Financial difficulties/hardship case

Johnny_Cogs

I've never heard of it before but I am literally about to bring natwest to task.... I'm glad you started this thread!!!!!!

RocknRollStar

Hi, just wondering if anyone can help...

I am a student in my second year and at the minute have no form of income so would have thought I would come under the title of a 'hardship case' (although I can understand not as bad a situation as some who are classed the same)

Barclays Bank owe me £418.54 and I have just completed my letter to Barclaycard who owe me £867.14. I have received the letter back from Barclays (stage after applying for the records) that basically says they can't understand how I am a hardship case?!

Well maybe the fact I have no income and plenty of outgoings, usually including a monthly bank charge from themselves.

What do I do now? Any help would be greatly appreciated...

krisskross

RocknRollStar wrote: »

Barclays Bank owe me £418.54 and I have just completed my letter to Barclaycard who owe me £867.14. I have received the letter back from Barclays (stage after applying for the records) that basically says they can't understand how I am a hardship case?!
.

The court case has not been settled and the final resolution could still be years away. It is a dangerous frame of mind to be in to be thinking that the banks 'owe' refunds of charges levied. It has still not been decided whether the charges are 'unlawful'.

novelli

I recently spoke to HSBC re hardship and charges, they got me to fill in one of their forms with income and expenditure (another one)!!
Total in charges if 4,200.
They came back and said they would make an interim payment of £500 to my account, and should they lose the case they would then pay the rest, if they win the case they wont ask for it back. I tried pushing them for more, in the end they came back and said they would up it to £1000 interim payment, BUT that it would only be if they paid off any debts direct, not put it in my account!!!!!!! I wasnt happy with this at all, its my money why should they dictate how i spend it!! So i had to revert back to the £500, which has now been paid into my account.
They cant be very confident of winning, as the above shows that if they really thought they were not going to have to refund all charges, they wouldnt have refunded any!!
Also i had originally had FOS acting for me on this and they got nowhere, so maybe pays to act yourself rather than use them, they seem to bear too heavily on the banks favour!!
Problem is tho, now they have cancelled all my direct debits and i have had an internal email saying they my account has been temporarily suspended to prevent further charges (it wasnt overdrawn)!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not sure the department i had been dealing with had any knowledge of this, anyway ive transferred the money out of the account so they cant knab it back!!! One department really does not know what the other is doing!!!
So more lengthy calls with them again today to ask what on earth is going on!!!

catten80

Hi all,

My partner went bankrupt in Dec and one of the debters was HSBC for a joint account held with my partner.

They have now tranfered the full amount owed to me and we are paying it off monthly.

Upon checking the bank statements we are owed £338 in charges. This of course would reduce the debt owed. I sent them the 1st letter asking for the claim to be handled as a hardship claim as my partner is bankrupt.

They sent us a letter today to acknowledge the claim but said as there is a stay and we would just have to wait for the outcome. They also sent us a 'putting your finances in order' form for us to fill detailing all our outgoings/incomings to be able to verify that we are suffering financial hardship. If it deemed we are, they will consider 're-scheduling' the debt or maybe 'alternative borrowing' would help us.

We don't want a loan and doubt we would get it anyway.

What should we do now?

Spongebob64

I have recently found myself in a position where I have been crippled by bank charges whilst at the same time having to support my family. By the middle of June this month I had reached a point where I had no funds available whatsoever whilst needing to support a wife, a six month old baby, a 3 year old son with severe autism, a 5 year old daughter who is very seriously ill with bacterial meningitis and a 7 year old son.

Does this count as a hardship case? Lloyds says it doesn't

Spongebob

NUFCnutter

Despite me trying and trying to get HSBC to take my financial statement (at their requet) they have refused to. Therefore I went to my local county court yesterday and have the papers to fill in to take them to court. I am disgusted at their attitude. Despite numerous calls they are just not willing to play ball.

DONAGH_GIRL

Hi everyone,
well i owed my bank £270 with an unauthorized overdraft.howver in the past 12 months they charged me £360 for going overdrawn. so i sent them one of the templates from here and got the standard reply bk about the test cases. I am howver suffering financial hardship , due to being on benefits , lone parent with 3 children,and mostly becuase i fled my hoem last year as i was a victim of a sexual assault, and didnt feel safe living there.i went into a refuge and have since been rehoused in a new area, with the support of the police and victim support. when i wrote my second letter to the bank i briefly explained that the reason i had incurred these charges in the past 12 months was becuase of what had happened, and that id had to start my life all over again, and buy everything again, due to fleeing my property.
i then had a letter back on friday saying they had tried to contact me to discuss my financial statement which i had enclosed
(they had sent me a small leaflet to fill in, and the figures where worked out in a monthly column, so i had to fill in amonthly figure.)
so , i rang them and was asked to go through my figures again, which i had in front of me(luckily kept a copy). i told the lady that nothing had changed financially since id sent my statement in the week before, however she insisted in asking me all the amounts again, whiich i gave her. I felt that i was beign tested to make sure i had told the truth.
she then went on to ask if i had any other income, to which i explained no. she grilled me about whether i recieved maintainence for my kids, and when i explained that one of the dads had been assessed and didnt have to pay anything , and the other 2 dads couldnt be found, she was saying typical men??
Anyhow, she established all my figurs and my situation and told me she would call me back that day.
I recived the next phone call a few hours later, but i sensed her tone had changed with me.she told me she had worked out my figures on an annual basis, and that i had money to spare every week, as some months had 5 weeks instead of 4. she told me she had checked my previuos satements (as i used to get my income support paid into my account) and she had obtained an accurate figur for my income support. i explained that this amount chaged very few months as i am paying back several payments to social fund. she asked me what that was? i told her loans from the social. anyhow she was going over the figures again and agian trying to add bits on here and there,. she tole me i wouldtn qualify for hardship unless i had no money left at the end of each week, but according to her i had around £30 a week to spare. i assured her this is not the case. anyway, she told me i would not receive a lumpsum if i was claimng hardship as it cud onyl be used to wipe out debts and arrears. ? anyhow, she then went on to grill me about why i had to leave all my belongings behind. i reminded her, and i was quite upset, actually crying badly, and she asked me, could i not have got someone to go back to the property to get the stuff????? i was stunned. i told her she had no knowledge fo the situation and how could she make an assumption of what i could have done. i told her if she doubted my credibility, i would provide her with the contact details for the cid involved in the case and also the contact details for the refuge .i also hadmy bank account registerd to the refuge address last year which i told her she could check,she told me basically she couldnt help me, as far as a lumpsum went, becos i had worked out my income incorrectly, (sorry also grilled me in the first fone call about whether i smoked, drank or ever had trips to cinema? i answered no to all them ,and then wanted to kknow did the kids attend any after school clubs that have to be paid for. also when i explained that i had nothing when i moved here and had to start from scratch and buy little things each week, essential items, curtains etc, she told me that was entertainment .
i was cryign really badly as she had brought the whole incidnet back to me. i told her regardless of her figures i had no money and could not afford to repay the £270 unauthorised overdraft. i told her if necessary i will wait for the court case to get the over drat cleared. she said if i only wanted the overdraft cleared she would do it. despite telling me a few mins befor ethat i was not in finacnial hardship? told me i would have no overdraft in future.i said that is ok as i never wanted one to begin with.
so on saturday i got a leter dated 10 june, saying further to our conversation on 27 june we have established you are facng financial difficulty and are prepared to make the payment to refund £275.38 and this will allow us to repay your overdraft etc. the reference number was wrong? it was a digit different from my account number. the second page which i had to sign and return to accept the offer, had the account number on it with a digit missing form the middle of it, adn said on the accpetance, i accept the payment of £1412??
so what do you all make of that?
i have signed it, amedned my account number (mising digit) and retrned it.
my question now is , whilst i know i can claimthe £360- £278 after the cuort case, should i be puttign a compliant to the bank head office about this service i have recived, and also if the bank do over pay me and i withdraw it, would i be liable to repay the money as it is their error.(a bit of a silly question i guess! ,)but i m more concerned about the complaint thing and should i try to seek soem compensation by complaining or wait fro the court case. any advice welcome.

natweststaffmember

If the bank overpay you then they can legitimately take you to court over any amount above what you have agreed. It does sound like your personal circumstances have been pretty horrific. If you accept the amount as a full and final settlement then you will not be able to claim anything further from the bank. I do hope that your life improves after such a horrific ordeal.

vmf199

Hello

I put in a claim for unfair bank charges a while ago (I had £895 worth of unfair charges from past 6 years!) I got the standard letter saying all claims are on hold until outcome of case.

Then recently I ceased working and I am hoping to start getting JSA tomorrow. So I decided to write and ask that they deal with my complaint given the financial hardship (exemption where they have to deal with claim if there's a case of financial hardship).

They have sent me a 'Common Financial Statement' v3 form.

I was just wondering if I have any savings will that mean there isn't a case of financial hardship. Also, one of the boxes to tick is 'Please confirm that you have discussed the use of assets to make lump sum payments'....does that mean you are exected to sell items you own?

Is it very difficult to establish financial hardship? And once they do does that mean they pay back unfair charges or just offer a smaller settlement figure?

I'd be very interested in other people's experiences of this.
Any advice or information gratefully received.
Thanks in advance