Barclays 'buffer zone' charges

kodys_angel

Hi All,

I was wondering if the Barclays 'buffer zone' charge is claimable in the same way as bank charges for going over the overdraft?
The 'buffer zone' (not sure what the correct name for it was) basically meant that you could go over the agreed overdraft by up to something like £25 but the bank would charge £22 for every 5 day period your balance was in this zone, thus avoiding returned payments etc.
This was something that was automatically applied to accounts which you had to opt out of, and I tried to on numerous occasions but couldn't because I couldn't get my account out of this zone!

I ended up with a whopping £800 worth of these charges owed to Barclays despite numerous calls to BEG them to stop charging me because this £88 a month was bleeding me dry!
I called them and advised that my partner at the time had left me with all the bills on a new mortgage and asked them to consider freezing the charges so I could pay some money back but they were extremely unhelpful.
Having been very recently made redundant and working on a temp contract with no holiday and only SSP, I ended up buying all my food shopping/petrol to get to work on a credit card just to get by month to month and eventually opened an account with another bank to stop the charges eating up all my wages on the advice of a debt helpline. (Absolutely saved my life!)
Had to move back in with my mum and considered IVA, but luckily, with some help from my mum to transfer some debts to her 0% credit cards and consolidating my loans I was able to narrowly avoid handing the house back and drastic action.
My PERFECT credit rating was obliterated and I had failed payment after failed payment thanks to Barclays.
It all culminated in a very tearful breakdown in the bank where an advisor FINALLY FROZE the charges, wrote off a couple of months, wiped out all of my savings account balance to pay off some of the debt and I had to pay the rest with a very appropriately timed bonus from work. :eek:

Needless to say I was left in a state by the classic snowball effect...! BUT I was led to believe that because this was an 'agreed' fee and not a bank charge, I'm not able to claim, is this true...?

I've worked hard to get myself to an almost debt-free situation, it would be nice to get a little bit back to pay off the last bit of debt left!

Can anyone offer any advice - is it possible to reclaim these charges? Has anyone had any experiences trying to reclaim these from Barclays?

Thanks!

[Deleted User]

You can try to reclaim this charge, but only if you are in genuine financial hardship

... but haven't you tried already and "It all culminated in a very tearful breakdown in the bank where an advisor FINALLY FROZE the charges, wrote off a couple of months, wiped out all of my savings account balance to pay off some of the debt and I had to pay the rest with a very appropriately timed bonus from work."

kodys_angel

Hi Starline,

This situation caused more than genuine financial hardship, so genuine in fact that I was severely depressed (as noted by my doctor) and even contemplated the unthinkable... The portion of charges that were 'written off' was minimal. My savings account which held the last of my redundancy money for emergencies (not much £150 or so) was used to pay some of the charges, and this was pretty much forced on me.

Either way, I was wondering if this type of 'fee' is in fact classed as a 'bank charge' for purposes of reclaiming?

Thanks,