Credit Card Reclaiming Success Stories

boycey01

Hi all,

I'm after some advice. I wrote to Halifax on 8th Jan 2011 asking for them to repay me all the credit card charges plus interest. This amounted to £1300 (including interest). I received a reply from them today saying they are unable to offer me a refund as all the charges are in excess of 6 years! They had made charges to my account between June 2003 and November 2004. So does this mean I can not push it further? I am so gutted as i'm incredibly skint at the minute and I still owe £1000 on this credit card. Just wish now that I had claimed earlier but wasn't aware I could. I'm thinking of sending them the next letter about threatening to take it to court. Do you think I should or shall I just give up? Help! :mad:

Premier_2

boycey01 wrote: »

Hi all,

I'm after some advice. I wrote to Halifax on 8th Jan 2011 asking for them to repay me all the credit card charges plus interest. This amounted to £1300 (including interest). I received a reply from them today saying they are unable to offer me a refund as all the charges are in excess of 6 years! They had made charges to my account between June 2003 and November 2004. So does this mean I can not push it further? I am so gutted as i'm incredibly skint at the minute and I still owe £1000 on this credit card. Just wish now that I had claimed earlier but wasn't aware I could. I'm thinking of sending them the next letter about threatening to take it to court. Do you think I should or shall I just give up? Help! :mad:

Have you read the appropriate MSE guide?

There's a clue in the very first sentence

This is a step-by-step guide, including template letters, to force your current or old credit card provider(s) to repay the last six years of late payment fees or charges for going beyond your limit: ...

Later on, it is much more specific

...You need to find all the fines you’ve been charged by each credit card. You can go back six years in England and Wales or five years in Scotland; these time periods are limited by law. ...

MattyA

6 years from when though?
My understanding is from when you first became aware that the charges were unfair - I have used the OFT action in 2006 in my claims,as being the first point at which I could have / should have been aware that the charges were unfair.
I have a number of claims ongoing,have had some offers for charges(time frame not specified in the offer) but have rejected them all.
Will keep you posted.

frankiew13

We've had a couple of successes recently.

Provider: Capital One
Amount Requested: £1530ish reduced to £532 as these were charges within 6 year time frame
Amount Offered: £448.63

Sent off first letter in September and received a no in october. Re-sent the letters and received a letter asking for 4weeks. Didn't hear anything so I phoned them in early January. Received a letter on 14th January offering £448.63. Accepted straight away. Clears the balance and gives us a few extra pounds to put towards other debts

Provider: Aqua
Amount Requested: £287.23
Amount Offered: £287.88

Sent off the letter in September and didn't hear anything so sent off another one in October. Received a no around November time. Forgot about it for a while and then sent a letter on 14th January. Received a letter today offering £287.88. Accepting this straight away.

Now only have to wait for 'the big one' from Barclaycard. Sent the letter on 14th January so all fingers crossed.

Premier_2

MattyA wrote: »

6 years from when though?
My understanding is from when you first became aware that the charges were unfair - I have used the OFT action in 2006 in my claims,as being the first point at which I could have / should have been aware that the charges were unfair.
I have a number of claims ongoing,have had some offers for charges(time frame not specified in the offer) but have rejected them all.
Will keep you posted.

'The expiration of 6 years from the date on which the cause of action accrued.'

One could argue that the cause of the action actually accrued on the date you actually exceeded your credit limit or paid late, but usually it is taken as being reasonably known from the date the charge was actually posted to your account.

If your understanding was correct, do you not think Martin would have simply written:
"This is a step-by-step guide, including template letters, to force your current or old credit card provider(s) to repay late payment fees or charges for going beyond your limit since 2000: ... "
and
"You need to find all the fines you’ve been charged by each credit card. You can go back to 2000 in England and Wales or 2001 in Scotland; these time periods are limited by law."
:huh:
But he didn't, favouring the slightly more complicated explanation he did opt to use.

The fact that you appear to have been unsuccessful so far in recovery of charges based on your understanding is a further indication that you have probably been misguided.

Edit: See also above, the post immediately above this by frankiew13 where charges over 6 years old were not reimbursed.

AJHOP

Final update on my successes to date in Green below

ACCOUNT 1
Amex - Balance £1000
Claimed Fines - £428.00 (Incl 8% Interest)
£472 settlement received and account cleared and closed

ACCOUNT 2
Edge Card (Santander) - Balance £300
Claimed fines - £261 (Incl 8% Interest)
Request for fines and interest sent recorded delivery 26th July
Holding letter detailing 4 week review period received 2nd August
Went to court and won!
Settlement in my favour of £291.00 winging its way to me in the post.
Account cleared and closed.

ACCOUNT 3 (The one i know thought would will be grief)
Marbles - Balance £800
Requested statement of fines incurred 28th June
Received statement whcih only detailed fines back to late 2008 which totalled approx £200.
Awaiting them to advise on fines between 2005 and 2008!
Settlement received to the tune of £608.00.
Account cleared and closed.


ACCOUNT 4
Egg - Balance £0 and account closed
Requested statement of fines incurred on 30th July
Received all statements on 16th August and i had actually, for once, been reasonably responsible with my finances as i had incurred no fines. Notwithstanding this they were charging me PPI which i did not agree to. Settlement letter received in post friday 20th August for £572.00 which was hastily signed and posted back next day recorded delivery!
Following a bit more thought i reapplied as this loan was a wrap up of a previous loan i had under a different product and so wrote again. Received a further £1,600 in ppi paid on earlier loan which was from 2004 which was nice.

ACCOUNT 5
Mint - Balance £0 and account closed
Requested account details as i do not have any records on 30th July
Response received 4th August
Requested statement of charges incurred 7th August
No PPI applicable on this account but did get £352 in fines refunded.

ACCOUNT 6
Peugeot - Balance £0 and account closed
No PPI applicable on this account have applied for £565 in late payment fines and interest. Waiting to hear back


ACCOUNT 7
Alliance & Leicester Loan - Balance £0 and account closed
No PPI applicable on this account have requested schedule of late payment fees. Am sure this will be around the £200 mark.


So I set my mind to being debt free and thanks to this website I achieved my goal in only 6 months instead of the year I had sat down and planned to achieve it in.

Debt as of July 2010 was in total - £10,100
Debt as of January 2011 is in total - £0.00

Total reclaimed in total was - £4,660

This has been a good experience and I sleep a lot better at night.

I enjoy getting paid and not seeing my money disappear on debts anymore but it has taken six months of frugal living and watching where I spend my money.

The perverse thing is that it is through my previous stupidity with money that I have been able to get out of this position so quickly but that is the lesson I have learned.

Best of luck to the rest of you who are trying to achieve this and i can guarantee you that it is very satisfying once done

MattyA

Premier wrote: »

'The expiration of 6 years from the date on which the cause of action accrued.'

One could argue that the cause of the action actually accrued on the date you actually exceeded your credit limit or paid late, but usually it is taken as being reasonably known from the date the charge was actually posted to your account.

If your understanding was correct, do you not think Martin would have simply written:
"This is a step-by-step guide, including template letters, to force your current or old credit card provider(s) to repay late payment fees or charges for going beyond your limit since 2000: ... "
and
"You need to find all the fines you’ve been charged by each credit card. You can go back to 2000 in England and Wales or 2001 in Scotland; these time periods are limited by law."
:huh:
But he didn't, favouring the slightly more complicated explanation he did opt to use.

The fact that you appear to have been unsuccessful so far in recovery of charges based on your understanding is a further indication that you have probably been misguided.

Edit: See also above, the post immediately above this by frankiew13 where charges over 6 years old were not reimbursed.

Thanks for clearing that up for me....it is early days for me re the claims,as I said I will keep you posted.

What about reclaimomg the PPI & interest applied to the charges by the lender - can these be claimed + 8% in restitution?

Also - does the 6 years rule apply to PPI reclaims?

Premier_2

MattyA wrote: »

Thanks for clearing that up for me....it is early days for me re the claims,as I said I will keep you posted.

What about reclaimomg the PPI & interest applied to the charges by the lender - can these be claimed + 8% in restitution?

Also - does the 6 years rule apply to PPI reclaims?

There's a whole separate board devoted to reclaiming PPI and other insurance

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=169

I suggest you ask over there

(or better still read the appropriate MSE guide first)

MattyA

Premier wrote: »

There's a whole separate board devoted to reclaiming PPI and other insurance

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=169

emmawilding

WOW really inspired by AJHOP, well done!!!

so could i apply to all my closed credit card accounts and just ask for a list of charges against the account? would i have to pay anything for this information? I did try to claim credit card charges back awhile ago, but they all said no, and i have since closed the accounts and shredded statements, but i could go thru my experian report to find out what i had, cheers