Can I reclaim unfair charges from a Credit Card company?

born_again

Blue_Babe said:

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. 

I think that is part of the problem. You really should have been speaking to the card company. Rather than CAB.
I know our credit team will make a decision while speaking to a person on the phone and taking their financial details. Often means interest frozen & a repayment plan sorted in one phone call. But add a 3rd party in there and it will not happen. As neither party can make a decision without account holders permission.

Blue_Babe

born_again said:

Blue_Babe said:

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. 

I think that is part of the problem. You really should have been speaking to the card company. Rather than CAB.
I know our credit team will make a decision while speaking to a person on the phone and taking their financial details. Often means interest frozen & a repayment plan sorted in one phone call. But add a 3rd party in there and it will not happen. As neither party can make a decision without account holders permission.

My mental health at that time, meant I couldn't deal with "that" conversation over the phone, especially with each company I needed to. I was lost & turned to my local CAB for help. I still wouldn't be able to hold a phone conversation, but I am well enough to converse in print now.  CAB also let me down on another topic, to do with benefit entitlement, the following year, so I won't be returning to my local CAB for advice again.

It was only a thought about requesting a refund. I'm sorry I asked now, after all of the negative comments.

Yahoo_Mail

Blue_Babe said:

born_again said:

Blue_Babe said:

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. 

I think that is part of the problem. You really should have been speaking to the card company. Rather than CAB.
I know our credit team will make a decision while speaking to a person on the phone and taking their financial details. Often means interest frozen & a repayment plan sorted in one phone call. But add a 3rd party in there and it will not happen. As neither party can make a decision without account holders permission.

My mental health at that time, meant I couldn't deal with "that" conversation over the phone, especially with each company I needed to. I was lost & turned to my local CAB for help. I still wouldn't be able to hold a phone conversation, but I am well enough to converse in print now.  CAB also let me down on another topic, to do with benefit entitlement, the following year, so I won't be returning to my local CAB for advice again.

It was only a thought about requesting a refund. I'm sorry I asked now, after all of the negative comments.

The reason why you've had the response you've had (and many others get it in the same way) is by playing the victim card, calling contractual charges "unfair" and generally trying to paint companies doing exactly what they said they'd do as the bad guys.  It tends to get people's back up and elicits the exact responses you got.

If you'd asked "Could I request a refund on the charges I'd experienced as a result of financial hardship?" maybe you'd have had some more diplomatic responses.

I don't think any charges are inherently unfair if you're made aware of them before you sign a contract but the £12 charges were explicitly deemed to be "fair" by the OFT many years back. In fact, they used to be more, and given they have never increased with inflation, they're arguably fairer than ever.

MalMonroe

Blue_Babe said:

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.

Hello,
I was in similar trouble myself some time ago and just wrote to all my creditors, there were a few - and told them I could only afford to pay them £1 per month as a token payment. Some were okay and others were a bit miffed but that's all I could afford so that's what I did. 

After seeing an advert on TV, I contacted StepChange and they helped me to sort out my financial matters and suggested that I apply for a DRO, which they helped me to submit. They can help you with all aspects of debt and financial difficulty. After speaking to one of their advisers I felt so relieved. She wasn't judgemental and told me that there was a way out of my problems and she'd help me. She did. You might like to think about contacting them, too, when you feel up to it. The link is here - https://www.stepchange.org/

Citizens Advice seem to have let you down very badly. They should have told you to contact the card companies yourself in writing because I've never heard of them contacting companies on anyone else's behalf before. It's not their normal procedure.

However, to answer your original question, yes! DO write and request refunds for the charges and fees. And DO 'be greedy' (they are!!) and ask for the interest too. They can only say no and some may even say yes.

PS Ignore the negative responses, that always happens when you ask questions on here. Some people just love to feel superior to others, they can't help themselves - it's nothing personal!

D3xt3r5L4b

Blue_Babe said:

born_again said:

Blue_Babe said:

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. 

I think that is part of the problem. You really should have been speaking to the card company. Rather than CAB.
I know our credit team will make a decision while speaking to a person on the phone and taking their financial details. Often means interest frozen & a repayment plan sorted in one phone call. But add a 3rd party in there and it will not happen. As neither party can make a decision without account holders permission.

My mental health at that time, meant I couldn't deal with "that" conversation over the phone, especially with each company I needed to. I was lost & turned to my local CAB for help. I still wouldn't be able to hold a phone conversation, but I am well enough to converse in print now.  CAB also let me down on another topic, to do with benefit entitlement, the following year, so I won't be returning to my local CAB for advice again.

It was only a thought about requesting a refund. I'm sorry I asked now, after all of the negative comments.

Blue_Babe said:

born_again said:

Blue_Babe said:

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. 

I think that is part of the problem. You really should have been speaking to the card company. Rather than CAB.
I know our credit team will make a decision while speaking to a person on the phone and taking their financial details. Often means interest frozen & a repayment plan sorted in one phone call. But add a 3rd party in there and it will not happen. As neither party can make a decision without account holders permission.

My mental health at that time, meant I couldn't deal with "that" conversation over the phone, especially with each company I needed to. I was lost & turned to my local CAB for help. I still wouldn't be able to hold a phone conversation, but I am well enough to converse in print now.  CAB also let me down on another topic, to do with benefit entitlement, the following year, so I won't be returning to my local CAB for advice again.

It was only a thought about requesting a refund. I'm sorry I asked now, after all of the negative comments.

I'm not sure I would class factual statements/comments as negative?

born_again

Blue_Babe said:

born_again said:

Blue_Babe said:

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. 

I think that is part of the problem. You really should have been speaking to the card company. Rather than CAB.
I know our credit team will make a decision while speaking to a person on the phone and taking their financial details. Often means interest frozen & a repayment plan sorted in one phone call. But add a 3rd party in there and it will not happen. As neither party can make a decision without account holders permission.

My mental health at that time, meant I couldn't deal with "that" conversation over the phone, especially with each company I needed to. I was lost & turned to my local CAB for help. I still wouldn't be able to hold a phone conversation, but I am well enough to converse in print now.  CAB also let me down on another topic, to do with benefit entitlement, the following year, so I won't be returning to my local CAB for advice again.

It was only a thought about requesting a refund. I'm sorry I asked now, after all of the negative comments.

Thanks for the reply.
Not sure if you took my reply as negative, but it was not meant to be. Just a example of how easy these cases can be resolve.
The Step change advice is fantastic and often quoted by our credit team to people in your situation. 
Be careful of other companies that offer a similar service but charge.
I hope you get sorted. Asking about charges is worth it. If it gets something back towards the debt.