As you may have read about or seen on TV recently, you are legally entitled to claim back all of your bank charges for the last 6 years. Things you can reclaim are: charges applied for going over your overdraft, charges made to your account when you've been sent a letter, charges made when you use your card with insufficient funds ecetera ecetera. Anyway, I used to bank with HSBC and racked up an obcene amount of charges with them so thought I'd give it a go and try and claim the money back. I sent a letter before Xmas and another one a couple of weeks ago and to my delight - I received something from HSBC today offering me about 85% of the claim. Woo hoo. I'm undecided whether to accept the offer to hold on for the full amount but even so - resssssssult. So, to my fellow financially irresponsible people - write to your bank, send them a tenner and tell them you want a list of all the charges that you've paid for the last 6 years, then claim them back! You have nothing to lose!
Already started doing this before christmas and by just going thru 3.5 years statements upto now I'm owed £2,500 :shock: :shock: Jodie, I suggest you read up well on here www.consumeractiongroup.com , Seriously, take a few days to read how to write the letters ( all templates are on this site for you to c&p, you just have to change the details to yours, read other cases and get a grips of how to do it properley ( you are also entitiled to £9 an hour expences along with 8% interest on the charges dating back the six years for doing this and submitting your claim, all recoverable from the banks :lol: ) Good luck, I'm getting grief off of Nat West as they claim they havent recieved my first 40 day ' dpa ' but its funny how theyve cashed the £10 cheque though :roll: :roll: Ian :lol: :lol:
Ok, read all your post now ( memo to brain, dont jump in with both feet :lol: ) Hold out for the lot then you'll qualify for the 8% and your costs, ok you'll have to submit the court forms ( all done on line ) and pay £120 ( if its under £5k ) but its worth it in the end and you can claim the £120 back. Ian :lol: :lol:
Hmmmm, I think I should get the full whack too - I just dont see why those theiving bastards should be allowed to keep ONE penny! they make £3BILLION a year from bank charges.... the cheek. I didn't realise we can claim expenses too - hilarious. It took me a fair few hours to add my charges up as well, so I'll certainly be adding all that on too. Good luck with yours too, nobody has been unsuccessful yet so you should have a nice lump sum coming to you soon!!!!
Yep, look thru that web site, there's even an excell spread sheet downloadable for free that you just input your costs and dates onto and it works out the lot for you, interest aswell.... but dont use the interest section unless your going to push for court..... which you know they never go to any way. Ian :lol: :lol:
For those that wonder, this is UK and Scottish banks.... Oh, and I found this bit of good information while searching: http://www.unfair-bank-charges.com/bank-charges-what-normally-happens.html *****the following is copy and pasted from my link above**** What normally happens? YOU CAN GET BANK CHARGES, PENALTIES AND OTHER UNFAIR CHARGES REPAID TO YOU BY YOUR BANK. THIS APPLIES TO YOUR BANK ACCOUNTS, CREDIT CARD ACCOUNTS AND OTHER ACCOUNTS WHERE PENTALIES HAVE BEEN APPLIEDClick here to return to the site A fairly standards set of events happen when you ask for a bank to repay your money and an example of those events is shown here : First, you realise that the banks have been acting unlawfully for a long time, and you decide to reclaim what is your money. Next, you get all your bank statements together or use the Data Protection Act request letter to get copies of all your bank statements. If you sent the Data Protection Act (DPA) letter, you will have to wait a maximum of 40 days for the materials to come through from your bank. Then you add up all your unlawful charges and come to a total figure, which you then put into an Initial letter asking for repayment. In this you give your bank 14 days to pay up. We recommend that you also send your bank a list of charges that you want repaying so that they cannot argue later that they were unaware of the particulars of your claim. We further recommend that you send this letter recorded delivery so you have a log of the date the letter was sent and there will be no argument that your letter didn't arrive. Now you can sit back and wait (for those 14 days). This is when is starts to get interesting. What happens at this point is normally one of the following : 1. Your bank sends you a letter stating where you place formal complaints to. Sometimes it is a glossy brochure, sometimes it is a photocopy. 2. Your bank offers as a gesture of goodwill to refund one or two of your charges in full and final settlement. 3. Your bank tells you that when you initially signed up for an account with them that you agreed to look after your banking affairs properly and tries to get you to read your account terms and conditions. It is tempting to send a reply stating that you also expected them to comply with the law but don't get into any further communications at this point. 4. You are sometimes advised to attend a meeting at a local branch where you can discuss your account (this is presumably so that they can pressure you in a one to one situation and hopefully get you to agree to drop your claim, so our advice is don't bother to go just to discuss charges and refunds.) 5. Your bank often tells you to complain directly to the banking ombudman. You can do this but it will delay things greatly. The ombudsman needs not get involved (a fact which the banks are quite aware of). This is is a delaying tactic by the banks. 6. and other various tactics that the banks try use to wriggle out of repaying you (normally by delaying things where they hope you get bored and eventually accept any old thing they offer you) If your bank haven't paid up in full what they owe you and you get to the 14 day deadline you set for them, you then move onto the letter prior to action. (LPA) What you are doing when you send the LPA letter is demanding the bank repays what is took unlawfully from you and you are stating that if they fail to repay you, you will simply take them to court and get it back that way. Your bank will either 'huff and puff' or do nothing, either way, if they fail to repay what they owe you, simply wait until the 14 days are up and then file a claim using the government's moneyclaim website. What the banks normally do at this point is wait until the last day before the trial and then pay up. In some cases they send a representative along to a court who will try to talk you out of action in return for say 50% of what you are claiming and in the end, if you stick to your guns will make a formal offer to pay the whole outstanding amount
It was a ruling by The Office of Fair trading here in the UK last year Suzanne. Dont think it applies in Canada but they ( The Banks ) kept this very very quiet for obvious reasons and it wasnt till it was mentioned on BBC Radio 2's the money saving expert ( www.moneysavingexpert.com ) last August did it realy come into the public eye. Might we worth doing a bit of research over there though. Ian :lol: :lol:
Oh yeah for sure. I dont' know how you guys can get any of that back though isn't it considered a service rendered and ther4e for fees are non refundable... I will search it out.>Thanks
Not quite. The office of fair trading ( ofsted ) are a goverment body charged with making sure we as a British nation are not collectably ' mugged ' as it were and after several years research they deemmed that anything above a £12 charge was unfair. They also asked the banks to disclose exactly how much it cost them to send that computer generated letter to you ( in some cases charge £39 for it ) . They wont do that yet and therefore untill they do (and they wont 'cos it will open up the floodgates to millions of back claims ) we can claim it back. Dont get me wrong, you cant just walk into the branch of your bank and demand the money back anad walk out with a fist full of cash, there's a set process you have to follow lasting approx 2-4 months in which they will make you jump thru hoops but judging by the fact people are getting cash back hand over fist now ( a mate of mine got £3,500 from Barclays last week :lol: :lol: and paid me the £70 I lent him last year straight back :lol: :lol: ) its well worth the effort. Ian :lol: :lol:
