bank charge reply

lbol

I chanced my luck by writing to my banks-BofS and Santander to claim back my bank charges as im stuck in a cycle of getting them (and have been in past) and i'm living off mostly credit recently. However they have both replied saying;

'fees have been applied correctly in line with policy terms and conditions'.

do people think this is worth pursuing or should I just accept it?

dunstonh

Banks dont have to refund any charges. They will refund as goodwill payments typically to first time "offenders" or those that meet their financial hardship criteria.

When you made you request for a refund, did you make it clear that you felt you were in financial hardship and gave them a breakdown of you arrears, defaults etc and a budget analysis or did you go down the route of saying how unfair they were?

lbol

thanks for your reply,

i said i felt they were unfair, but also said i was in financial hardship and finding it hard to meet monthly payments, living off credit etc

thanks

dunstonh

i said i felt they were unfair,

That is a big no no when making a bank charge refund request. The banks won the court case on unfair bank charges and now reject unfair bank charge letters.

but also said i was in financial hardship and finding it hard to meet monthly payments, living off credit etc

Did you give them any breakdown of your financial position, debts you have with arrears, defaults and why your income has dropped to put you in this position? You have to state you are requesting they look at it under their financial hardship criteria in case they focus on the "unfair" bit and auto reject it.

Wywth

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/bank-charges

But it looks like even Martin may have given up on this one. Article last updated almost 5 months ago ... and link gone from toolbar too :eek:
(Maybe someone complained that "Reclaim £1,000s" could be considered false advertising? )

JuicyJesus

Wywth wrote: »

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/bank-charges

But it looks like even Martin may have given up on this one. Article last updated almost 5 months ago ... and link gone from toolbar too :eek:
(Maybe someone complained that "Reclaim £1,000s" could be considered false advertising? )

The issue was the court didn't agree with him or his contentions in the slightest. He quite bluntly said he thought bank charges were unlawful and he was massively, tremendously wrong. All avenues for getting a mass refund are now closed. The courts won't support people making claims, the FOS won't even consider complaints about "unfair" bank charges and the banks don't have to refund except in cases of goodwill or financial hardship, so the whole "charges reclaim" thing is dead in the water, and was so almost immediately after the Supreme Court found in favour of the banks. Martin was sounding off at the time about new legal arguments but he appears to have gone very quiet about this, so quiet I imagine these legal arguments never actually existed.

Meanwhile, PPI and (soon) packaged bank accounts have sprung up as the new cash cow for people to put in mass complaints about in the hopes of getting a payout, and everyone now thinks Martin is clever for pointing them out. Bank charges; old and busted. PPI; new hotness.