possible loophole??

jo_ray

anyway, have to go now, need to unpack, and get the washing machine on,don't think i will be back on tonight.i will probably leave it now til tomorrow.

what i really don't get is ..why people are intent on messing all this up, when i am trying to do something that , we will all benefit by? i do obviously have quite a good knowledge of the system, and you are talking to me like i'm talking rubbish.


bye, for now

Labman_2

jo_ray wrote: »

i do obviously have quite a good knowledge of the system,

Really!....by what criteria...I've not had any charges...ever....you?...so perhaps I have a better knowledge than you?

surfcat

jo_ray wrote: »

what i really don't get is ..why people are intent on messing all this up, when i am trying to do something that , we will all benefit by? i do obviously have quite a good knowledge of the system, and you are talking to me like i'm talking rubbish.


bye, for now

What you don't seem to get is that if the banks lose the case, then we will all lose out through increased charges, and it will be those who can ill afford it who lose out the most.

MonkeyMad

jo_ray wrote: »

in your opinion it's not worth pursuing this,all i know is this is how most of us got charged,.....

I said earlier I work with some real hardship cases. I have helped them write letters to reclaim unfair charges, and as the current thinking is that the level of charge (not the charge itself) is excessive and people should only pay what the owe I feel it is right to get it bacl. But in all these cases the charges were incurred because there was no option but to exceed the overdraft limit. Not one of them was charged because transactions arrived late and none of them thought that was particulary wrong anyway.

I have been thinking about what I would say if I wanted to reclaim in your case, and really can't think of a convincing argument (I can think of an precedent that might work but it is lnot likely if you always carry small balances). Since you have told us that you have noticed that some transactions have gone through and some haven't since coming back off holiday, you do know what you have been spending and where. By implication you admit that you know your balance is incorrect.

It wouldn't sound too good if I were to write 'I noticed that the balance that was displayed on-screen was more than I though it should have been given the level of spending I had incurred. Checking my mini-statement I noticed that several transactions were yet to appear confirming my suspicion. Even so I decided to spend without calculating or confirming a true balance'

I will grant that the first time this happens to you, nobody would blame you for being annoyed, but surely that should be the last time it happens to you since you know you can't rely on the statement information and do know what is moving through your account.

I don't know if you are still having issues, but the problem you have described of transactions taking time to appear and causing charges is one of cash flow. If this is a real issue to you why not just use a credit card for the majority of your spending and pay it off each month? Given the problem you have described (which I have interpreted as not consistant overspend each month) it should be virtually impossible to exceed a reasonable credit card limit with the added bonus of delaying payment by at least 28 days. If the problem is consistant overspend this is not appropriate, and you should address that before anything else.

Either way you need to do something yourself before looking for other solutions. This site is about maximising your finances through taking control, but you just seem determined to avoid that. The minute you rely on the banking community to look after your affairs in your interest you have lost.

This just a question - If you had had an up-to-the-minute balance would you really, truly, honestly have postponed your shoppng or done less of it? If you would not, or would have bought the same, then it wouldn't matter to you when transactions were posted. If you would have done less shopping to avoid the bank charge you are demonstrating you are willing to improvise, adapt and overcome so begin to keep your own balance. There is loads of information on these forums to help you.

BTW:
I use cash only when I have to (except when paid to me).
I only check my bank statement when it arrives in the post, I don't bother with mini statments.
I only check my balance on-line against my paper statement and have only done that for a couple of years.
I run my current account to within an inch of its life and always have done.
No charges yet, I have made more out of them :rotfl:

lindilou39

I personally think in some respects we are all being ripped off...hence the mortgage arrangement fee....what is it now..apprx £500.....then if we do right thing and try clear it off, we,re charged an early settlement fee...!!!!!! is that all about??? !!!!!! if i wanna clear my debt off sooner should it cost me? (or is that the bank being greedy yet again).

jo_ray

* note in all this i have never mentioned having charges myself, i wonder why that is? maybe because i have had none to speak of.
Hubby on the other hand has had £2000 worth, he has been charged for being anything from 49p over to £4.75 this is hardly blow the budget stuff, like i say we have only had a computer, for about six months most of this happened before hand, so i belive in what im saying, coz i know it's not for the lack of trying.we have credit cards but, these are for emergencys , not for living on. so we do have a responsible attitude to money.
the reason i suspect he has so many is due in part, to him being paid weekly,therefore we are near zero every week , and not monthly.

jo_ray

so yeh, i really do think it would have helped to have an accurate balance, i could have given him money,or we could have used an emergency credit card, we do not choose to live our lives on credit,(if we can help it, but if needed, it is there) not knocking anyone else
i do belive we could have cut our cloth accordingly,but, before you know it the pennys have added up, and your over. i saw a man on t.v who was charged for being 10p over.

jo_ray

not saying things have always been as easy, 3 and a half years ago, i was on maternity pay, we had just booked our wedding in the dominican republic, and hubby walked out of his job ,we could not claim anything, because he walked out,so we lived on credit cards then. he then invested £2000 on retraining for a new job entirely.it took 5 months before he went back to work. we have not long recovered from it all.

luckily we did have them for an emergency.

MonkeyMad

jo_ray wrote: »

we have credit cards but, these are for emergencys , not for living on. so we do have a responsible attitude to money.
the reason i suspect he has so many is due in part, to him being paid weekly,therefore we are near zero every week , and not monthly.

No they're not. They are for postponing payment; savings are for emergencies. I buy everything on a credit card, and earn interest on the money I keep for longer. Sounds ideal if you get paid weekly. Racking up £2000 pounds worth of avoidable charges doesn't sound too responsible to me. Neither does living off a credit card when you have no income. Again people try to help you in ways that would actually make you better off and you get on your persecution bandwagon. Your current account is always close to zero; you have a cash flow issue; avoid using the current account if you can. If OH accrues most of the chrages take his cards of him and give him cash, or use a credit card. The circumstances of your financial situation of past years are entirely irrelevant - banks do not yet have charitable status.

_jo_ray wrote:

* note in all this i have never mentioned having charges myself, i wonder why that is? maybe because i have had none to speak of.

Good for you. Perhaps you should have told OH your secret.

lindilou39 wrote:

I personally think in some respects we are all being ripped off...hence the mortgage arrangement fee....what is it now..apprx £500.....then if we do right thing and try clear it off, we,re charged an early settlement fee...!!!!!! is that all about??? !!!!!! if i wanna clear my debt off sooner should it cost me? (or is that the bank being greedy yet again).

Banks may have themselves borrowed the money they lend to you. It costs them so it costs you. If it is paid back early it may cost them, it costs you. If it wasn't in a fee it would be a higher interest rate.

jo_ray

how would you have suggested we got by on fresh air?
i know he walked out, but that's a very hard thing to say, he took a gamble with the training ,it paid off. we had used up our savings on the wedding deposit.point is... if we had already, had a substantial balance on our credit cards.we would not have been in the position to do this.
i have always left about £5 in my account, this is the system we now use for him as well getting cash out, as i say it's been a while since he has had a charge, so it seems to be working.but all this, is no substitute to a correct balance