Did you know that bank charges of more than £12.00 have been ruled as unfair by the OFT and you can claim your money back? And your claim can cover the last 6 years?

[tigermoth]

I've cut and pasted the article that appeared in Telegraph money section:

Get your money back from the bank

The Office of Fair Trading's ruling that bank penalty charges of more than £12 are unfair could spark a flood of complaints from customers seeking compensation for unjustified charges over several years.

Earlier this month the OFT ruled that penalty charges for late payments on credit cards, unauthorised overdrafts, unpaid direct debits and standing orders and missed payment fees on store cards and mortgages were deemed unfair if they exceeded £12.

Last weekend, this paper revealed that this could lead to redress for bank customers who have been erroneously charged for the past six years.

The OFT's initiative strengthens the case of anyone who has seen penalty charges automatically deducted from their accounts after falling foul of bank and building society small print. As with any legal proceedings, there is not a 100 per cent guarantee that you will win, but lawyers and consumer groups reckon the OFT's position means judges will be far more likely to accept arguments that penalties of more than £12 amount to unfair contract terms that cannot be enforced.

The process for reclaiming the unfair charges from your bank is straightforward.

First your bank is obliged to supply you on demand with a list of all charges you have paid in the past six years under the Data Protection Act. You then need to write demanding the bank repays the unfair charges. If that is not successful, you can take the matter further by either going to the small claims court of the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).

More details on how to claim and pro forma letters are available on the website of Which?, the consumer group.

"Claiming back these unfair charges from the banks is a relatively straightforward process," says Emma Bandey, a personal finance campaigner at Which? "These charges are nothing but an easy money-spinner for the banks."

I am thinking of doing this. What a windfall if I am successful!

But I am worried about something. If I push for this, and my bank give me my money back, is there a risk that the bank might start to get difficult with me? I don't want them to mysteriously refuse to send me a new cheque book, refuse to extend my overdraft limit or refuse a loan. Do you think there is a risk that banks might start doing this to customers who claim their charges back?

Chocolatepeanut,
can you tell me how you went about it ect as i am with lloyds tsb.
Do i write initially to my local branch or where ?
How do i contact money claim and is 2100.00 the total amount you have paid in fees or just a percentage ? Sorry to ask so much -

i sent all my correspondance by email to general email contact address and got a response

i am claiming 1700 in charges unlawfully applied to my account in last six years plus interest and I am claiming the £120 court fee back to making it £2100

log onto consumer action group and they will 'talk' you through process and you can see how successful others have been

Look on consumer action group . It tells you EXACTLY how to claim. Basically:

1. you write asking for details of charges
2. they send them, & you write asking for a refund 3)they refuse, you write again threatening legal action
3. they refuse, you make a claim (online)
4. after variable amounts of arsiness (Lloyds TSB are buggers for it, I'm told) & somewhere before it reaching court - you get an offer from their solicitor, saying it's not worth their while to see you in court, here's your money.

It can be a fairly tedious & prolonged business, but according to the CAG forums they ALWAYS have caved in before court.

Go for it!

Bugger, link doesn't work...try this or google:

CAG

Hi all, sorry if this is repeated but I haven't read all this thread (its HUGE innit?!)

Anyone dealt with Halifax and Natwest Banks and how long did they take to respond to first letters asking for statements? Its weird because we have 3 accounts with Halifax; they've sent 2 lots of statements back for the accounts with hardly any charges on, but not for the main account with god knows how many on. Natwest haven't replied at all but I know there's a good few on there from my student days.

Not quite 40 days yet, about another 9 to go.

Has anyone else dealt with the Natwest?? I have a pack of what to do / template letters etc that I was sent by someone on another website but am a bit worried as I have heard the Natwest threaten to close your account and I have a £1700 overdraft!!

Im doing it with natwest at the minute and is all going well so far!
I sent the first letter, they sent a letter and said id have the statements soon, statements came so i sent second letter then i got a letter back saying they are looking in to it and will let me know by aug 26, so will let you know what they say but so far they have been helpful and good.

Sorry also havent read all of this but would just like to say i did this with Abbey National and got all my money back that they had charged me over the years, so it is definately worth pursuing!
I will try and find the website that helped me, if anyone is interested.

x x x

I am about to do this with Lloyds
It might well pay for xmas
They tried to wrangle out of it by saying their small print covered them.
I then mentioned the OFT findings and said my solicitor would be writing to them shortly.
The natwest have been excellent so far, but then they are not quite the robbing thieving bastards that Lloyds have been.

and at the end of the call to Lloyds, operator says "
we see your mortgage term with the Halifax is finishing in September, would you like to speak to our mortgage advisor to see if we can offer you a mortgage deal?"

Me
And given our previous conversation and my having to pay a solicitor (untrue am using my brother) to force money out of you for something I am legally entitled too, why on earth would I trust you with my mortgage?

Ive had a letter from Natwest saying
To recieve a complete list of transactions and charges we can send you a copy of your bank statements for a fee of £5.

Am i suppose to pay it? Will take me forever to look through statements for two accounts to find charges!

Natwest simply sent us the list of charges for nothing
Mind you to be fair they are not that many...

My sister has recieved £380 back (half of the amount she claimed for) It took 3 weeks from the letter asking for it back. I must send my 2nd off.

Just compiled letter 3 to Natwest, will post tomorrow, a bit nervous as dont really want to go to court, so hoping they may make me a offer -claiming for £4,500

I except full responsibility for not having enough money in my account, but to charge me £30 each time its dreadful, I really don't mind if a get the difference between £12 and £30 back

Tortoise yes Halifax did the same to me I could hardly open my front door when I came home from work for all the bloody envelopes - they'd sent each statement in a seperate one! Idiots. Anyway they can charge you for duplicates but only up to a maximum of £10 (I think). But on the scale of things £5 is worth it for all that you could get back! HTH good luck!

Natwest just sent me my statements and didnt ask for any money but then i noticed £5 had been taken from my account, not that im bothered! They can charge up to £10.

Wow how exicted am I

I've already typed my letters to Abbey and Natwest and will be putting them in the post and cannot wait for my response! Thanks so much for this thread!

i sent my letter to barclays they sent a letter back saying they will reply before the 13th september so we will see what they have to say. im claiming back £620.

I received my statements (in 3 huge fat A4 packs!) last Friday and we highlighted £720 in charges which I then put in the letter (the total) to claim back. I posted that on Saturday. (We don't seem to have paid any charges for the statements.. have just checked! )

Yesterday I two phone calls and today I had two letters from them! The first call, they were telling me they had received my letter; were sending it to head office and were wondering if I would like to increase our overdraft! (So they can charge me MORE presumably.. ha!) The second call was to say they were classing my letter as a complaint and were forwarding it to head office.

The first letter from Barclays that I opened said that my letter had indeed been sent to head office (yawn!) and the second was an offical complaint prodecure confirmation form thing.

Now I wait, right?? Is this normal for Barclays? I see to have thrown them into a fluffy of hyper activity? [snigger] As long as I get some dosh back...!

Hi Haily111,

Did you find the website that helped you, Ive just had a letter back from Abbey saying the charges are in line with bank charges and in the past they have refunded some charges but I will not be getting anything else back from them!

I will pursue it though.

Hello Trix1, i shall be able to give you he website this evening as my mom found it for me. Is that alright?

Hi again, i just found it.

www.bankchargeshell.co.uk/legal.html

They explain what you can do and i think this is where i also got my template of my letter.

HTH x

www.g3m.co.uk/?gclid=CJ2m4OD09YYCFTpYMAod2nulaA

this is another one
x

Great - Thanks Haily.

how long did it take for you to get your money?

Abbey have still not sent me the archived statements so I averaged out what I paid in charges over the last two years and worked it out that way. I wonder should I keep trying to get the statements from them - its like getting blood from a stone.

Thanks again

Does anyone know the main contact address for HSBC? I sent a letter to my local branch requesting details of bank charges but that was months ago! Now, my local branch is very small and a bit crap and they have been known to 'lose' letters that I have sent to them in the past. So, I want to send the letter again, recorded delivery so that they can't clain not to have received it, but want to send it to the 'main' HSBC place, if there is one? Can anyone help? I'm not having any luck on their website.