Times article: "Student wins claim over bank charges"

dchurch24

Not really. Just the court costs - which are minimal.

That is...unless the defendent can get the claim to go through a multi-claim track instead of the small claim track. If they do, and you lose, then you are liable for their costs. I think it unlikely that this would happen, although it does seem to Abbey's tactic in an attempt to scare claimants off. Thankfully, we don't scare that easily ;-)

I would imagine that most companies would pay up once proceedings are brought against them. It's certainly their best plan of action - why risk opening the floodgates when you can shut someone up for a couple of grand?

If not and it actually gets to court, then excellent news for everyone.

lestat1977uk

ok i guess i have a lot of writting to do then, will keep you guys and girls updated as to progress.

richiethekid

How much roughly would the court costs be? And do you have to pay those up front then claim them back?

lestat1977uk

before i do though, as you seem to be almost an expert by now any last minute advice, i have about 3 banks that have charged me (i will only seek recent charges) and one big credit card which i paid off. How would you go about this?

I only ask as by now you seem to be becoming an expert, by the way how is your case comming along?

pin

Depending on the amount involed you could take the matter to the Small Claims Court. The amount involved in this has to be under £5,000. The good thing about going to the Small Claims Court is that each party has to pay its own costs.

The financial institution will probably have to send lawyers, which cost them money. Shall we say average charge out for the lawyer will be c.£150 an hour. The court hearing will be a few hours long, say about four. That means for attending court the lawyer will charge £600. On top of that, say four hours of prepartory work by the lawyer, another £600. That is £1,200 (also VAT and costs / disbursments also have to be paid and are seperate to this £1,200 cost).

For more information on bringing a small claims action have a look on the Court Service website.

richiethekid

Could you post the address of the court website by any chance?

pin

richiethekid wrote:

Could you post the address of the court website by any chance?

Use a google search maybe?

Really, it isn't that hard to find that information. Sorry for sounding so harsh, but its happened many times when people ask for something when it takes about 2 minutes to do a search on google.

Anyway here you go: http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/

dchurch24

I am by no means an expert, but I believe you can claim for the previous 6 years and you are allowed under the 1984 County Courts Act to claim 8% apr for each charge you are claiming for.
I think the costs are outlined on the hmcourts site.
If a claim is for over £1500 then you will be asked for an additional £100 when a court is allocated - this is not mentioned on their site.
If it went to court you would have to prove that the charges are punitive, as presumably the only course of action would be for them to claim that the charges were for admin costs. The onus of proof is on you.

Natwest seem to claim that a breach of contract has not occured and therefore you have just been given an extra service at a cost.

HGLTsuperstar

Thanks for the inspiration, we have been well and truly shafted by the Abbey. Not only did we not receive statements for the last 8 months, despite repeated requests including asking them to send recorded so we could prove not received, we were accumulating overdraft charges each month blissfully unaware as no statements and no notice we were going overdrawn, albeit by minor amounts which were cancelled by hubbys wages but progressively eating away at our balance. All reached a head a few weeks back when the debit card was refused in Tesco as we were now overdrawn on the overdraft, and Abbey's "customer services" (I use this term very lightly) told us they were not responsible. In fact we were not even offered a private side room in the branch, as the manager insisted on dealing with us in front of all and sundry. Got a final letter telling us we were welcome to go the ombudsman but, in so many words, we'd lose so just pay up and shut up. Well bring on the small claims court I say and good luck to the rest of you. I know banks in general are scum, but there does seem to be a larger proportion of complaints about Abbey than others, noted even before my recent qualms with them

dchurch24

I have heard of a 'Boycott-Abbey' email going around, but I have not actually seen it.

Does anyone have a copy of this that they could PM to me?