Reclaim Unfair Bank Charges article discussion Part II

spoiler

help please. summer of last year i sent off my cheque for £10 pounds to Lloyds requesting my 6 years bank statements, i did receive them but stupidly thats all i did. Can anyone please give me any advice on what to do now

CarolineJ325

I am on a debt management plan with CCCS. If I pursue RBS or MBNA for charges that I believe unfair, for payment protection I should have not been paying, or to reclaim money because the account was sold in error, does anyone know what will happen - will they push me for money and come out of the agreement with CCCS/force me to sell house etc?

CarolineJ325

And I have asked MBNA for a copy of my agreement, the original one and they will not give it to me; how can I get this?

ThanxandGoodbye

nova wrote: »

Hi Thanx,
Welcome to our forum. Well said, l could'nt have put it better myself. Actually l was thinking this morning that if the court case goes in our favour, purely hypothetically, do you think we could sue the banks for gaining money by deception or theft after all if it proves that the charges are unlawful, then for all this time they've been fraudulantly been taking money fom our accounts, or does that sound stupid am l just having a blonde moment?!!!!
What do you think?
Nova X

Hi Nova and all MSE fans,
A follow up to my recent HSBC Credit Card Charges scandal.
After supplying an Income and Expenditure statement due to losing my job last October and sending the first two letters asking for a refund of the Late Payment Admin Charges, I was furious to find a letter on 24th February from HSBC's Senior Manager of Collections threatening me with a Default Notice. This seems to be a remarkable coincidence of timing, not that the Card Companies would do anything underhanded or illegal - Heaven forefend! You may like to read my reply -

I refer to your letter dated24th February 2009, Reference xxx/xx signed by Helen Packwood, Senior Manager Collections, which states that HSBC will now be issuing a Default Notice and then referring this account to a Debt Collection Agency.

As you are aware from my letters of the 18th and 23rd inst., and your letters of the 18th and 20th inst. I am disputing the amount claimed by HSBC in relation to unfair and disproportionate charges.

Default action in these circumstances is clearly against the Banking Code of Practice Paragraph 13.6

I therefore contacted you on 26th February by telephone (08456 077 088), where I spoke to an operator who gave her name as “Mary” in a strong foreign accent, but declined to divulge her second name or where she was speaking from.
“Mary” went off to check after the usual security questions had been correctly answered. Almost eight minutes later, “Mary” came back on the line to say that she had now accessed my Income and Expenditure details, supplied in December 2008.
I explained that I had made the January payment and was only ten days overdue with the February payment. I offered to pay £30 immediately, to which “Mary” replied that she could not see how I could afford that as my expenditure exceeded my income currently. I repeated the offer of £30. “Mary” went off to check and after another wait, returned with a minimum payment requirement of £48! This conversation was evidently not going to result in any kind of negotiation, so I put the phone down after thanking “Mary” for her help.

HSBC is effectively refusing to accept payments or negotiate, so I request that you suspend any further charges to this account until you have repaid the money which I have been illegally deprived of, and that you do not pass my information on to Credit Reference Agencies as this would be against the Banking Code of Practice Paragraph 13.6.


I will, naturally, be checking with Experian that you have not commenced any such actions, since, as your letter points out, “this may make it difficult for you to obtain credit elsewhere in the future” – which may well be a statement of fact per se, but is evidently also a veiled threat if I do not comply with your requests.

I look forward to a full response to this letter within 14 days, otherwise I will forward copies of all correspondence between ourselves to both the FSA and the Financial Ombudsman for consideration. I am then fully prepared to commence court proceedings to reclaim my money, together with interest up to the date of judgment and any court fees.

Have a Nice Day.

Yours faithfully,


(Do you think that was too harsh?)

DUFFIELD_3

spoiler wrote: »

help please. summer of last year i sent off my cheque for £10 pounds to Lloyds requesting my 6 years bank statements, i did receive them but stupidly thats all i did. Can anyone please give me any advice on what to do now

hi
if you have all the figures and dates for charges first use the bank charges calculator on this website to work out how much they owe you with enterest.
then write to your bank using the letters set out for you on this site, ammend the letter for your purposeand enclose a list of charges.
i would suggest you send letter recorded delivery because they sometimes have a habit of saying the letter did not arrive.
read the info on this website and look at the forum for advise.
good luck
alan

natweststaffmember

ThanxandGoodbye wrote: »

Hi Nova and all MSE fans,
A follow up to my recent HSBC Credit Card Charges scandal.
After supplying an Income and Expenditure statement due to losing my job last October and sending the first two letters asking for a refund of the Late Payment Admin Charges, I was furious to find a letter on 24th February from HSBC's Senior Manager of Collections threatening me with a Default Notice. This seems to be a remarkable coincidence of timing, not that the Card Companies would do anything underhanded or illegal - Heaven forefend!

How did they respond to your letter to refund fees?
Was any of the amount being defaulted for legitimate spending?
The timing of a credit card default is irrelevant and is not part of the OFT bank charges case because its a CREDIT CARD so does not fall into that category.

ThanxandGoodbye

natweststaffmember wrote: »

How did they respond to your letter to refund fees?
Was any of the amount being defaulted for legitimate spending?
The timing of a credit card default is irrelevant and is not part of the OFT bank charges case because its a CREDIT CARD so does not fall into that category.

HSBC Response on 20th February :-

We now enclose an itemised list of the charges covering the period in question.
Attached was a spreadsheet detailing charges from 2004.

I replied by Recorded Delivery on 23rd February claiming all charges plus interest as the recommended first tranche of negotiations. So I am a little puzzled by your statement that the timing of a default notice is irrelevant, my contention was that it seemed remarkably convenient, maybe I am getting paranoid.

emoscotty28

Hi everyone

I am posting on here for some advice regarding a claim I have already with Barclays for unauthorised overdraft charges totalling approximately £1600.

I started the claim around March/April 2007 and used all the letter templates from your site (very helpful btw - thanks!!!) Anyway, after sending all the relevant correspondance, I eventually got a reply from them 3 days before the end of the 30 days cut off for them replying to my request to repay the charges, saying that all the cases were being put on hold due to the court case starting at that time. Due to this I left them to it as I thought I would wait to see the outcome of the case.
Since that time, I have been travelling with my family and therefore couldnt stay in contact with Barclays about the unlawful charges or regarding a loan account that I still owe them for (I think I owe them roughly the same amount). Having returned back into the UK approximately 3-4 months ago, finding a job then when the economic downturn hit hard around a month ago, I got made redundant and still am unemployed to this day. Because of my situation, I can honestly only see this money that Barclays owe me being able to help me out of my financial situation and I wondered where I would stand in terms of them actually paying out due to my circumstances? I realise if I got back in touch with Barclays I would have to make payments into the loan account to repay the debt which I am fully willing to do when I start full time employment, but surely if I am on benefits and struggling (I am currently living with my brother, sleeping on his sofa and cannot afford to pay him rent or contribute towards the bills) I would be still be able to reclaim the money they owe me on the basis of financial hardship? Am I correct and also how would I go about getting them to actually pay out?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

Hopeful1

Here are some useful links for people to look at as similiar questions are being posted:

This is a link to the latest update on bank charges here.

This is a link to the way to reclaim charges and the template letters here.
Remember that court claims on hold until the test case is resolved.
There are also links on this page to other forums and sources that can help with claims.

This is a link to info regarding hardship claims here.

As natweststaffmember also said, have a look on the forum as well.

Hopeful1

Regardles of the test case Subject Access Request info should be supplied within 40 days.

Credit Agreement requests should be supplied within 12 + 2 working days.


If information isn't supplied, make a formal complaint (all companies have a formal complaints procedure with set timelines within which they have to respond) and if the response is not appropriate/satisfactory take your complaint to the relevant authority eg FOS or Trading Standards.