Bank Charges OFT Test Case Discussion

Former_MSE_Wendy

This thread is to discuss the
Bank Charges OFT Test Case article

To take part, click reply.

SarahR

My bank made me an offer which I do not want to accept but has already credited my account. I have not yet accepted or declined. What is my next step?

Edinburghlass_2

Please read the above article by Martin, all questions are answered there.

Stokey125

I think that if the Test Case was meant to bring clarity all that appears to have happened is for confusion to be caused. It was perhaps unfortuante that there was a leak of the OFT decision to bring the case before it was issued.

Matters were made worse by the fact that the banks failed to try and deal with the County Court cases in a more appropriate way. We now have the situation that claimants do not know where they stand. County Court judges appear to have decided that they will ignore the OFT case.


A sensible way forward is for two or three of the county court cases to be selected to be joined to the OFT case so that the High Court can make a decision based on evidence of the appplication of the charges. At present all the High Court will be able to do is make a declaration based on legal principle wihtout any evidence of how the matter is applied in fact.

Stokey125

I have now read Martin's article and I find the reaction of the Master of the Rolls interesting. Of particular note is that if or rather when this matter gets to the Court of Appeal he is likely to reserve this matter to himself and here this appeal. It is therefore interesting that he is not willing to stay proceedings now I am not sure whether to read this as meaning that he is likely to side with the OFT in any appeal and therefore does not want to prevent customers from obtaining a judgment now. Alternatively it could mean that as the other bodies are not providing redress he wants some form of redress available to bank customers.


On a semantic point I would prefer to use the normal definition of the 6 year rule under the Limitation Act which is that you have 6 years from the time that the cause of action first arose to bring your claim. Therefore except when you want to use the mistake exception you can only claim for charges that are 6 years old or less at the date you issued your claim not when you wrote to the bank.

DotingDad

I've read Martin's emergency update and gleaned that where there is "hardship" there is still an obligation to investigate charge claims.

I realise that there appears to be no clear definition of what constitutes hardship!

However my daughter (the reason I'm here!) is a student who has negligible (way below the tax threshold) part time earnings.

The remaining £380 (out of £590) that we consider she is owed would make an enormous difference to her.

My guess is that there are a number of students in a similar situation to my daughter so I wondered whether one of the "experts" might venture an opinion as to whether it would be worth contacting the FOS on hardship grounds given her circumstances.

mlittle

I have just received a statement of the charges from my previous bank, although I did request copies of the actual statements, which in their covering letter have stated ' fees that have been added to your account in respect of overdrafts which we did not agree with you in advance',which totals approximately £1805, although the total at the end of the statement is £ 248 !
Can I reclaim some or all of these charges bearing in mind the way the covering letter has been worded.

go_debt_go

SarahR wrote: »

My bank made me an offer which I do not want to accept but has already credited my account. I have not yet accepted or declined. What is my next step?

Was this Lloyds TSB? This happened to my sister (before the OFT test case) - she wrote to them to refuse the offer but that she would accept an amount halfway between the amount they had given her, and the amount she was requesting. Before they even received that letter, they paid the full amount of her claim into her account!!

How this will work now though, I'm afraid I don't know. You could write to say you accept that amount as a partial settlement of your claim but will be pursuing the rest, plus interest plus costs, through the Small Claims Court?

Good luck!

go_debt_go

Just an update really - I was claiming a very modest amount of £150 (£205 including interest) from Barclays.

I have been helping my sister and my colleague reclaim their money from their bank (Lloyds) too - they both got full payouts of over £2000 each about 7 to 10 days ago.

I had a 'Case Management Conference' in place for 30 July (yesterday). I went to the County Court, was shown to a room with 2 other claimants and we sat before the judge. A bank rep/lawyer? was also present.

The judge advised us of the test case, said the bank had applied for a 'stay' until the decision was known and that he agreed. Thank you and goodnight.

What a complete waste of everyone's time. I only read Martin's update today about claiming financial hardship, but I couldn't really say that for £150 could I? Would like to have asked if the others could have put this forward though, if claiming larger amounts.

Good luck everyone - keep going!

sudcorinne

Hi there

Please excuse my ignorance if this has already been covered.

I am currently at the stage of returning my allocation questionnaire (this is for Abbey) plus the extra £100 costs. Should I still return this to my local court and then wait for the bank to ask for a stay or will the stay be issued beforehand? If I don't send the aq (considering the new developments) will this mean my court case will be cancelled? Basically I don't want to fork out another £100 unecessarily.

Ches

My bank has credited my bank with a sum which I have accepted in part payment and that I would pursue the balance through the Financial Ombudsman. The bank have written to say they will relook at the complaint but will take another 4 weeks to do so. Will this now be put on hold.