to think that people should shut up about their bank charges? You incurred the charges, so pay up.

[AitchTwoOh]

honestly, i've got a friend who just got £5500 back and he's off on holiday with the proceeds.

he's absolutely USELESS with money and knowingly incurred all teh charges, so why exactly does he deserve to get the money back? it's not a bloody savings account he's been paying into...

JARM ours came when I went to Uni, somebody else funding childcare etc for a few years really takes the burden off!

It should make ife ahrder, it doesn't- it works too well with a family ime.

Hows it going anyway deary?

I am delighted that consumers are standing up for not being taken the mickey out of anymore. Banks make huge profits and in my eyes have been abusing their powers - they've taken the money because they can. Now there's a backlash when customers, the likelhood of which have been loyal for years, will not be taken the piss out of. I think its a really important step.

Bank charges are simply not reasonable. £30 for going a fiver overdrawn because of a bank holiday for instance? A computer generates a letter, we get it and pay up.

Not all of us are crap with money. Some of us get in an awkward situation from time to time. Some of us are let down by other people. And yes, some of us are simply crap with money and need some help.

omg Fio - it's a good job I'm sitting down - I think we've actually agreed on something

we are good sweetie, real good.

Just need to get my notice to vacate so we can get somewhere else, but at least with the payout we will be starting afresh.

Hopefully say goodbye to debts and things for a LONG time.... i NEVER want to go back to where we have been.

Roll on 5th August! (DH's discharge date!)

they aren't always on the breadline but piss poor or as rich as a royal, everyone is entitled to claim back the excess charges!

I do wonder though what people did before over drafts were a common thing, and when loans were very hard to get and credit cards barely exsisted. Thats not me being smart i am just curious.

'It's not possible to avoid bank charges if you are self-employed or a freelance.'

Hmm, not entirely true. I'm self employed/freelance and I've never had bank charges. Yes, payments have been late and I agreed an overdraft facility to cover that eventuality.

If you agree one, you don't get charged.

That is very true they did make less money. In those days banks made less money yet you had better service

annie - I read it/them, and thought they spoke for themselves undeniably.

'Not all of us are crap with money. Some of us get in an awkward situation from time to time. Some of us are let down by other people. And yes, some of us are simply crap with money and need some help.'

All of those things are absolutely true. But people claiming back thousands of pounds have not had an odd 'awkward situation' have they? And someone who is crap with money could get help before they'd been charged a total of £7000 surely?!

I've seen Spendaholics - there are people like that who need to get a grip on spending. I'm not talking about people who have genuine difficulty.

it's the pointy-finger attitude that is a bit off-putting for me from some posters. Nothing to do with the money at all.

Gobble - I'm sure if we added up all the bank charges that DH had it comes into 4 figures - and yes it was an 'akward' situation - one which (thank God) we're now clear of - but at the time the bank charges just kept mounting up.

My dp is self employed and he had never had bank charges either. For a start he pays the bills in cash because thats just what he likes to do, but he always makes sure there is extra money in his business account so if there was a late payment etc theres always enough to save his butt at the end of the day.

I haven't ever been in debt and had to pay charges (prob due to a mixture of luck and prudence) but still think that EXCESSIVE charges are unfair because they are illegal. I have to stay within the law so why shouldn't banks? Banks don't have to return the whole charge, they could retain the allowed £13 (or whatever it is) but for some reason they choose not to. Perhaps if they did keep that sum, fewer people on here would be peed off. And presumbly if you're overdrawn, you still have to pay interest so any money you get back will at some point go towards that. And let's not forget that little trick that banks have of making it look as if a cheque etc has gone into your account when you go to a cashpoint so you take money out thinking you're in credit... and whoops they later tell you that it hadn't actually cleared so you are overdrawn (WTF is that about and how do they get away with it?) and so you owe them £X in charges....

Thanks for picking me up on my point of view.

icing - there have always been loans from banks. Also, there was a greater degree of informal loaning - the local co-op type things, credit unions that sort of thing.

But, I do think, in our grandparents' past (and probably some of our parents) they would not buy things unless they had the money. I think our culture today is very much to buy now and pay later because we can take advantage of credit cards/overdrafts. I'm not saying this applies to everyone but it is SO easy to be given credit these days - when dh was up to his eyeballs in debt, the credit card company kept increasing his limit till it was at a ridiculous level! The more you spend, the more they give you and if you don't have financial discipline, it's quite easy to get into trouble!

I don't think people are annoyed so much about the bank charging them its more to do with the amount they are charged. I think thats what the op was thinking, that people are annoyed they get charged, well i don't think they are annoyed about that, it's the illigal amount being charged they are annoyed about.