Reclaim Unfair Bank Charges article discussion Part II

Phil0250

I'd have thought that Barclays would seriously consider offering you the 25% settlement if that is what you are prepared to accept? put it this way, i'd be disappointed if they turned that down..

It seems that all banks are saying the same: 'wait until the OFT test case is concluded', but like a lot of people have said on this forum, it's important to get the claim started.

You said you were dealing with Barclays? I am about to send off an initial letter requesting my 6 year charges. Was it the 1 Churchill Place address you sent your letters to? i'm a little confused, their head office seems to list various addresses for some reason!

Many Thanks

pregnantmum

hi thanks for your reply, I am hoping they will settle at this as to be honest I am six months pregnant and am struggling financially after losing my job at Christmas as well, so I could do without the hassle of going through courts etc but am determined to fight this as this amount of money is no way justified, and also I have had fraud on my account 2 times in the past year and even though I pay identity theft insurance etc, when fraud happens there is nothing they can do and have been left in the toilet so to speak.

I set up a 'parachute' accout with another bank before I sent my letter off though as I heard they may close your account for requesting charges back. I have asked for £5995.50 as settlement instead of the full amount, I have not asked for interest either, if I did this would total to £12,000+!!!! But have forewarned them I will request this if it goes to court plus legal expenses.

I sent my letter to request information on charges to the head office, then my request letter to have them back to my local branch, which I sent recorded delivery, so they couldn't say it wasn't received. It took them less than a week to reply to say about waiting for the legal case to close to see where they stood etc, and that if I was to go to court they would apply for a 'stay' on it until everything had been completed with the OFT. It's not deterred me in the slightest and I hope you get some luck with them :-)

I just need to know where to go if they reject the offer, as I wouldn't be considered for small claims and going through the other channels could take months etc. And in all honesty I won't settle for less than my offer as I think they are getting a good enough reduction considering.

pregnantmum

the addresses for sending all the letters are posted on the thread / information bar at the top, I think it was Churchill place but double check it. I used the one given from here.

morphette

TwinsMum wrote: »

I am trying to reclaim charges from Studio Cards which is a catalouge company, who have been chargin me £20.00 everytime my payment is late, the reason my payments are late is because I pay everything via my bank online mainly, they have no facility to do this so on occasions my payment is late, £20.00 for what, sending me my next statement (no reminder) so it can't really cost them anything apart from bolder ink maybe, can I do this I have wrote to them and they say I can't as it is stated in the t&c's shall I push on and maybe send off second letter.

Twinsmum - good news - just take Studio cards to court . I took them to court recently and they paid out! I used to work for them and know that ti doesn't cost them £20 admin charge. However I couldn't win on the payment protection that they put on your catalogue account. In total I owed them £394 and in the end they cleared the whole amount outstanding on my account with them and paid my court fees of "35 plus £156 which is what was left over in total for the service charges. So I've managed to wipe a complete debt off in one go. They disputed only £96 of PPI that was part of my total reclaim but as they have actually cleared my debt and I still have £156 in the bank too I thought I would be nice and today have advised them that I will not take this further in court. So don't give up hope. Send 2nd letter but if they come back with no no no crap then take them straight to court. Please don't be scared. It's quite easy really! Good luck! xx

blurinse

Hello there i m a bit confused, i got my statement of charges from my bank but i m not too sure what the next step is, can you help me ??
Regards Ant

pregnantmum

Hi
Yes if you decide to proceed with reclaiming them then send an intial letter to request them to be paid back to you. Post this to your local branch recorded delivery instead of main office.
You will probably get a letter back saying they will not investigate anything further until th OFT report is completed, and if you take them to court they will apply for a 'stay' on the court case, and they also believe the charges to be justified. This is a delay tactic, so proceed with the second letter (you send this to the main office or return address from your response letter) to say you intend to carry on anyway. What I did was offer them a reduced (25%) settlement instead of saying I will continue with court action immediately so as for the chance to avoid any court proceedings. I have also stated that of this isn't accepted then when a claim is made through the courts interest will be added as part of the claim alongside any fees I will have to pay if I win. It's kind of in their interest to settle as my offer settlement is just short of £6k, but by reclaiming everything this will go to £10k plus, so a more than reasonable offer has been made I think.
All the templates of letters you need are at the top of the discussion threads. Just delete the inappropriate information and replace it with your own.
Be sure to think of asking for interest at the start of the claim. It is not necessary as it a bargaining tool at a later stage, but it is up to you if you want to do it from the start, so a defence from the bank won't be as tricky, also read the discussion thread on reclaiming the charges throughly as it contains a lot of helpful information on what you can reclaim and what you can't, also the amount of interest you can be entitled too. There is an interest calculator on here to help you work it all out.

You do not have to proceed with court proceedings eventually, it is just a ''intimidating tactic'' to the bank, but you are entitled to change your mind if you do not feel confident and can go through the complaints procedure of Financial Ombusdsman Service, it is a free route of reclaiming, but it could take longer and until the test case has been finalised, and this is ongoing and no one knows when it will be over. The bank will also make this suggestion, but again it is a delay tactic as they know matters won't be resolved any time soon, and it works in their favor for the short term future.

The main thing to do at the moment though is get your request for the reclaim into your bank asap.

Hope this helps and that you have some success :-)

suzysong

Hi, I have charges, just been on to my bank actually (Abbey) I see that they have charged me for paying DD when overdrawn but at the same time charged me again for the DD. I am so confused. I read on Martins site some where that it is unlawfull for the bank to take charges out of benefit funds. is there a template letter for claiming charges back for this situation. Please can some one advise.

kats9lives

hi, now i'm starting to get money back from credit card companies (which is helping paying my credit cards off) i'm no toying with the idea of tackling bank charges - however! i have a £2280 overdraft - which i'm always in. The only way i would try and claim is if the amount i'd get back covers the repayment of this over draft. My question is - do you think barclays would try and close my account with them if i just start down the route of requesting statement/charges? can't really afford for them to do this as i have a loan with them also and can NO WAY afford to pay it off and due to the recent credit crunch i don't think anyone would lend me enough to cover it?! any thoughts?

techspec

kats9lives wrote: »

hi, now i'm starting to get money back from credit card companies (which is helping paying my credit cards off) i'm no toying with the idea of tackling bank charges - however! i have a £2280 overdraft - which i'm always in. The only way i would try and claim is if the amount i'd get back covers the repayment of this over draft. My question is - do you think barclays would try and close my account with them if i just start down the route of requesting statement/charges? can't really afford for them to do this as i have a loan with them also and can NO WAY afford to pay it off and due to the recent credit crunch i don't think anyone would lend me enough to cover it?! any thoughts?

They are unlikely to take action against you at the moment, due to the suspension of claims. But my friends have been punished by credit card companies after claiming, but only when they went over limit again or were late with payments etc. In these cases, the banks have then thrown them out.

If you are really worried, then the judge will rule shortly on the case, so you will know if its worth claiming or not.

But you will not be punished for requesting statements, so do that now, as Barclays can be slow. If you proceed to claim, just make sure you keep your accounts in order if you can. They rarely retaliate if they are making money from you, and you are keeping your accounts in order.

Janmelnick

I know that the case is in court, I think I heard that it has now adjourned for a decision? Can anyone advise me?

Also do we know when a decision is expected?

Finally, if the courts find in favour of the claiments, but the banks appeal, can we force them action the existing claims through the courts or do we have to wait years?



Six years ago my husband damaged the tip of his finger. He was off work for 6 weeks resulting in pay reduction to sick pay - major drop.

Although I contacted my bank they were unwilling to help. One month alone, we incurred £800 of bank charges, in some instances, for making a direct debit payment to a charity of £2! We were always paying catch up, with almost all my income paying out charges, there was bob hope of catching up.

Luckily, he did go back to work and we did get back on track. I was extremely excited when I read about bank charges. More so, once I totalled the charges & interest and arrived at a whopping £14 800!

Not wanting to go through normal court though I followed the process on this website using the templates etc. I made one small adjustment however,

I kept each claim UNDER £5 000 and STIPULATED a period for each claim. This means that I now have 3 claims in the system, but each is seperate since it relates to a seperate period. The downside is that you have to pay three lots of court fees up front. The upside is that it is small claims court rather than major court.

I have also assisted 2 sisters and 3 friends in getting this to the Small Claims Court.

Finally;

If we all unite in this way to force the issue, why are we all not more active in other areas going up against large companies to stop them ripping us all off?


Incidentally the banks are still charging, I was £1.10 short of a £4 payment and they charged me £15! Am saving it up for claim number 4!