Using the Financial Ombudsman

Stephen_Leak

If you don't think that you could successfully handle a court claim, or can't afford the court fees and aren't eligible for fee relief, then the Financial Ombudsman is an alternative. It is free of charge and handles everything for you. It also charges the bank £400 for every complaint it receives. However, you cannot refer your claim to the Financial Ombudsman until you have been dealing with the bank for 40 days and it cannot make the bank pay up or set the level of the settlement like a court. Despite this, their success rate is good. Being financial experts, they can also threaten to ask the bank some very awkward questions. If the Financial Ombudsman is unsuccessful, you can still take the bank to court.

Please read the Reclaim Bank Charges Help thread for information and the Reclaimed Bank Charges Success Stories and Reclaimed Bank Charges Success Stories II threads for inspiration.

Debsi_2

Thanks for that Stephen. I'm now thinking of putting my claim to the FO. Sounds less daunting.;)

starsailor_3

Hi I was wondering if anyone has used the fso service and how long it has taken to sort out and the outcome,have sent off complaint form about lloyds tsb so what can i expect next?

angelwillow

Received a letter from FOS about my claim against Lloyds today saying that Lloyds claim the charges are fair and the FOS have requested further info from them in support of this - but not to expect to hear anything more from them for atleast a month.
Is this normal or should I be worried? Any help appreciated.
Thanks

KEZ74

Hello everyone

I am new here and am currently making claims from the Halifax and Nationwide.
Still waiting for bank statements from the halifax. Its been 49 days now and i have not had them yet so will be writing to them again tomorrow.

As far as my claim goes with the Nationwide, I received statements, wrote and asked for money back (got ignored) wrote again telling them that they have to responsed or i would commence court proceedings against them.

I contacted the Financial Ombudsman Service today and they were very helpful.
I was told that they would contact the banks on our behalf and have a result within no longer than 8 weeks. I was just wondering if anyone on this site had used the Financial Ombudsman Service instead of going to court and got their money back.

crazyworld_2

Hi all, hope all your claims are progressing well.

I've been drafting an attachment I intend to add to my complaint when I receive the form in the post from the Financial Ombudsman, as well as the details I'll be putting in the "Please give us any more details" section of the form itself, has anyone any thoughts on this wording, and maybe how it could be improved?

Draft of "Please give us any more details" section of FOS form:

I do not believe that the Nationwide have acted appropriately in this case. Following my initial letter requesting that penalty charges applied to my account be returned, they sent out a standard letter, which appears to be a computer generated response to every such request.

The Nationwide did not even attempt to address my concerns as an individual, which frankly concerns me. I believe that the Nationwide has a duty to be fair and transparent under the banking code, the Nationwide has not addressed my concerns whatsoever relating to its breaching of the Unfair Terms of Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 (which does state that unless a contract is individually negotiated, not merely a template contract which gives disproprtionate advantage to the supplier over the consumer it is unenforceable) and refusing to account for its excessive penalty charges regime by means of explaining exactly how they arrive at a charge of £90, or even £120 in one month when 3 or 4 direct debits are returned, the law states that such charges are supposed to be proportionate to the suppliers costs of the breach, and not exceeding that.

I have attached a copy of the Nationwide's leaflet titled "Important information Changes to your FlexAccount" (ref. P7850 March 2004) in which they state very clearly that their charges are penalty charges caused by a breach of contract, and admitting in the same leaflet that they don't conform to the law by purely charging what it costs to process such breaches, but use their charges to subsidise "an excellent range of benefits and competitive interest rates".

I would welcome a full breakdown of exactly how much it costs the Nationwide to process breaches of their terms and conditions, and what percentage of penalty charges the Nationwide are using to subsidise services for the benefit of other members. (I've heard of wealth redistribution, but this is frankly ridiculous - the exact opposite of Robin Hood) The Nationwide are not being fair at all and their terms and conditions allow a disproportionate advantage to the supplier over the consumer as I have explained above.

and this is the draft for the attachment:

Prepared 14th June 2007
Impact of Nationwide's charges and maladministration of account upon the account holder's balance and statement concerning undue financial gain

On numerous occasions the Nationwide Building Society allowed my account balance to exceed the authorised overdraft limit, due to either their penalty charges, or their failure to properly maintain my account, or both.

6th May 2005 Statement - No arranged overdraft - however Nationwide applied charged of £28.50 on 4th May when balance at +£8.03. new balance -£20.47

6th July 2005 Statement - No arranged overdraft - On 4th July 2005, when balance at +£0.36 Nationwide debited account with charge for an unpaid direct debit of £28.50, plus interest of £0.32, causing me to go into unauthorised overdraft, new balance -£28.46

6th August 2005 Statement - 3rd August 2005 balance at +£9.79, Nationwide imposed charge for returned direct debit on same date of £30, causing me to enter unauthorised overdraft, new balance -£20.21

6th October 2005 Statement - at a balance of +£25.14, Nationwide imposed a penalty charge of £30 for an unpaid direct debit, and a £0.07 interest charge causing my balance to exceed the agreed overdraft limit, new balance -£4.93

6th January 2006 Statement - No authorised overdraft - however Nationwide debited from my account £30 on 3/1/2006 for an unpaid direct debit causing me to go overdrawn by £10.16

6th October 2006 Statement - Agreed overdraft £400 - withdrawal from cash machine allowed on 25th September 2006 including charge from ATM owner of £11.50 causing my balance to go over my agreed rate, new balance -£401.77.

6th December 2006 Statement - 23rd November cash machine allowed withdrawal of £10 plus ATM fee of £1.50, taking me over my authorised overdraft limit, new balance -£401.43

6th February 2007 statement - 3rd February balance of -£388.85, 3 unpaid direct debit charges debited from my account, plus interest charge of £3.70 taking me over my authorised overdraft limit, new balance -£482.55

7th May 2007 statement - on the 22nd April 2007 I withdrew £10 cash from a Link machine when my balance was at -£350.98, which would have taken my balance to -£360.98, instead of showing this debit on the statement on this date, Nationwide took the amount from my balance on the 23rd April 2007 when my balance was then at -£390.48, forcing my balance £0.48 over the authorised overdraft limit, new balance -£400.48

In total, the above losses, not including interest applied by the Nationwide according to either their authorised, or unauthorised overdraft rates amount to £166.37.

I believe this total, relating purely to undue financial losses incurred due to the imposition of unlawful penalty charges and maladministration of my account, causing my account to break through its authorised overdraft limit by the Nationwide Building Society is a fair amount of compensation to be awarded, and does not cause undue financial gain because at the time of each instance I was led to believe that I was responsible for bringing my balance back within its limits, therefore I not only increased my authorised limit on occasions, but also paid cash into the account to cover the amounts deducted by the Nationwide.

Given that I did so on numerous occasions, I feel that it would be the just thing to recompense the total above (and please bear in mind, I am being fair in this regard as I am only requesting to be compensated the amount which the Nationwide allowed my account to exceed its authorised overdraft limit, although a case could be made whereby because I also had to pay their unauthorised rate at the time of considering how much to pay into the account, I should really be requesting compensation for those interest charges as well as I should never have been over my limit in each of the above instances, and would not have been so had the Natiownide acted lawfully, and conducted my account in the proper manner) in addition to the repayment of the unlawful penalty charges and the statutory interest awardable as shown in the attached schedule.

If the Nationwide believe that they should withold the total above, then I would like them to consider the fact that I have brought my account back within its limit on numerous occasions, despite the fact they were the ones responsible for allowing me to exceed my limit. I would consider an attempt to withold such an amount to be attempting to take the same amounts of money from me for a second time, and would unduly cause the Nationwide to financially gain from the maladministration of my account on their part in the instances shown above.

crazyworld_2

Hi angelwillow, I don't know how long has passed since you filed your complaint with the ombudsman, when I spoke to them yesterday (i'm only just beginning things with the ombudsman)they said that the bank/building society has 8 weeks to respond.

It seems good that they've said they've requested evidence from them to support their claim that their charges are fair. By all accounts it doesn't seem as though any bank/building society can justify their excessive charges.

Best wishes with your claim

christhesparky_2

Has anyone complained through the financial ombudsman to gat their charges refunded, if there is anyone who has gone down this route, how long did it take?

defender_of_the_weak

We use the Ombudsman route for all our cases and so far 100% success, normal time is 8 weeks from the letteer reclaiming charges (with a warnig to the bank 2 weeks prior to deadline and file instantly with FOS. General offer to settle in full following 'discussions with bank' appears anywhere between 2-4 months later.

Please note, in view of the increasing use of FOS as an alternative to court numers and timescales are increasing in the same way as we saw with endowments so sooner rather than later

TraceyV_2

Hi,
Just wondered if anyone had gone through the Financial Ombudsman or gone through the courts (See Martin's taking your bank to court)
If yes have you had success I have not recieved a response from Nationwide so now have to go to court but thought ide try the FO before the court but need advice really before doing so.
Thank You for reading and wish everyone luck
Tracey x