Bank Charges Success Stories II

tmcg147

Total newbie here

i bank with halifax - almost 20 years now - and have recently separated from my wife. To cut a long story short, the separation has led to financial hardship, especially over the last 6 months with loads of bank charges for direct debits and exceeding over draft limits - in the last 2 months alone i have paid over 300quid in bank charges. a friend directed me here and advised me to start the process of reclaiming the bank charges, in the meantime i have had to get a personal loan from halifax to assist in clearing the overdraft.

so i have 2 early questions - should i firstly request detials of all bank charges from halifax for just this year or the past 6 years? and will instigating this process affect my loan with halifax?

meggamee

Barclays : requested £5,000 through financial hardship.

I put in a claim in September 07, it was put on hold. I am now in finacial difficulty through losing my job. i am a single parent and on job seekers allowance of £34 a week!
I rang the bank this morning and they couldnt find my original claim! i got my letters out, gave them a reference number and woo hoo they found it.
They have now passed my claim to the hardship dept and i should hear from them soon. Will probably have to fill in an income and expenditure form, but if they just look at my account they can see how i am struggling. But at least the ball is rolling and after reading some of your success stories i hope to add to them in the future.
Thank you to every one who has posted on this site as it made me go for it :-)
I will keep you informed of my progress.

natweststaffmember

tmcg147 wrote: »

Total newbie here

i bank with halifax - almost 20 years now - and have recently separated from my wife. To cut a long story short, the separation has led to financial hardship, especially over the last 6 months with loads of bank charges for direct debits and exceeding over draft limits - in the last 2 months alone i have paid over 300quid in bank charges. a friend directed me here and advised me to start the process of reclaiming the bank charges, in the meantime i have had to get a personal loan from halifax to assist in clearing the overdraft.

so i have 2 early questions - should i firstly request detials of all bank charges from halifax for just this year or the past 6 years? and will instigating this process affect my loan with halifax?

Request all charges since July 2001 and reclaim the lot. I'm not sure the loan was a good idea personally since that may be making your situation better rather than worse. If you have credit card charges then you need to reclaim the lot as well.

bonsia8

I wanted to share that it is possible to get your hardship case looked into, don't be put off by the bank, show all evidence at your disposal to prove your case and state your case clearly and request that they deal with your hardship claim quickly (as the FOS has written to all financial insitutions reminding them to do so). This will help if you have to take your case to the FOS for assistance.

I was a customer of RBS for over 20 years and am in a debt management programme. They continually failed to help me when I asked for debt management advice but were happy to keep charging high levels of charges on my account. They eventually offered me over 13k back in charges which i accepted as a part payment on the total sum which I believe was owed. I understand how stressful debt can be but do carry on with your claim, do not be discouraged by any negative responses. You I am sure would not have incuured the level of debt if you had not had to find extra sums to pay for these charges.

Totally_indebt

Hi All,

After speaking with my Bank (Barclays) I called them to request a list of charges, but they confirmed that I would only be able to claim the last 6 years - is this right?

Is there any legality around how far back you can claim, or anything that I can confirm to Barclays quoting? I did read on prior posts, to claim back from Jul 2001.

Any help you can provide would be great!

Thanks

natweststaffmember

Totally_indebt wrote: »

Hi All,

After speaking with my Bank (Barclays) I called them to request a list of charges, but they confirmed that I would only be able to claim the last 6 years - is this right?

Is there any legality around how far back you can claim, or anything that I can confirm to Barclays quoting? I did read on prior posts, to claim back from Jul 2001.

Any help you can provide would be great!

Thanks

Ask them to put it in writing cos that does not comply with the FSA Waiver on bank charges so ask them again, are they prepared to breach the FSA Waiver on Bank charges or not?

smiler1978

Hi all

I read this site lots - its fantastic!
Im wondering if anyone can give me some advice.
I have managed to claim back thousands of credit card charges which have come off the balances.
My claim for bank charges has been going on for years but only this year have I pushed it personally.
I used to bank with......yes wait for it.....LLoyds TSB and have two overdraft accounts and two credit card accounts.
I started using Gregory Pennington for a debt managegment plan in April and Lloyds are still the only ones to accept only two out of the four accounts and are still charging me interest and charges even though they have agreed not to!
They simply take my payment from Gregory and send me over the overdraft limit with interest ( I pay £6 in and they take £34 interest monthly!) , they then charge me daily upto the limit of ten days! To rectify the problem....they increase the over limit knowing full well they are getting me into more debt and the whole situation will repeat next month.
I contacted the Ombudsman several months ago and it is now what Im told is in 'the final stages'. An adjudicator is now dealing with the case - she has called me and requested a small amount of additional info but she informed me that yesterday was the deadline for her response from Lloyds.
I guess what I want to know is what power do they have over the banks? Lloyds agreed that I was in financial hardship yet they wouldnt act on it and are only making matters worse with charges e.t.c
When I added up earlier in the year the charges I had accrued they were over 9k!!! I feel I dont have a hope in hell of getting these charges back even though they account for a third of my debt!
Can anyone advise
Thanks
Steph

Makela2009

Natwest Success prior to Bank Charge court case

Hi,
I claimed a while ago (Dec 2007) but never posted my success.
Natwest paid back £2150 in chargs plus interest!! The whole process took about 8 weeks and was very well handled by Natwest.

I've just claimed my PPI from them too - £4200!!! woo-hooo

Makela2009

Credit Card reclaim success
I have successfully claimed the following

MBNA £270
LloydsTSB £760
Capital One £120
Natwest £190

In all cases I only had to send the template letters and got every penny back (though in some cases I didn't get the interest).

Also, claimed for family and friends as follows
HBoS Bank Charges £2700
Barclays Bank Charges £3300

bring it on!!

sultony

I first made my claim for over £5,000 two years ago and am still waiting. The last letter I received from Natwest Customer Response unit this August was quote "we will resolve your complaint once the legal proceedings between the Office of Fair Trading and the banks are determined". How on earth did you get your money?