Report Bank Charges successes and failures

Renton29 wrote: »

Hi All,
Just a little bit of advise,
I've got into a little bit of financial trouble, due to moving in with my partner and extra bills etc costing me more than I can afford.
I have a Barclays Bank Account, and have been going overdrawn, passed my overdraft quite a lot recently, and so have been getting charges coming out of everywhere on this.
It is my fault as I cant afford everything, so some of my bills bounced, meaning charges applied, and then they bounced again in the same month and so more charges applied and then more charges applied for being over my limit etc...in total, just last month i was charged £245+, ....
I contacted Barclays asking for charges back due to financial hardship at this time, and they told me NO, they said I can seek advise from elsewhere, but they will not be offering me any refund.
For the last 12 months, I have been charged over £700 in charges, and they will not give me anything back....is there anything I can do about this? They have already sent me a letter saying they will not refund anything as it was my own fault going overdrawn, and not having enough money in my account to cover my bills.
Dont know what to do?

If you went to FOS because of you current financial difficulties I fear that the Bank would still not budge (and it's sometimes a long drawn out affair which would only increase your charges in the meantime) as they obviously have analysed your spending habits. Also, although the FOS might consider that the bank may have been somewhat unfair to send you elsewhere for advice knowing your current difficulties it might not consider the inability to pay some bills enough to advise the bank to possibly cough up. If you couldn't meet food/heating/health costs or if you were redundant or had some other really devastating reason then they might. Check out the FOS hardship criteria on http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/
before deciding on your options.

Perhaps the immediate option would be setting up a meeting with the manager (not counter staff) to discuss possibe ways of paying outstandings and hopefully some sort of freeze on charges for a period of time to help you get out of the mire.
Swallow your pride and make sure you admit the error of your ways that got you into the mess and say you want to do things differently in future. Also, I suppose it goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway, there are always ways we can cut our costs, it's hard but can be done and, surprisingly it does make a difference.
Good luck

hi all

small success to report!!! just received a cheque this morning from Santander for £800 for charges
only a quarter of what i claimed for but money i thought we would never seeI am writing to request that you repay all the charges in relation to direct debits, unauthorised
overdrafts and standing orders that have been applied to my account in the past six years.
I believe the fact that I have been incurring bank charges goes contrary to the aims of the Lending
Code (Section 9) and Banking Conduct of Business Sourcebook (section 5.1.4 ‘in particular, a firm
should deal fairly with a banking customer whom it has reason to believe is in financial difficulty’). My
personal situation has been affected by the charges leaving me in financial hardship and I am writing
to request that you take the following grounds into consideration:
From the start of charges in November 2004 we have had to borrow to make ends meet
We had to transfer money which we had borrowed to get out of the overdraft 26/11/04 straight
after this we were hit with charges 03/12/04 2x £25 charges. We done another transfer on
23/12/04 and again 2x £25 charges on 04/01/2005 followed by another charge on 10/01/05 of
£25.
In each yearly period you have put us under financial hardship
10/11/04 to 02/09/05 17x £25 charges, 3x£30 charges, 3x£34 charges total £617
25/10/05 to 18/10/06 24x£25 charges, 15x£34 charges total £1110
27/10/06 to 03/07/07 18x£25 charges, 4x£34 charges 1x£10 charges total £596
27/11/07 to 02/09/08 13x£25 charges, 1x£95 charges, 1x£30 charges, 1x£20 charges total £470
These do not include exceeding overdraft fees or overdraft usage fees!
You have led us to a hardship period in our lives, where we struggled to pay for food, fuel and
other necessities and we had to rely on help from family and friends
Our wages kept getting eaten up by these unfair charges and a lot of occasions we were
unable to even get out of the overdraft because of these charges
Because of such charges, nearly every month we would receive unpaid payments as we
couldn’t cope with the monies you had taken on charges the month before. You can clearly
see this in the charges as every month from dec 04 to feb 07 we had payments returned
without fail. We had to move house because we couldn’t afford rent in some of these months,
but you didn’t want to help us in that period
We were constantly over our overdraft limit and getting worse and worse and then you
decided to put us under more pressure by extending our overdraft limit from £200 to £500.
This put us further into trouble as it was quickly eaten up by your charges
We never got our head above water as charge upon charge was slapped on us every month,
making our situation even harder
You have made our situation unbearable for years and since we left you, you have continued
to hurt our situation, by putting me on a credit file, where it was all your charges that left it
there. We stopped banking in November 09 and were not over the overdraft limit, yet like many
other times on our statements, you added charge upon charge to put us over the top
You added £305 of charges in just 3 months to leave us £302 over our overdraft limit, and not
even my wages could get us back within the limits, then there would have been more charges
Financial hardship was explained as having more than £500 of charges in a year deducted out
of your account, and in 4 years you have taken that off me constantly, even doubling it in one
year!! Our standard of living has suffered as a direct result of these unfair charges you have
applied to our account
The charges total £3040.50 and I ask that you repay me the full amount.
Plus as I believe I have been unfairly deprived of the money I have calculated £1262.27 interest at the
statutory rate, the amount a court would award and I ask that this be added to my claim to give a total
of £4302.77.
I have attached a full schedule of the charges with this document.
I look forward to a full response to this letter within 14 days and if I do not receive a satisfactory
response I intend to pursue my complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service or small claims court
at the earliest opportunity.
Yours faithfully,
below is my letter for financial hardship, if it helps anybody else, let me know

KeepCalm wrote: »

Hi

I was wondering if anyone can offer any advice here. I have an account with Santander that was set up when I was very young (when it was still Abbey national). When I went to university I opened up another account and this one was only used for my grandparents who paid money into it while i was there to support me, so wages etc have never gone into it. In my second year of uni (almost 3 years ago) I set up a direct debit to cancer research for £2 a month. I left university, my grandparents stopped paying money in so I stopped using the account and havent touched/looked at it since last year.

A month or so ago I checked the account and saw it was £120 overdrawn, and not knowing why, or thinking id maybe used the card i deposited £120 in cash into the account and thought nothing more of it. I looked again yesterday and saw it was once again £120 overdrawn. Being completley horrified I called the bank and they told me there was still a direct debit coming out by cancer research (I had totally forgotten about this and it was still taking money from the account.) In total £150 in charges has been taken from my account in charges and then around £250 in interest payments, and I am horrified!

Will I be able to get any of this back? I have not received a single letter about this and thinking back I havent received any statements in the last 3/4 months, there is clear evidence of no activity e.g. me spending or having money put into the account in the last 5 months, I tried to rectify the situation the first time round when I thought that I had used the account and not remembered. The only money going out was to a cancer charity and lastly, the charges are totally disproportionate to the original overdrawn sum. On one day £125 was taken out and I cannot work out how that was possible. Reading back the posts on here its clear some people have been totally unsuccessful.

How likely is it that I will not have to pay another £120, and also get the £120 that I paid in a few months ago. I am so horrified with these charges that I just want to close the account, but am left with this charge which I don't wish to pay, and don't believe I should have to.

Why do you think you shouldn't have to pay the charges and what would be the basis of your claim?

Claiming now is only considered if you have a strong case for financial hardship. Claiming because you had forgotten about a dd you set up would not be considered, you can't blame the bank for that.. The responsibility to monitor your account is yours I'm afraid. I have to say that if I saw I was £120 overdrawn without knowing why I would have investigated and not just deposited £120 to cover it.

Why not make an appointment to see your manager to discuss. Whatever you do don't mention about the disproportionate charges.