Over charged interest (2x per month for 4 months)

ian_c_61

I used some cheques which had a preferential rate on a Credit card account; when the statements came in they had a monthly interest charge in the normal transaction list and a separate section detailing the preferential interest rate, cheque balance, amount paid off the preferential balance and the preferential interest. After two months I noticed that the monthly interest had increased substantially, more than I expected. When adding the two interest rates together the total was more than if the total balance had been charged for a whole month. I questioned this in July / August '07 and did not get a reply for > 6 weeks - this did not answer my question; I complained again and was told that the bank could not get the same figures as on the statement after checking several times and gave me a refund for one month. The issue had not been resolved to my satisfaction and I complained about a further three months interest amounts. After chasing up the banks many times last week they agreed that their system had calculated the statements incorrectly. I believe that the interest figure within the statement was correct and that the "Preferential" interest part of the statement should have been included for info only but had been added to the total balance each month. I doubt that this was an operator error but suspect it was a system error that may have affected anyone who had used cheques on their credit card account with this bank. I do not believe that the bank will advise anyone else about this issue, or that they will correct the system error - how should I handle this? Report it to the banking ombudsman or publicise the bank in question?