Credit Card Reclaiming Discussion

Premier_2

lush1 wrote: »

i am going through the process of reclaiming charges from citi totalling 664.00 inc interest.....citi have offered to refund the difference between £20 fee and £12 equaling £227 inc interest......they have sent me an acceptance form which has to be back with them for 26/7 but they do not say in their letter that this was there final response...i rang them and asked if it was and was told i have to either accept offer or decline and it will move on to next stage....does anybody know if citi are likely to better there offer or will it have to go to court.....really want to avoid court or ombudsman if poss. Please tell me your experience of citi. thanks

As they have indicated it's their final offer, and re-confirmed it's their final offer ... I guess it's their final offer.
The FOS will probably agree with the bank in the offer they have made.

Expect to have to take the matter to court if you want to hold out for the full amount ... delaying the receipt of the £664.00 they have offered, and even possibly losing it altogether should the credit card company successfully defend any claim.

Remember that whilst you may argue that that even £12 is an unfair charge, the reality is that it does cost something and so to expect a full refund is something a court is unlikely to grant.

At the other extreme, Egg for example have proven to the satifaction of the OFT that £16 is not unfair for their costs incurred.

sirmarcus

lush1 wrote: »

i am going through the process of reclaiming charges from citi totalling 664.00 inc interest.....citi have offered to refund the difference between £20 fee and £12 equaling £227 inc interest......they have sent me an acceptance form which has to be back with them for 26/7 but they do not say in their letter that this was there final response...i rang them and asked if it was and was told i have to either accept offer or decline and it will move on to next stage....does anybody know if citi are likely to better there offer or will it have to go to court.....really want to avoid court or ombudsman if poss. Please tell me your experience of citi. thanks

As premier and I have indicated, it is really like a game of chess and poker. In order to get your money back, you may have to go to a small claims court and take the risk that you may lose.

For me, I was adamant that I would do this if necessary with N/wide but, fortunately for me, they settled with me before it got to this stage.

I think personally that they will settle with you rather than going to a small claims court but I cannot guarantee that.

As I said before, good luck.

jenfish_2

I have just heard back from Vanquis yesterday...finally!! Took a lot of pestering but they have now offered to refund me £180, which is 15 x £12 charges. But does anyone know if £12 is what Vanquis charge?? Dont have any of my statements with the charges on, and all they have sent me is a list of dates with £12 next to them! So bit unsure if this is the full amount or if I could be asking for more??

lush1

Premier wrote: »

As they have indicated it's their final offer, and re-confirmed it's their final offer ... I guess it's their final offer.
The FOS will probably agree with the bank in the offer they have made.

Expect to have to take the matter to court if you want to hold out for the full amount ... delaying the receipt of the £664.00 they have offered, and even possibly losing it altogether should the credit card company successfully defend any claim.

Remember that whilst you may argue that that even £12 is an unfair charge, the reality is that it does cost something and so to expect a full refund is something a court is unlikely to grant.

At the other extreme, Egg for example have proven to the satifaction of the OFT that £16 is not unfair for their costs incurred.

As i said premier they have NOT said its thier final offer, i rang them and asked if it was there final offer and they said i have to either accept or decline to go to next stage......and wondered if the next stage may be a revised offer as this is what capital one did.....but not knowing how citi play the game was hoping to get some feedback on people who have dealt with citi to see what noraml process is.

weevil_

Hi, I have finally got around to doing this (my mental state has not been up to it the last few years and all my statements were at my Mums) and some of my charges may seem small and unworthy of some of yours but I like a fight.

I started with Paypal as I pretty much had every single statement of theirs and was able to document the fees (yes I find hilighting them and putting them into spreadsheets fun). Now, when I signed up to them in 2006 they were run by GE Money and now they're run by Santander who have refused me fairly quickly as their fines have always been £12 which the OFT says is okay. Some exact wording is "When you were issued with a PayPal account, you agreed that your account would be subject to Santander Cards standard Terms and Conditions" This is not true. I signed with GE Money, I'm pretty sure Santander didn't exist in 2006. Is there any way I can use that or is it just the same as them saying I've agreed to be fined no matter who by?

They also say that as a company they've decided to refund nobody who's charges exceed £12 and have apparently refunded me £12 once in January though I'm not sure why this alone is mentioned

They've also misunderstood my charging interest on their fees, they think I'm demanding their interest back, which I wasn't. Although I do have a question about interest best left to a separate thread I think as sometimes it seems a sneaky way to charge extra fines under the radar.

Is it worth me going on? I want to, I like the fight. I want to see if their "we'll refund noone, Mum said £12 is allowed" is true or just bravado to beat me down with.

Premier_2

weevil_ wrote: »

..Is it worth me going on?...

That's a question only you can ultimately answer.

...There is a chance it’ll offer some of the money you want. If you have asked for the full refund this may be the difference between the fee and the £12 OFT recommendation. Whatever it offers, you need to decide whether it’s worth continuing or just taking the cash....

Should you accept a partial offer at this stage?

This is always a very tough decision. Whilst there’s a temptation to say ‘fight the good fight and take ‘em on’, what’s actually more important is protecting your pocket.

Let’s say you’ve £500 of charges and are offered £350; the first thing is try not to think “I’m £150 short” but instead that you’ve got £350 you thought was gone forever. The ultimate decision is yours. It’s a combination of whether you want the hassle of continuing versus the ‘certainty of the cash’.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/credit-card-charges

As I mentioned previously, if you do ultimately end up in court, you must realise that the service you have been provided has cost something and therefore you would be unlikely to get the total value of the fees charged refunded.

Your only hope is that the company can't be bothered trying to defend a claim and offer you a full refund without accepting any liability in an out of court settlement.

leclerc

weevil_ wrote: »

Hi, I have finally got around to doing this (my mental state has not been up to it the last few years and all my statements were at my Mums) and some of my charges may seem small and unworthy of some of yours but I like a fight.

I started with Paypal as I pretty much had every single statement of theirs and was able to document the fees (yes I find hilighting them and putting them into spreadsheets fun). Now, when I signed up to them in 2006 they were run by GE Money and now they're run by Santander who have refused me fairly quickly as their fines have always been £12 which the OFT says is okay. Some exact wording is "When you were issued with a PayPal account, you agreed that your account would be subject to Santander Cards standard Terms and Conditions" This is not true. I signed with GE Money, I'm pretty sure Santander didn't exist in 2006. Is there any way I can use that or is it just the same as them saying I've agreed to be fined no matter who by?

They also say that as a company they've decided to refund nobody who's charges exceed £12 and have apparently refunded me £12 once in January though I'm not sure why this alone is mentioned

They've also misunderstood my charging interest on their fees, they think I'm demanding their interest back, which I wasn't. Although I do have a question about interest best left to a separate thread I think as sometimes it seems a sneaky way to charge extra fines under the radar.

Is it worth me going on? I want to, I like the fight. I want to see if their "we'll refund noone, Mum said £12 is allowed" is true or just bravado to beat me down with.

Apologies to you weevil, am not on the forums as much as I would like as other matters have been taking my time.
"1.14 It must be stressed that this is a statement of our position and reflects the exercise of our discretion as an enforcement agency. Only a court can decide finally whether a term is unfair, or at what level default charges should be set to meet the requirements of the UTCCRs. It should be kept in mind that other enforcers may apply for injunctions under the UTCCRs and that the UTCCRs may be relied upon by consumers in private claims"

The above statement in OFT842 in April 2006 was what the OFT said in relation to their cap of £12.00.
The have ultimately said that only a court of law can decide a fair charge. Most firms pay up including the £12.00 charges. Premier, is right in saying that the credit card providers do incur costs and they have ONLY ever provided the OFT with those details which the report is from. The intention of the OFT was that firms would not just reduce it down to avoid enforcement but would specifically look at driving down the cost of a breach. As we know, self regulation doesn't work.
Keep going and they will agree a FULL refund of charges.

FatMartinR

I would like to know why Martin suggests reclaiming interest at just the court rate of 8%, and does not include the extra interest levied on the charges themselves, as per normal credit card transactions.

For example, let's say there was one charge of £35 given 3 years ago, Martin is suggesting claiming for just (£35 * 8% * 3 years) + £35 = £43.40.

Whereas, in reality, shouldn't it also include the compound interest at the credit card's APR over those 3 years ?
(For this example, let's just assume the CC's APR was a steady 25% over those 3 years).


(£35.00 * 25%) + £35.00 = £43.75 (for year 1), plus,
(£43.75 * 25%) + £43.75 = £54.69 (for year 2), plus,
(£54.69 * 25%) + £54.69 = £68.36 (for year 3), plus,
(£35.00 * 8% * 3 years) = £ 8.40.

Giving a Grand Total of £175.20.


Isn't this the true cost of being 'fined' the initial £35 (when taken over a 3 year period, and when assuming an APR of 25%) ??

barloo69

Im sure I read on this site somewhere that Martin & this site has given the most simplified way in which the masses can reclaim. Compounded interest is a completely different ball game and is a rocky road which almost certainly will see the inside of Court, so one needs to be very much on the ball. So for this reason the simplified 8% approach has been applied here.

Your argument is completely valid and nothing is stopping you from proceeding with this claim. However, you may want to read up on C/I first to add further weapons to your armoury.

Have a look on the Legal Beagles site and the C/I guru who had a very long drawn out battle there for c/i was a very nice forum subscriber called budgie.

good luck.

podperson

Credit charges were reduced to £12 in 2006 so if they are all before that date then yes they will be at £12. If you have any earlier ones they were probably charged at more but would need to request statements from Vanquis to double check.