Obtaining old credit card statements without it costing £24/per year?

bdk2012

With a view to reclaiming over limit charges I recently emailed barclycard and asked for a breakdown of all the over limit charges since the cards inception, around 10 years ago. Here's the response:

"We are only able to view your recent transactions and the past five months statements in our records.

If you have not kept copies of any previous statements which you now require information from, you will need to order a paper copy. There is a charge of £2.00 per copy statement which will be applied to your Barclaycard account".

So, in order to work out what I might be able to claim back will cost me 2*12*10 = £240. Is there any way around this hefty fee?

Slingfox

Yes, a Subject Access Request would do the job, I sent mine off at the beginning of December and on the 21st I got a whole load of copy statements going back six years for the sum of £10.

Here is the link to the sample document: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/redir/beb8c4aa

bdk2012

That's great, thanks for your help.

Slingfox

Just remember that it takes a little while, send the request via recorded delivery so you can track it, and start counting the 40 days from the day after the letter arrives with the bank.

I don't think any acknowledgement was sent to me, I think I just waited and they eventually arrived out of the blue as I was fairly close to chasing them up on the request.

dunstonh

Also note that Barclaycard only keep a running 6 years worth of statements. They will also not provide you with the charges taken. They will provide you with a type of statement which may not be as detailed as your normal statement and you will have to read through them.

bdk2012

Thanks for all the feedback guys.

With this information in hand I thought I'd test the waters and sent a naive reply to Barclycard asking if paying £2 per statement was they ONLY way to get the information. They replied that it was. Thus they have at best replied in ignorance, or, at worst, withheld information. Is it worth getting on my high horse about this and making a complaint?

safestored4

Barclaycard have been correct in their reply. Reread Dunstonh's response. A SAR will get you the information they hold but not monthly statements which seems to be what you are after.

You haven't given any reasons to explain why you consider that you are entitled to a refund of the charges, but if valid you don't need the statements to reclaim these. Stop farting about and just put a reclaim in.