O/D Bank Charges went to collections agency

DownunderNorm

I had a RBS premier account in London which charged £15 a month just to have the account open.
I only used the account for 2 weeks then moved to Birmingham and opened a joint account with my partner at another bank, rendering the RSB London account useless.
I tried to close the RSB account at RSB Birmingham but they said I had to do it in London.
We were having a baby at the time and I couldn't get down to London.
When I finally had the spare time to make a brief 1hr visit to the branch they weren't able to see me because the had an insufficient number of RSB staff members working. :mad: ...Typical
Thus, my bank overdraft charges just went up and up until a collections agency took over.

I ended up paying in full £350.

My question is: Am I able to reclaim back these O/D bank charges from RSB bank even though it was sent to a collection ageny, and I have repayed all charges ?

Any help would be appreciated

krisskross

So were the charges account fees for having the premier account or did you have an overdraft which you were being charged on? I don't think you can claim the account fees as it was a service charge.

Would they not accept closure of the account in writing?

Twinkly

DownunderNorm wrote: »

I had a RBS premier account in London which charged £15 a month just to have the account open.
I only used the account for 2 weeks then moved to Birmingham and opened a joint account with my partner at another bank, rendering the RSB London account useless.
I tried to close the RSB account at RSB Birmingham but they said I had to do it in London.
We were having a baby at the time and I couldn't get down to London.
When I finally had the spare time to make a brief 1hr visit to the branch they weren't able to see me because the had an insufficient number of RSB staff members working. :mad: ...Typical
Thus, my bank overdraft charges just went up and up until a collections agency took over.

I ended up paying in full £350.

My question is: Am I able to reclaim back these O/D bank charges from RSB bank even though it was sent to a collection ageny, and I have repayed all charges ?

Any help would be appreciated

It seems that the charges applied you mention were service fees, if they consisted entirely of the £15 charge multiplied over time, and unfortunately are not reclaimable.

However given the complete lack of customer service and unreasonable demands for closing your account (go to London, from Birmingham, indeed! ) I would file full complaint to the Financial Ombudsman and let the bank argue with them about it. best of luck getting them back via the Ombudsman. I cant believe they told you go to London thats plain ridiculous!

DownunderNorm

krisskross wrote: »

Would they not accept closure of the account in writing?

I asked and the Advisor said no, which I said doesn't make sense for me to travel at this time!
She then became rude.

Which brings me to the point:
If you don't like your job working as a bank customer advisor get another one, don't just be rude to customers.
I work dealing with customers all the time, and I admit some customer complaints are non-valid, customers can become defensive or are just plain rude, and a firm approach is sometimes neccesary to get the message across
But my request was simple: I need to close my account
<there were no fees on the account at this stage>

Thanks for the advice though!
I thought as much with respect to bank fees