Contesting old charges.

binaryuniverse

After my recent success with getting Barclays to refund some of the charges they dumped on me, I decided to take a look the history of the other accounts.

Back in late 2009 I lost my job. At the time I had a Halifax Reward current account. I've looked at an old credit report and, between that time and Jun 2010, the balance had gone from -£912 to -£1422.

Until I go fishing for my old paperwork, I can't be certain what of that was in charges or not (there will be, thanks to the extortionate OD fees) But, before I do, I have a few questions.

1) Can you still contest charges from back that far? Barclays seemed okay with it, but I think that was just inside 6 years.
2) If I don't have the paperwork, can I have Halifax send me statements from back then, and/or a summary of fees incurred?
3) How can I prove financial hardship at that time?

I should probably mention that the limit history for the account was £1150, until May 2010, when it was removed. So the charges would have been even harsher, over that amount. It's also likely the charges pushed me over that limit.

Cheers All.

sourcrates

Hi,

Yes, but get the complaint in quickly as they may not look at historic charges from more than 6 years ago.

You dont need to be specific on amounts, just say you had an account, number xxxxxxx and certain charges were added, and you want a refund as you were in financial difficulty.

They will do the leg work finding out the details etc.

You dont need to prove anything, your account activity should show something i would imagine.

binaryuniverse

Thanks. I shall give that a go, during the week.

-taff

You can't 'contest' any charges, unless you're in current financial hardship.

If you're going to write to them, please don't use the word 'unfair' anywhere as the banks won the court case in 2009.

They class financial hardship as being in a cycle of debt, so you don't have enough to pay the bills and each charge pushes you further into your overdraft. This won't work if they can see DD's for things like Sky though..