Abbey taking charges from JSA deposits - Can they do this?

[csc2ya]

I just wanted to verify something i've seen elsewhere on the forum. I currently owe quite a bit of money to a few people, mainly credit cards, mobile phone bill etc.

I'm unemployed, and receiving just over 91 pounds a fortnight in JobSeekers Allowance.

I've been like this for over a year now with a break over christmas when I did temporary work, but I haven't been able to find anything since.

I've had charges taken from my bank account for going overdrawn while i'm on JSA. I've seen elsewhere on the forum, posts that suggest that they are not allowed to take payments from that money to cover charges.

Is this the case? If so, then I should be to claim it back, clearing my overdraft fully, and also will be able to start making payments to all my creditors again who, I hate to say this, but i've been mostly ignoring due to not having the money to pay them.

Not sure if this is in the right place, but feel free to move it if it isn't.

[old_andrew2007]

hi
IMHO they can't, this is a link a template letter http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...ml#post1469434

I've not used it myself, so can't say what if any notice banks have taken when its sent.

Andy

[csc2ya]

I haven't updated this for so long as Abbey were taking ages to reply and decide what they would do.

It had got into a cycle eventually, where the account was overdrawn, and they were still allowing payments to go out, but then refunding them the next day, and charging me for the privaledge.

After a while of me refusing to pay what they said I owed them, they put a bar on the account, and started sending letters saying I owed them money blah blah. I replied to these and disputed that I owed them anything, on the basis that the only money going in to the account was the JSA, and legally, I am allowed to dictate what that money is used for (paying bills for instance, not for paying their charges)

Well, I finally recieved a letter from them today which said that after looking at my account, they have decided to refund ALL the charges levied on my account while I was on JSA. This amounts to over £800, and is actually more than they took in total, so that puts my account back in credit, and means I can clear a substantial amount of my credit card debts.

What I will probably do to prevent this happening again (although i'm not 100% sure yet), is to withdraw all the money, and put it in my savings account so that this can't happen again.

It took them long enough to sort it out, but i'm glad they finally did, and also that they saw the situation that they had partially (I'm not blaming them for all of it, as I started it off) got me in to.

[dpick]

Hi you have another option, I stopped all DD etc and paid what I could afford with on-line banking. Some of my creditors screamed a lot but they gave me account details to pay into when they realised that I would not pay them any other way. Second option is to open an account at a different bank and do the above if Abbey are taking money out of your account to pay card or loan with them (they call it off setting).

dpick

[watafu]

I am in a similar position to the op, i have been on and off jsa and abbey have persistantly caused me a great deal of trouble by taking 70-80% of what i recieved in benefits leaving me very little to actually live on. Over the past year they have taken a good 300-400+ off me in charges which i have paid back everytime i got paid through jsa but it has been a fairly persistant cycle where sometimes i would not be able to afford to actually pay it back and incur more charges. As i have paid all the charges off now, can i still claim them back by following a similar procedure or is it not possible? I guess its worth a shot

[csc2ya]

My last post wasn't the end of it unfortunately. They added on charges while the account was suspended. I used what money was in there to pay a couple of bills, without knowing about the charges.

The charges then hit the account, and took it overdrawn again (not by much....only about £5), but again, it's caused this cycle where they take money to cover the (in their eyes, unauthorized) overdraft, which takes the account further overdrawn, and causes more charges.

I sent a letter to them last month, explaining again, that I am not willing to pay the charges, and also am not in a position to do so anyway, due to still being on Jobseekers Allowance.

Currently, i'm still awaiting a reply to this letter.

In addition, I have also not been able to get a replacement card for the account (my old one was cancelled by them the same time they put the bar on the account), and also have been unable to get replacement details for their ebanking service (my current logon no longer gives me access to my account).

I am not planning on paying anything on this, as I explained in the letter I sent to them, as I did pay a small amount in to cover it to begin with, but they just took money again the following month (I'm beginning to think they're going to keep taking money until they've recovered the amount they refunded me by).

[yourbank]

Why have you not opened a parachute account? Come on, that is what you should do and make sure you get in a claim to recovery any charges from them. The not taking charges from benefits letter is not correct but unfair charges is better.

[csc2ya]

I do already have another account with another bank that is used for everything now. This other account is a savings account, so I cannot go overdrawn on it.

Nothing is being done with the abbey account now, either taking money out, or putting money in.

The only activity on the abbey account now is due to them taking these charges every month.

[csc2ya]

I thought I posted the result of this....obviously not.


After sending them the letter saying what had happend, they refunded £100 which has put the account back in credit. They've taken two charges since then, but only of about £1 each, meaning it's still in credit.
So I think this is the end of it finally.

I'm not going to do anything further with the account, including going through the hassle of closing it. I'll just leave it how it is and not touch it at all.

[csc2ya]

Final post on this: I recieved my latest statement last week, and there are no charges on it.

I'm not going to close the account or use it in any way though. I figure them sending out statements every 3 months will eventually end up costing them more than they took and eventually refunded.