Stop Press - View On Oft/bank Announcement

amanda29kb

Edinburghlass wrote: »

As it is very likely that the next letter you receive from Barclays will say that all claims are suspended I would send off your next letter threatening court action in 14 days and then on the 15th day if you haven't heard then start court action. If you don't start the court action you'll find that your charges from 6 years ago will be time barred once the test case of over.

Have a read of Martin's Emergency Guide here...

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

Thanks for the advise - I had a read of Martins guide but just didn't quite get the legalities. Have not heard anything from them at all since the "8 weeks" letter. Do you think it is worth given them a call or just send off the letter?

Amanda

DIESELindustry

I'm Sorry if this is question that has already been asked and answered here because this Thread is so long and impossible to read every post.

I filed a claim through MCOL today but knew nothing about the the "Test Case" that is currently in motion. Will I have to wait until this is finished?

When asked for the address of the defendant I put the address that I have been corresponding to about the charges. and not the local branch or the address that Martin has put. Will this affect my Claim at all?

I'm also worried that i've done the wrong thing as £120 is a lot of money for me and am scared of this actually getting to court as Im not the most interlectual of people and wud be overwhelmed by the process.

jonesys_2

Sorry i cant answer your question. But wandering if you could tell me when you heard that your case was going to be stayed as iam also in court on the 14th August in Llanelli. I have heard nothing from the courts as yet, do you think i would have heard by now? also i have only had one letter from SCAM asking for more details and that was 12 June

PaulH40

Conor wrote: »

Well, it's going to go one of two ways:

1) The banks win. Those who got their money will be happy. The rest will whinge and whine on here for months about it. Life carries on as before.

And now the one that worries me the most...

2) The banks lose. Those people who were clearly informed of the charges when they opened their account and were reminded by the prominent and widely available literature available in branch get REWARDED for their financial incompetence. And here's the rub. What do you think will happen? Kiss free banking goodbye. It'll be back to the bad old days - I wonder how many of you remember those? For those of us who have business accounts, we don't have to remember. We get the bill every quarter.

I have a business bank account. Most of the transactions are free, i.e the automated ones and BACS/DD, but the rest I pay for. Now my business account, charge wise, is quite a low activity one but despite that, I rack up around £40 a year in charges.

Going on the activity in my current account and basing it on the charges for the business account, I'm looking at over £100 a year in charges on ym current account - more if they don't do free automated transactions. So for everyone in the UK unless you have a constant average balance of over £1000, and are getting the top paying interest rates, the charges will wipe out any interest you get.

Because of the way society has now gone with wages and benefits being payed by BACS, paying bills by DD, paying for shopping with debit cards, the ability to be paid in cash, pay your bills with paying in books at the GPO and just have an account to pay the mortgage have long gone. Like it or not, we're in a society where you "HAVE" to have a bank account. It's no longer a choice and the banks know this. With a potential £10Billon hit, you can be guaranteed they'll look at charging per transaction again and we'll have no choice than to accept it.

Personally I don't think Martin either thought the consequences through fully or "conveniently neglected to mention the flip side" because telling people what they want to hear gets him his 5 minutes on TV, something which this bank charges thing has got him a lot of, but saying "it may all go South and every person with a bank account will suffer" doesn't win popularity contests.

Martin may be looking clever on TV at the moment and making the "woman from the BBA look stupid" which some of you sheeple seem to think is the best thing since the coming of Christ but I wonder if he'll be so happy about the publicity if the banks lose, the charges start appearing and people figure out who to blame?

I hope the banks win. If you've any sense, you will too.

Thanks for cheering us all up with that Conor, but I think you are missing the whole point of the issue. Paying bank charges or for any other service is not a problem, in fact paying for anything where the charges are fair and honest has never been a problem with me.

However being made to pay for something without being asked and at exstortionate rates is highway robbery and why should an industry get away with it ? Why should those unfortunate to go over there overdraft be penialised and effectively be paying for for everyone else's free banking

If the banks are gonna charge for banking then bring it on, so long as they open honest and realistic with there pricing then whats the problem ?

k1mmie

moneyreclaimer wrote: »

Spoke to Barclays on Friday and they told me about the OFT taking the banks to court and about the suspension of all claims. This was the first I had heard about this action and was rather p%**ed off!! Unfortunately from the off-set we had hardly any working capital when we started the business and as we got busier and busier things spiraled (but not totally out of control). We were working out way out of our £5,000 overdraft, but when charges were constantly been taken from our account, how can you?? One quarter they took £1300 in overdraft interest, transaction fees (including £900 paid referral fees) and then bounced my mortgage, putting my children's home at risk. This was why we started the action. As Martin advised we obtained six year's worth of bank statements (this was easier than obtaining them from archives) and sent a cheque for £10 (they later sent it back saying it was a free service).
Once we calculated how much they owed us (over £7,000!!) we wrote again claiming this amount back and gave them 14 days to reply. This was handed to them on 25 June 2007. The letter they sent back to us gave us a date of 9 August when they would write with a reply - more than 6 weeks after our claim was put to them. It was quite obvious that this date was because of the impending court case - WE WERE NOT TOLD!!
Barclays office told us that it was unlikely that OUR claim would be affected due to the fact that the claim had already been put to them.
We are confused because all the evidence states that our case will be stayed like the rest - is the information correct? They were just as confused as the rest of us.
On Friday I also told them that Barclays did not want us as a customer and we did not want them as a bank, so if they could settle our overdraft (amicably) in return for us dropping our claim we could say goodbye to one another for good.
It is very unfair for those who have already started their claim to have it put on hold like this - perhaps this should apply to new claims?

Hi Moneyclaimer

I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that credit cards and business bank charges were unaffected by this test case. If you read the OFT site and anywhere it all relates to personal charges. May be worth checking!!!!!!

robbiet27

So much for the OFT to be on the consumers side - striking a deal with the banks for a test case. I do hope consumer groups etc have their say in all of this.

Its clearly simple without the outcome of the test case BANKS have been ripping us off for years - if they were not as they allege; why did thousands of them pay up at the midnight hour before court date day?

The matter should have been left as it was becasue MSE kept us on the right track and thousands have won. It was also costing the banks more in administration which was going into meltdown (based on their pure greed).

Without sounding pessimistic I fear the banks will have some sort of victory out of this test case, otherwise they would not have signed up to this deal.

If we do win I sincerely hope all banks are instructed (without us having to beg for our money) to review all customers accounts and automatically refund unlawful charges applied with interest. That would be a kick in the Ba**s to them.

As someone who took on my two banks and won I urge all to proceed with your claims whether their on hold or stayed - it'll cost the banks more on staff resources, telephone calls and postage etc - somehow we will make them pay for their greed and fat cat salaries.

robbiet27

Marq wrote: »

So what you will find is that this will be the defence for the nationwide MarkyMarkd

cheers for your reply marq - but to update you to my own claim against Nationwide on Friday they paid the whole amount including court costs and interest into my bank - so im way happy and had a cracking weekend.

Twinkly

PaulH40 wrote: »

Thanks for cheering us all up with that Conor, but I think you are missing the whole point of the issue. ..........

............If the banks are gonna charge for banking then bring it on, so long as they open honest and realistic with there pricing then whats the problem ?

Hear hear. :T

The attitude that its ok for the low earners and benefit recipients to be screwed out of what little they have so long as it doesnt affect 'your' free banking is disgusting. Anyone with such thoughts should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for demanding that they be allowed to continue to live off the misery of others.

Applying the reasoning shown and giving an opposite view I cannot think of a single good reason why I should subsidise someones else's free banking with extortionate bank charges, especially when that charge has been incurred by anothers inefficiency in handling a direct debit or payment into my account. Fortunately I am not stupid and unlike some I do not subscribe to the theory that free banking is paid for entirely from revenue raked in from bank charges and the example shown is purely for illustration of the point.

If you are seriously gullible enough to believe your bank if/when it starts charging you more and blaming the loss of revenue from unlawfully high bank charges as the reason then you are begging to be ripped off by your bank and quite frankly, deserve to be.

fatbelly

vansgirl69 wrote: »

If anyone has any advice I would be very happy. Here goes, just had my Judgment for Claimant (in default) against the ABBEY. Went into the branch this morning and asked them when they will be crediting our account. We were left waiting for about 10-15 mins (or until the Branch Manager could be bothered to get up from his chair) when he eventually turned up to speak to my husband and I he refused saying that as all cases had been put on hold they are not allowed to discuss customers claims. I pointed out to him that my judgment against themselves was made on the 23 July 2007 surely they should abide by the courts ruling and they should pay up seeing as my judgment was made before the OFT announcement last week (27 July 2007) we are now wondering whether to go ahead and appoint the Bailiffs, but we are not sure it will be worth it if the banks still refuse to pay any advice would be appreciated.

You are entitled to issue a warrant of execution and the court bailiff will remove goods belonging to the bank to the value of your claim. I guess they could apply to set aside the judgement but as far as the courts are concerned the judgement has been made and the bank ordered to pay 'forthwith'. Your branch manager is an idiot.

MartinsMyHero

lorna_anne wrote: »

Hi Marc,Just to let you know the bank has totally stone walled me with regards to my claim. So now I'm getting MEAN!!I have been in touch with my local Civil Court to ask advice on the process of my claim since the news of the OFT statement. I was told that I can still apply through the courts that they have not been told differently and that my bank has stalled me throughout my claim could go in my favour. Sooooo...here I go today to get the ball rolling through the courts.I'm nervous but very clear in the fact that I won't let the banks dictate to me how to proceed with this issue. I will let you know how things go.Thanks again for all your advice and support.Lorna

Hello All

I have just read something from a Times reader responding to an article re the OFT statement. The reader states the legal position of the OFT with regard to suspending bank charges claims through the court; basically only a judge can decide whether to stay a case, despite the OFT's statment, so it is worth pursuing your claim up until that point.

I am claiming through the Money Claim Online and put in my claim last Friday. I have already received an Acknowledgement from the Cooperative Bank and am hoping that they will not enter a defence and I will win by default. Watch this space - I'll let you know if I win on the appropriate thread.

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE WITH YOUR CLAIMS.