Can I reclaim unfair charges from a Credit Card company?

Blue_Babe

I informed the card company (in writing), that I was in difficulties and that I had an appointment booked with an adviser at CAB. CAB advised me to stop making the minimum payments on my debts and to only make token £1 payments each month. CAB were very slow communicating with the card companies (I guess because they were pretty busy) and it took 6 months to get payment plans agreed. Meanwhile, the card companies continued to charge me interest (which is to be expected) but also charged me Late Payment fees, these fees took my account over the limit so then they charged me for being over the agreed limit too. Even after the payment plan of £6 a month was in place, I was still being charged £12 for being over the agreed limit, for 2 more months.

I'm wondering if I could reclaim the Late Fees and Over Limit fees, because they had already been informed that I was in financial difficulties and the company were dealing with CAB on my behalf. A refund of the interest would be nice too, but I mustn't be greedy lol. Interest & charges amount to over £600 which would make big difference to my payment duration at £6 per month.

Apologies if this topic has already been covered, but I've been searching MSE web pages & the forum pages for a few hours this evening and not found it.

D3xt3r5L4b

Why? It’s an accurate fee per the terms and conditions you agreed to.
They are within their rights to (and have done) charge you based in the way the account was being handled. 

sourcrates

Hi,
Or a less grumpy response would be yes you can complain about the charges.

Put it all in writing, if you don’t ask, you don’t get.
They have a duty to treat you fairly, to continue adding charges is not conducive to that mantra.
Mark your letter complaint, they have 8 weeks to issue you a final response, they may or may not uphold your complaint, but you have the right to make it.

D3xt3r5L4b

And you have a duty to comply with your credit agreement which clearly outlines the charges. 

[Deleted User]

You can certainly complain, they don't need to listen or accept it though. The court case in 2009 established a precedent on complaints about charges, while it was on bank charges, credit card charges are essentially the same thing. You'd be better asking them nicely rather than going in all guns blazing, you broke the agreement, the CBA gave you questionable advice, how is that the fault of the bank if you didn't tell them why you were suddenly paying £1 a month rather than asking for a financial hardship case?

sourcrates

That’s incorrect, bank charges have nothing to do with reclaiming credit card charges, they are separate things entirely, as Martin points out in his various blogs.

Blue_Babe

Deleted_User said:

You can certainly complain, they don't need to listen or accept it though. The court case in 2009 established a precedent on complaints about charges, while it was on bank charges, credit card charges are essentially the same thing. You'd be better asking them nicely rather than going in all guns blazing, you broke the agreement, the CBA gave you questionable advice, how is that the fault of the bank if you didn't tell them why you were suddenly paying £1 a month rather than asking for a financial hardship case?

My point was, the charges were added AFTER I'd contacted them about my hardship. I didn't reduce payments until after they had been advised of my position. They were already in communication with CAB, but continued to add charges. 

[Deleted User]

sourcrates said:

That’s incorrect, bank charges have nothing to do with reclaiming credit card charges, they are separate things entirely, as Martin points out in his various blogs.

Which is not what I said. Re-read, digest and answer properly.
The bank charges are separate case. However, UK law is hugely based on precedents, the bank charges case set the precedent that bank charges are not unfair, a similar case in the courts would end the same way with the court pointing out the almost identical case. Moreover, the charges were all lowered soon after the case with a cap and so on, further weakening any case 

[Deleted User]

Blue_Babe said:

Deleted_User said:

You can certainly complain, they don't need to listen or accept it though. The court case in 2009 established a precedent on complaints about charges, while it was on bank charges, credit card charges are essentially the same thing. You'd be better asking them nicely rather than going in all guns blazing, you broke the agreement, the CBA gave you questionable advice, how is that the fault of the bank if you didn't tell them why you were suddenly paying £1 a month rather than asking for a financial hardship case?

My point was, the charges were added AFTER I'd contacted them about my hardship. I didn't reduce payments until after they had been advised of my position. They were already in communication with CAB, but continued to add charges. 

The problem here being that you lowered the payments on the say so of the CAB, not after an agreement with the bank to freeze charges/interest etc.

Yahoo_Mail

Blue_Babe said:

Deleted_User said:

You can certainly complain, they don't need to listen or accept it though. The court case in 2009 established a precedent on complaints about charges, while it was on bank charges, credit card charges are essentially the same thing. You'd be better asking them nicely rather than going in all guns blazing, you broke the agreement, the CBA gave you questionable advice, how is that the fault of the bank if you didn't tell them why you were suddenly paying £1 a month rather than asking for a financial hardship case?

My point was, the charges were added AFTER I'd contacted them about my hardship. I didn't reduce payments until after they had been advised of my position. They were already in communication with CAB, but continued to add charges. 

Sounds to me like most of your charges (bar the last two months) are a result of CABs tardiness more than anything else.

I don't think it's reasonable to expect that just saying "I'm struggling" is going to result in an immediate, no questions asked freezing of interest and charges, and if CAB had pulled their finger out, those charges would have been frozen a lot sooner.

Sandtree

Deleted_User said:

You can certainly complain, they don't need to listen or accept it though. 

They are required to listen, investigate it and given an appropriate response within 8 weeks (with an update after 4 weeks if the matter is still outstanding). They certainly dont have to uphold the complaint though.

To the OP - the bank is simply holding up their part of the bargain and the fees charged appear to be in line with those previously illustrated as reasonable on a comparable product. Given it is the CAB that advised you to take this course of action why is your gripe with the bank rather than the CAB?