Hi

I am trying to reclaim charges relating to my overdraft and the fees I incurred. I used the templates on here to submit my claim and they have denied it. They also state I have not demonstrated financial hardship. I also had a Lloyds account when I was a student and I racked up a lot of fees but wasn't sure if they would quote the Limitation Act to so I've held off pursuing it for now. Any further advuce gratefully received.

What evidence did you supply of current financial hardship?

Are you still incurring these charges?

Bank name: Barclays
I used Revolver from this site. I had zero information - just said that I had been told I had to have Barclays Additions if I wanted to retain an overdraft. There were 4 key benefits at that point - none of which we used and most if not all we were ineligible for anyway. Turned out we'd had it since 1996 - they paid out to 2004 and gave me 8% interest on it. All from a form that took less than 20 minutes and a 20 minute phone call. In about 2004 we upgraded to a Barclays Additions Plus - they argued I should have known if that was unsuitable at that point and that I had been written to in 2014 telling me what my additions plus account offered so I was out of time to claim for that part.

They repaid me £1232 in my bank account - even before I got the letter from them which arrived several days later. I am now going to do a tax reclaim as they - paid £156 tax on my behalf on the interest portion. Thank you so much MSE.

Hi all! Wondering if anyone can help.

Both PPI reclaims are through a company.

I reclaimed ppi from Natwest. They paid out £481.

I'm now waiting for hsbc. They have offered £1,700. Ive sent off the acceptance letter with the bank account I've nominated. That was sent off 2 weeks ago tomorrow. Now I'm not sure if the prepaid envelope was addressed to the company who I put the claim through with or if it went directly to hsbc. Since then I've heard nothing. I've been religiously checking my bank account. I do vaguely remember the conversation with the company who retrieved the PPI saying once I'd sent off the acceptance form it would be around 10 days for payment to reach my account. I worked out 10 days would be tomorrow, that's if hsbc got the acceptance form directly.

I've been reading other posts people written about hsbc and some were waiting up to 4 weeks. However they were dated back to as far as 2011.

Has anyone recently dealt with hsbc regarding PPI?

Many thanks

28 days + is normal and, even then you may still have to chase.

Nothing to do with Bank Charges, of course...

Hi all,

Have recently decided to claim back payday loan charges after a snowballing situation a few years ago, this is currently with the ombudsmen. However I was advised by a friend to attempt to claim back my bank charges (informal overdraft charges to almost £3k over 3 years) however reading on here I take it I'm too late? Or rather the fact I'm no longer in financial hardship means it wouldn't be worth my time trying?

Cheers.

Reclaiming of bank charges ended in 2009 when the banks won the court case.

Since then, they only consider goodwill payments under CURRENT financial hardship cases. Not historic.

Hi all,

Have spent some time this morning reading through various posts etc and familiarising myself with peoples claims and versions etc.

Being in financial difficulty myself I decided to take a look and see for myself what I can do. I have totalled my overdraft fees paid since 2012, and I must admit I didn't realise it was so bad. I have been in my overdraft for a total of 58 months out of the last 67 (dating back to September 2012) which is astonishing.

I have drafted a letter which will be sent to Halifax on Tuesday when I return to work.

Is it possible someone can offer any advice on the letter prior to sending it? It would be much appreciated. Letter below:

"I am writing to request that you repay all the charges in relation to direct debits, 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 !!!8216;in particular, a firm should deal fairly with a banking customer whom it has reason to believe is in financial difficulty!!!8217. 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:


!!!8226; Loan and Credit Card payments !!!8211; As I am sure you can research, I had a loan and a credit card with yourselves with fairly large sums (loan £14,000 and Credit Card £6,000). I was making monthly payments on the loan, with the odd payment that was missed and payment holidays taken but wasn!!!8217;t making many payments on the Credit Card until I was forced to sell my home to pay these debts off in 2017. I believe without the added pressure to having to make monthly payments on my account I could have made more payments on the Credit Card, ultimately resulting in keeping my property. I am now back in the renting sector.

!!!8226; Income being offset by charges !!!8211; Since March 2017 I have been self-employed with a substantially lower !!!8220;guaranteed!!!8221; wage every month. Prior to going self-employed my wage was consistent every week/month, whereas now my wage is consistently £917 a month with added payments if work comes my way. I cannot guarantee on a month by month basis that I will earn enough to cover all of my outgoings, especially now the overdraft fees have increased by approximately 150%.


!!!8226; Living off credit !!!8211; For a long period in my life from 2015 I have been living solely from credit. I had the £14,000 loan with yourselves, a £6000 credit card with yourselves, a £5000 credit card with Barclaycard and a £7000 loan with Zopa. I since sold my property and paid off the loan and both the credit cards but the loan with Zopa is still outstanding. This payment along with daily living and my lower income mean that paying this substantial overdraft is near on impossible, especially paying £4 a day fee.

As I am sure you can see, I have tried numerous times to increase my overdraft on both my current accounts when times get tough, yet I am rejected every time. I am struggling financially and right now, cannot see a way out of this overdraft anytime within the foreseeable future.

!!!8226; Time spent in overdraft !!!8211; Since September 2012, I have spent a total of 58 months out of a possible 67 in my overdraft in one form or another. Without the charges being implemented on my account and snowballing to an extent from one month to another, I believe that I wouldn!!!8217;t have been in my overdraft for such a long period of time.


The charges total £1840.39 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 £259.31 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 £2099.70

I have attached a full schedule of the charges with this document.

Ultimately, I want to be out of my overdraft and live my life without the everyday stress of constantly having to pay fees. I want to use the figure above to substantially lower the overdraft amount, and then focus on paying the remainder of the overdraft across this year, with a view to be overdraft free by the end of 2018.

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"


Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you all

Quoting rules or regulations out of context is not a good way to buy goodwill. It will just make the person at the other end laugh and not feel sympathy with your situation. Remove any reference to rules/regs.


Remove this. You must not, under any circumstances, mention the word unfair. The banks won the unfair charges court case. If you go down the unfair route, you are looking at automatic rejection.

Also, you have no right or reason to demand any statutory rate interest (and people dont get it anyway). It doesnt apply here.

That is far too aggressive when you are looking for a goodwill gesture from them. The FOS has no ability to force the bank to refund anything. The rules do not require them to resolve in 14 days.

You are taking the wrong approach. You want the person at the bank to feel sympathy for you and you need to paint the picture of hardship. If you start the letter quoting fake rule interpretations and make unreasonable demands, then you are not helping your position.

Remember that the bank do not need to refund a penny. They will look at your spending habits. Decide if you are genuinely in hardship or whether you are living beyond your means. They may decide that suspending charges for x months and putting you into a debt management scheme is the better option. Refund of some recent charges is just one of the options that have open to them.

Reword the complaint. Remove the demands and give more detail about how you are being put in hardship. Name the bills you struggle to pay or the arrears you have oe the necessary spending that you struggle to pay. Word it get sympathy.

Those 3 comments above are exactly as per the template found on Page 1, unless there is an updated template that I have missed?

Thanks

a template from nearly 10 years ago when you could still reclaim charges is not a good idea to use.

Statutory interest is paid where there is a wrongdoing. You are asking for a goodwill gesture from the bank. When you used to be able to reclaim charges, you did get statutory interest but that all ended after the banks won the court case.

Ok thank you for clarifying. I will reword my letter and remove the bits above.

Your comments are appreciated.

You also don't need to attach any schedule of charges, the Bank already know what you've paid.
You need to understand that Banks will not refund historical charges, so there is no point referencing money difficulties from 2012 or even 2015.

You should be detailing your CURRENT Financial Hardship. You do mention that your wage has apparently dropped, but you don't mention exactly which ESSENTIAL bills which you are struggling to pay or are in arrears with. Remember, anything you mention will be checked against your statements. If your statements show expensive monthly payments to a mobile phone provider, subscription television, gym membership or even shopping at Waitrose these are all examples of simply spending beyond your means. If your statements show no such luxury, and the Bank agree that you are in (their definition of) Financial Hardship then you might reasonably expect the Bank to refund (some) charges-typically those in the last six months.

However, as Dunston explained above, the Bank are under no obligation to refund anything at all and they have a range of other measures available to them which would show them as treating your hardship case fairly. In other words, your request may result in you simply having interest on your overdraft suspended for a time or they could insist that you accept a debt management programme.

So do consider carefully what you hope to achieve before you send that letter...

You might also want to read through recent pages of this thread. Below is a typical response from February 14th this year:

Morning all

Just had a quick skim through and noticed the comments about the letter being sent as an out of date one
It!!!8217;s the same template I just used for RBS, and is the template that!!!8217;s on the main article on the site about reclaiming charges. I kind of assumed it was the most up to date one :-(
Same with the one on this thread, it was made after the ruling so I made an assumption that it was the best letter to use since then :-(

Oh well, I haven!!!8217;t had the money for the last 6 years I shouldn!!!8217;t rely too heavily on having it now :-)

I also didn!!!8217;t realise that it!!!8217;s only current financial hardship that was taken into account now, I!!!8217;m still in my overdraft every month and I!!!8217;m still getting unpaid direct debits/standing orders every month but not as many and I!!!8217;m now at least only a few days behind on my mortgage rather than 3 months behind as I was a few years ago.

Really good thread, not holding out a ton of hope but I will update when I hear back from RBS. I!!!8217;ve used the wrong template too so I reckon I am in with a smaller shot! We live and learn right?

Morning all

Just had a quick skim through and noticed the comments about the letter being sent as an out of date one
It’s the same template I just used for RBS, and is the template that’s on the main article on the site about reclaiming charges. I kind of assumed it was the most up to date one :-(
Same with the one on this thread, it was made after the ruling so I made an assumption that it was the best letter to use since then :-(

Oh well, I haven’t had the money for the last 6 years I shouldn’t rely too heavily on having it now :-)

I also didn’t realise that it’s only current financial hardship that was taken into account now, I’m still in my overdraft every month and I’m still getting unpaid direct debits/standing orders every month but not as many and I’m now at least only a few days behind on my mortgage rather than 3 months behind as I was a few years ago.

Really good thread, not holding out a ton of hope but I will update when I hear back from RBS. I’ve used the wrong template too so I reckon I am in with a smaller shot! We live and learn right?

Goodness I was so excited I posted twice haha

It is the most "up-to-date" template. Unfortunately, it's prefaced by an article clearly stating that it should be used only by people in CURRENT FINANCIAL HARDSHIP. Anyone simply seeking a refund of historical bank charges will be flatly denied

Since 2009, the Banks have been under no obligation to refund any charges at all. They won their court case on charges in that year.

The article on MSE does encourage making a request for a refund of charges, but it does also clearly explain that it's only if you have experienced a recent "snowballing" of charges that you realistically stand any chance of getting (some) charges back.

Obviously you have already sent the letter and I don't wish to rain too heavily on your parade, but the chances of getting a refund of six year old charges is slim indeed.

You can read back just a few pages of this thread or even the aforementioned MSE article:
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/bank-charges
for more detailed information about who is likely to be refunded (some) charges.

With this comment you reveal that you don't meet the criteria for claiming that you are in current financial hardship. The Bank will be able to see this from your recent statements..

Thanks for your help. Yes you're totally right, I am no longer getting over £100 of charges every month which is absolutely amazing and I am really happy.


No need to worry about raining on my parade, I knew that the likeliehood of getting my charges back was slim to none but definitely misread the articles in terms of hardship.
You're totally right, my situation is much better than it was 6 months ago. Still a long way to go but at least income is now equal to outgoings for the most part.


Thanks so much for your help, muchas gracias. Thanks also for checking out my diary :-) feel free to follow my journey! With or without bank charges, I'll get there!