banks charging me and im on benefits

manhater

Im sure this has been answered before but i couldnt find a thread. I had read several times that it is illegal for banks to charge me knowing i was on income support is this true?

As i have just rang my bank AGAIN to explain the lastest charge should be retracted as im on benefits and was told that it is not illegal and i should manage my money better, so they wont be stopping the charge.

Edinburghlass_2

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=269424

manhater

Thanks for that, did ring again and quoted section 187 at them, they have no interest and will not be stopping the charge. He said i can take them to court and claim if i didnt think it was right, but will be taking the money out on the day stated in letter.

NAR

And why should they? Why should everyone else pay for your inability to maintain a credit balance?

minimadtrix

NAR wrote: »

And why should they? Why should everyone else pay for your inability to maintain a credit balance?

Obviously you have never been in the unfortunate position of having to claim benefits that have been so low that it has has to be topped up with income support.

Please don't judge people whose circumstances you know nothing about. My husband once had a very serious car accident, because of someone else's inability to drive a car correctly and slamming into the back of his stationary car at 70mph resulting in hubby never being able to work again.

Thanks to this post, years down the line, he is in the process of claiming back his bank charges because he was on income support and unable to keep his bank account in order due to being in and out of hospital. Sometimes these things are out of people's controls and that's why the Act was brought into effect.

Thanks OP for bringing this to people's attention again.:T

rollergirl1507

Well said minimadtrix couldn't have said it better.

real1314

Edinburghlass wrote: »

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=269424

What that *actually" says is that the bank cannot use benefit to pay the charges. There is nothing to stop the bank from levying a charge.

minimadtrix

real1314 wrote: »

What that *actually" says is that the bank cannot use benefit to pay the charges. There is nothing to stop the bank from levying a charge.

The OP seems to see benefits as some sort of "get out of jail card", which they are not.

So, please tell us how for those people destined to be on benefits for the rest of their life, banks can claim their money back for these charges?

real1314

They can close the account and send in the baliffs to recover the amount owed.
Are you suggestin that people on benefits can simply ignore all charges, write as many chques as they like without funds to cover them, max out all their credit cards and draw money beyond their means repeatedly?

If people have a fixed income, it's up to them to manage it. Funnily enough, I and my wife both work, but our income is fixed and we have to live within it.

minimadtrix

Funnily enough, I work and my husband just gets DLA and incapacity now and we manage fine thanks. However, as I stated in a previous post, sometimes things happen that are out of our control and that is probably why the Act was put in place.

By the way, this is not an opinion site!

real1314

My initial response has now been amened to remove my "opinion" - fair comment - my bad, however no need for the "!", a simple comment would have sufficed.

However, as regards the act, all it says is that payments of benefit cannot be used to cover these charges.

So, if you've a bank account with £1 in it, and then you get £100 a week in benefit, but you spend £120 pounds via cash withdrawal, cheques etc, you end up with a balance of £19 o/d. The bank imposes a charge of £20, leaving a balance of £39o/d

The following week you get cerdited with £100 benefit and have a balance of £61, however the bank MUST give you access to the £100 of benefit that was credited. Whether they could impose a further charge for allowing access to the £100 is doubtful, however if £101 is then spent, another charge would arise.

There is nothing in that legislation that affects the contract between the bank and it's customer regarding the imposition of charges, but there is something about what the bank can do with benefit payments.