Bank Help Please - Unfair Charges

Altrezia

Hello guys and gals.

Right, this is a long one, so may be dull. I'm at the end of my tether with this now, and really could use some advice.

Story goes.

We moved joint bank accounts, from one bank to another. The new bank automatically transfered our direct debits and all is good.

We had a current account and a savings account with the first bank.

The bank account was zero, and we had planned to close the account, but only after a couple of months in the new account making sure it was OK and what-not.

Savings account had £1.40 in. Due to restrictions on transfering money from savings account, there was no way except going into a branch to get the money out. We decided to leave it there.

2 weeks later a bill payment was attempted to be taken from the account, but was refused due to lack of funds. It was a card-payment, from a web hosting company. They didnt use direct debit but repeating card payments, so this wasn't transfered to the new account.

6 weeks after we moved banks, the above bill payment was tried again (for the following month), and for some reason the bank allowed it to be taken, even though the bank account had no money in, and even though they had previously refused it (and not warned us). This obviously made us go overdrawn, and they charged us for this.

They sent a letter to us, explaining that we would have to pay the overdraft fee and the payment amount that was taken.

My wife phoned and explained that she had no money until payday, and we would pay on that date (3 weeks time) - the lady on the phone agreed, and said she would make a note on the account about it.

My wife paid by bank transfer on her payday, but made a mistake and under-paid by 7 pence. She didn't realise this mistake.

About 2 weeks later we got a letter telling us that we were 7p overdrawn, and could we please pay it.

My wife sent a cheque for 7p, as well as our chequebooks and cards and a letter asking to close the account.

10 days after sending this letter, we recieved another letter claiming that we were £149.93 overdrawn.

The letter also had this bit of text:

banks_letter wrote:

In accordance with your account Terms and Conditions, any funds available in a linked Current or Savings account will be transferred to cover the amount overdrawn, or will be used as a part payment.

I phoned the bank to clear up the matter, and find out why we were now so massivly overdrawn, and they claimed that there was a £5 per day unauthorized charge that is not in our terms and conditions.

I told them that I would definitely not be paying the £149.93, and I asked why they had not taken the 7p from our savings account as per the terms and conditions, and the lady said she couldnt do anything about it, as she did not have the power. I asked to speak to a manager, and she said she would get one to call me back.

About 3 hours after this, I got a call back, and spoke to a manager. I posed my original question asking why the 7p hadn't been taken from our savings account. He agree'd that we should not be paying the fee's, and agreed to take seven pence from our savings account, and close our current account. Not only this, but he said he would waiver the charges. Great!

Or so we thought.

We checked online about a week later, and saw that he had taken 7p from our savings account, and also they had cashed the 7p cheque we had sent in. Unfortunatley the online banking was showing the account still overdrawn to the tune of £149.85. We hoped that the system was just being slow to update, and said we'd check back again another time.

2 weeks after this, we got another letter asking us to py £149.85. I phoned back and explained the situation, and again, asked to speak to a manager. The lady said she was surprised the first manager had said he would write the charge off, but she would confirm and someone would call me, and I agreed, since they did so last time.

Note that the amount outstanding had NOT gone up in those two weeks. I was hopeful that they would close the account and someone would have made a mistake.

I never heard anything back.

Today, we recieved another letter asking us to pay the currently overdrawn amount on the account - £269.93!

So, what should I do? I have it in writing that they will use any savings to cover any short-fall in the current account, but this was not done. I have nothing telling me about any £5 per day charges, yet this was done. I also have not heard why the fees have started to rise again, or an explanation as to why they had stopped for a period in the middle.

I dont want to phone them back, again, and not be called back.

My wife is heavily pregnant (read hormonal) and has become upset trying to deal with it so it's been left to me. I really have run out of patience, ideas, or the will to continue, but I really do not want to pay the best part of £300 for what I think is a banking error!

I really hope one of you lot can help. Or, if you can suggest what section this should have been posted in, please can a mod move it there or let me know where to re-post it.

Many thanks,

Alex (and Nicky!)

Night-owl_6

This may be of use to send to your bank to request refund:



[Your address]
[Your address]
[Your address]
[Your phone number]

[Date]


[Name and address of bank]


Dear Sir or Madam,


Ref: Account number: [your account number]

I would like to request a refund of all the default charges that have been applied to my account.

Under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 charges must reflect administration costs and cannot be punitive. I believe that the following [insert details of charges] are unlawful as they do not reflect the true cost of going into an unauthorised overdraft.

You have taken [insert charges amount here] from me, plus [insert overdraft interest amount here] overdraft interest and I would like to request repayment of this [insert total sum] total sum. I also ask you to ensure any default notices entered against my credit record are removed entirely.

Please repay this money in full and remove any default notices within 14 days. If this is not done, I will begin a claim against you for the full amount, plus interest and my costs.


Yours faithfully,


[Your signature]