(£30 for each), they never responded to this and shortly after I got a low offer. GO FOR THE FULL AMOUNT!!!!!!!!

SampleX

Hello.

Totally new to this.

Heard on Radio 2.

Looking it up sounds too good to be true.

I've got large debt problems as a result of taking a business loan to buy my business which was, at the time, a going concern. Tragically, as a result of DVD piracy and supermarket competition, my independent DVD store is now, finally, about to go down the chute, leaving me with massive debts. I took £30k loan for the business, which was very kindly secured for me by my parents (hence I cannot simply bankrupt and must find a way to keep going so I can keep everything paid) and for the first couple of years I made the mistake of using credit cards to fund Christmas stock, thinking I'd be able to pay it back after Christmas. It never happened, but I couldn't just quit either. I ended up with consolidation loans and the like, and bad credit card debts getting even worse.

Basically, about 18 months ago I wrote to all creditors and told them my circumstances and that I was probably going to go bust and needed a bit of understanding. I've had a couple of different banks and ended up having all of them pull the rug out from under me just when I needed the most help.

At present I estimate the total value of all my debt must be around £38,000.

I do have some interesting stories.

When I opened my business loan account, I had the usual sales pitch from the business banker, and the ego-tickling schpiel. I was told by a certain RBS that I needed a 'Royalties Gold' account for my personal account. SInce I already had a Cahoot account, I politely refused, several times, before being told that it was free, so what did I have to lose, and really the implication that without having this account, I couldn't have the loan either. So I agreed. Never used the account. And so I only ever filed the statements in my appropriate folder when they came. Didn't even read them... until 4 years later. When RBS effectively froze my business account, having chastised me for having falling turnover and operating on tighter and tighter margins. They cited my failure to pay my Royalties Gold account overdraft as their reasoning. I said 'what overdraft', and then they showed me...

After 1 year, they charged my account around £150 account fee just to get a book of vouchers toward elite hotels and bloody Bollinger. This put me overdrawn. But instead of writing to me to say 'there's a problem', they had sneakily put an authorised overdraft of a grand on the account. So I just accrued late charges, and overdue payment charges, and interest, etc. and this continued year on year. They only contacted me when I went over £1000... And even then, when I hit the roof, they said 'it's only a little overdrawn over your limit... just pay a bit of money in, and we can continue your account.' I told them where to shove their account, and demanded it be cleared and ceased. I had a muppet 'business relationship account manager' in a call centre who repeatedly promised to reach a solution and get back to me, to freeze the account, to end interest while a solution was found. He repeatedly failed. Finally I spoke to him, and everything he'd told me earlier he denied, and started to get very 'final' about things. At this point I realised what insidious !!!!!!!s the banks were, and how conniving and deceitful they are. So I proposed a solution...

I told him he could put the personal account where the sun never shines.

So he froze my business account.

I was immediately unable to trade, I lost my credit card facilities, since it was my only account, I couldn't spend money I'd just paid in, and they 'immediately' called in my business overdraft of £2000.

I tried to demand some accountability, and was told to shove off, basically. So I agreed that what I would do was cancel all direct debits EXCEPT my loan payment, and that I would learn to deal in cash until I could clear the debts and start resuming the business banking facilities, and would pay my loan amount into the account every month.

This I did, struggle though it was, for about 5 months.

Until the bank sent me a letter from their debt recovery division at Nat West. And told me that I was 5 months in default on my loan, and they were demanding legal action against my parent's security. So I rang them. And cried on the phone. I have to add here that I've had serious emotional problems over the past 2 years as a result of what's been happening to me. The stress has been unbelieveable. I explained my history with RBS and that I'd been making the payments to my bank account. The lady who worked there was lovely, and very helpful, Helen Jones... She basically said that what had happened to me wasn't right, but that it wasn't final either, and that the accounts being passed to them was the beginning of a new solution, and that the old loan agreement was effectively torn up, and I could renegotiate a payment solution (which I did at a lower rate). Then she saw that I had been paying into the account for the loan, and noted that the bank had actually, instead of passing the money on, been using it to pay overdraft. So she 'launched an investigation'.

This took AGES. A good two to three months. And oddly, I was never allowed to speak to Helen Jones again, even though I commended her work in writing. I started to get letters defending that what the bank did in all circumstances was legal, and was their entitlement, although it may not have been 'helpful' to me as a consumer. After a written argument about this they finally confirmed that the Royalties Gold balance of £1434 was cleared as a 'gesture of goodwill which in no way should be construed as an admission of wrongdoing or liability' and the account closed.

The worst creditor has been MBNA with Credit Cards. Their loan division was one of the first to respond to my letters 18 months ago with a reduced payment arrangement. But credit card refused to deal. It was a Sony Card that they had 'taken over', and it had a £3300 limit which I maxed out. I repeatedly insisted that they conduct their business with me in writing, so that there was no confusions, but they repeatedly refused, and had their call centres chase me sometimes several times a day with persistent, rude and pushy little Indians many times demanding that if I do not have a credit or debit card to make a payment with today, that I should go find family 'right now (I'll stay on the phone)' and borrow their card, or go ask my neighbours to lend me their card. I've always been a bit of a self-diagnosis, self-help person, but looking back at how much my personality and emotional state and values have changed in the last 2 years, I'd actually say that their constant hounding caused me to have a nervous breakdown. I spent weeks as a gibbering, fatalist, pessimistic, paranoid, cowering wreck dodging phone calls and, sadly, literally wanting to end my own life because I couldn't see a way out...

In speaking to them on the phone, they'd craftily get payments or part payments out of me, and then say 'see... you're up to date... so we've no need to go to drastic measures like freezing your account... you can manage your account... we'll just ring you every month for a payment.' So, and I know it's not the right way, but I drew a conclusion that demanded a risk.

I decided that if they wouldn't freeze the accounts they'd only get bigger, and I really would have to bankrupt. They don't want that. And I don't want it either. I've never tried to deny or shirk my actual debt spend, or the fact that due to circumstances beyond my control I ended up being bad at managing (and bad at making) money. So I decided to stop paying them.

At all.

And force them to go to recovery.

I did this at the same time with all the card companies I hadn't already got arrangements with.

You'd be surprised at how quickly some reached arrangements. And you'd be surprised at how long MBNA took.

They continued having the call centres ring me to 'discuss my letters' in spite of my demands that they deal in writing, and at every opportunity I was lied to, conned by MBNA debt counsellors and customer service agents, and made to make payments I couldn't afford. From a £3300 balance, my account spiralled in just a year to £4800, and that in spite of having paid them a total of around £800 in the same year...

Never once have I had a letter responded to in writing. Then a few months later they write those snotty arrogant letters about 'you're clearly in trouble and we want to help you but we don't think you want to help yourself.' I still dodge call centres to this day. If I ever get caught out I let them get as far as asking for me by name, and then saying 'can you confirm for me your address, postcode and date of birth for security verification' at which point I say 'no.' They then quote the Data Protection Act at me and repeat the request. So I just say 'you rang me... if you've got something to say, say it... but you cannot prove who YOU are or that you're in legitimate ownership of my details, so in the interests of MY security, please address all discussions in writing using official MBNA paper and I'll consider your comments.' They usually continue protesting, but by the time I've added that I have no intention of discussing my personal details over the phone, or confirming or denying anything, they know the conversation is over, and the wonderful Data Protection Law that we all hate is actually working in reverse and forcing them to address in writing.

Anyway... They wrote to me last week, 18 months on from my original letters. They finally recognise I have a major problem, and they want to help. The account is about to go to debt recovery firms where I will have, they say, no choice but to pay in full and no arrangements can then be offered. They've said I have this large balance to pay off... but if I can raise around £1800 they'll consider accepting it as full and final settlement of the account and write the rest off without any further action being taken.

I'm doing my best to take them up on it. As with many businesses in this time I have outstanding invoices with clients, and the total of these invoices if I can get my customers to pay me, should just about cover what MBNA are asking. That will be quite a chunk off my debt, and while I was going to follow the Credit Card charges reclaimation concept profiled on this forum with them, I figure that even with the charges taken off, I'll still be left with a balance around this amount, so accepting this settlement is more or less the best I can hope for.

I know I write a lot, but I shared this in the hope that maybe as I join this forum I'll be able to get some help in dealing with my problems, but also I might be able to encourage others that there is some light at the end of the tunnel too.

Though I now have a pathological hatred of banks and finance companies, which is, I think, a healthy thing. I've been in debt before, very young, and didn't learn really - it all got paid off eventually, and just seemed like it was all part of life. My experiences of the last few years have opened my eyes to a very organised, hateful and depraved system of deliberacy in inspiring debt, maintaining debt, and profiting from misery, and I've now got a new ethic that I never had before - to deal pain to these people, and get myself out of the mire in the process.

So...

Now that I've bored you all (and I'm very sorry), I DO have a question...

I'm looking at this bank charges refund thing, and I've had a few accounts in the last 6 years which all ran up significant charges in 'penalties' which I recognise are not so legal...

BUT

the most significant of those accounts are business accounts where I as a sole trader was trading as another entity...

Does this exempt me from being able to take part in the class action movement against the bank charges, or are my rights as a consumer just the same.

I'm a little worried that as is the case with insurance, if I'm a home consumer, I'm protected, but if I'm a business, I'm not.

I got taken for a ride by an insurance company who missold my insurance policy, took my money, then voided it when I needed a claim, and then refused liability in supplying the wrong policy, but because I was a business user the FSO could do nothing, and the GISC would do nothing, and I was left high and dry and a few grand down.

Do I still have these rights as a 'business account customer.'

Edinburghlass_2

Thread here about business accounts

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=270122

fizzyhelen

clarenic wrote:

Hello

Do Moneyclaim email you when there is a change on your claim (they've acknowledged it for example), or is it a case of checking the website?

Thanks very much,

Clare

Hi
You have to check on the website, if you're anything like me I was checking every ten minutes!;)
Helen

justindoughty

bank. Barclays.
owes. £3135.00+interest

i have got as far as the bank has entered a defence in the small claims court . i am now getting worried about going to court with my case. i have got to submit my evidence to the court .can any one tell me what i need to submit to the court as evidence.

tiff

Tiggerhoney wrote:

Hi Everyone,
Have read everything going on this site and have started the ball rolling for my partner, taking on Lloyds TSB, saw Martin with Lorraine and decided to give it a go, quite scared to be honest as Lloyds seem to be tougher than other banks i have read about. So first letter was sent on Thursday asking for charges for past 6 years, wish me luck and will keep you posted.

Carol xx

Good luck, we are taking on Lloyds Tsb too. I have applied for a current account with another bank and have printed off the first letter for the 6 years bank statements. I've been thinking about it for a few weeks but our financial situation has forced me into action, if we get the money it will go towards or clear our overdraft.

family_life_2

anyone with some advice please step forward!!

I am in the process of taking Lloyds to court and have at present gone through all of the procedures for reclaiming what is rightfully mine. I shall now cut to the chase. On Friday I received through the post from the courts stating the following.

1/. The parties shall by 4pm on the 6th Dcember 2006 send to each other statements of the evidence of any witnesses of fact they intend relying upon at the trial of this matter and shall append to those statemnets any documents they intend relying ipon.

2/. The parties shall co-operate to prepare a bundle of documents for use at the trial such bundle to include statements referred to above.

3/. Each party shall prepare a skeleton argument and that shall be included in the bundle reffered to above.

4/. The claimant shall lodge a copy of the bundle at court by 8th january 2007 and upon lodging of the trial bundle the court will consider the listing of the matter.

5/. the parties should note that the reference to statements includes the statements of the parties themselves as well as any other witnesses they intend calling and that the judge may decide not to take into account any documents or evidence not served and lodged as directed above.

6/. the matter be allocated to the small claims track and listed on a date to be fixed by the court.

i have decided to right excatly what is in front of me because if i am honest I really have no clue on what any of this means. I will be eternally gratefull if someone out there can make this a bit simpliar for me. Basically I'm thick. lol.


Many thanks.

Must admit I'm starting to worry a bit now as it all seems rather formal.

many thanks to any helpers.


Family life.

IDIDIT_2

family_life wrote:

anyone with some advice please step forward!!

I am in the process of taking Lloyds to court and have at present gone through all of the procedures for reclaiming what is rightfully mine. I shall now cut to the chase. On Friday I received through the post from the courts stating the following.

1/. The parties shall by 4pm on the 6th Dcember 2006 send to each other statements of the evidence of any witnesses of fact they intend relying upon at the trial of this matter and shall append to those statemnets any documents they intend relying ipon.

2/. The parties shall co-operate to prepare a bundle of documents for use at the trial such bundle to include statements referred to above.

3/. Each party shall prepare a skeleton argument and that shall be included in the bundle reffered to above.

4/. The claimant shall lodge a copy of the bundle at court by 8th january 2007 and upon lodging of the trial bundle the court will consider the listing of the matter.

5/. the parties should note that the reference to statements includes the statements of the parties themselves as well as any other witnesses they intend calling and that the judge may decide not to take into account any documents or evidence not served and lodged as directed above.

6/. the matter be allocated to the small claims track and listed on a date to be fixed by the court.

i have decided to right excatly what is in front of me because if i am honest I really have no clue on what any of this means. I will be eternally gratefull if someone out there can make this a bit simpliar for me. Basically I'm thick. lol.


Many thanks.

Must admit I'm starting to worry a bit now as it all seems rather formal.

many thanks to any helpers.


Family life.

OK, I have the same letter in front of me like for like almost, however I did respond but did not need to use it as TSB made me a offer a few days before the case (this is now becoming the norm for TSB, I also have 2 friends that they paid within the lst few weeks) see below as to what I did:

1/. The parties shall by 4pm on the 6th Dcember 2006 send to each other statements of the evidence of any witnesses of fact they intend relying upon at the trial of this matter and shall append to those statemnets any documents they intend relying ipon.
I wrote to TSB, saying that the nature of the case does not required the need for witnesses and all evidence will be shown in form of bank statments. I sent them a copy of the statements that I downloaded and highlighted in green all the charges.

2/. The parties shall co-operate to prepare a bundle of documents for use at the trial such bundle to include statements referred to above.
As above, all you can supply is your bank statements as evidence - do not forget this is all the evidence you need, TSB have to defend themselves (which they will not!!) With your statements if they have any other documents to support their side you need to bundle these and forward to the courts.

3/. Each party shall prepare a skeleton argument and that shall be included in the bundle reffered to above.
This is your statement as to why and what you are claiming and should be supported by your bank statements, at this point TSB will send you info about why the charges occured etc (remember, this is the point where you are having conversations via letters etc and is the point where an agreement can be reached instead of going to court) By the way, I never got TSB's statement!!.
4/. The claimant shall lodge a copy of the bundle at court by 8th january 2007 and upon lodging of the trial bundle the court will consider the listing of the matter.
The above
5/. the parties should note that the reference to statements includes the statements of the parties themselves as well as any other witnesses they intend calling and that the judge may decide not to take into account any documents or evidence not served and lodged as directed above.

Make sure you write and supply all the evidence - if it does go to court (no way), you cannot supply more evidence later.

6/. the matter be allocated to the small claims track and listed on a date to be fixed by the court.
The date of the case if you have not reached an agreement.

i have decided to right excatly what is in front of me because if i am honest I really have no clue on what any of this means. I will be eternally gratefull if someone out there can make this a bit simpliar for me. Basically I'm thick. lol.


Many thanks.

Must admit I'm starting to worry a bit now as it all seems rather formal.

many thanks to any helpers.


Family life.

IDIDIT_2

justindoughty wrote:

bank. Barclays.
owes. £3135.00+interest

i have got as far as the bank has entered a defence in the small claims court . i am now getting worried about going to court with my case. i have got to submit my evidence to the court .can any one tell me what i need to submit to the court as evidence.

Your bank statements highlighting the charges with a letter stating the amounts, a break down of the total charges and examples e.g. went overdrawn by £5 and they charged you £30, charges for SO and DD's. I doubt very much the evidence will be used as it will not go to court - expect an offer days before the case.