Wiggins V Abbey

[wiggins]

Hi all welcome to my new claim against abbey.
I Ihave a current account with a £500 o/d limit which is overdrawn by approx 750 due to abbey's charges.
Last year i had an accident at home which left me unable to carry out my normal job and my income dropped by nearly £200 p/w. As a result of this i ended up having to put all my debts in the hands of a management company, and a managed bank account.
Abbey continued to charge me every month for the origional charge and now i have placed the account in the hands of my management company, abbey want to close the account and place a default on my credit file.
I have asked for the charges back to clear the debt quicker but they are not interested and keep quoting "oft and test case" blah blah.
Are they allowed to do this?

	Bank Charges You should have started your claim for your bank charges by now. Don't wait. You should send your bank a Subject Acess Request asking for all personal data they hold on you - not just statements. You should calculate all of your bank charges and related interest as far back as 1995. You should send your bank a demand for a refund giving them 7 days. You should commence your legal action adding 8% statutory interest. If you wait for the outcome of the test case, you may not be able to claim like this. you may not be able to claim interest. You may only be offered the difference between the charge and the OFT "fair charge". The repayment scheme will try to limit you to refinds from 2001 only. A repayment scheme will not deal with any bank charges related defaults on the credit register whereas in a court action you can ask for these to be removed and to be compensated for the damage caused to you and your family by them. You should also write to the bank and to the CRA and put all charges related credit entries in disupte and warn them that you will want them removed from the Register when the test case is over. Warn them also that you are likely to be seeking compensation for these wrongful data entries. Full and final settlement Have you previously accepted a partial repayment of your bank charges in full settlement? You will still be able to claim the rest of your money back after the Test case is decided. Get all your information back to 1995 and put in your claim now.

	Credit Report Click link to open in new window.

[wiggins]

****UPDATE****

Abbey have refunded me £770 this morning under the hardship ruling but am i in a position to request removal of the default they place on my credit file??

many thanks

	Hardship By and large the "harship" provision in the FSA waiver is a myth which is intended to create a sense that the banking industry is sufficiently well-intentioned to act fairly towards its customers even though their right of access to the courts has been blocked. In fact there are very few guidelines as to procedure and very little definition of "hardship". One unfortunate spin off is that many people in difficulty get their hopes up and go to considerable lengths to plead hardship to their bank in order to get a refund or partial refund of their bank charges only to be refused. Neither the courts nor the FOS have the power to order a bank to make a charges refund on the basis of hardship. We hear of some people obtaining a partial refund quite easily. Others have obtained money by being very persistent - but mostly we hear that people are refused. Even benefits claimants do not automatically receive hardship refunds. By all means try to get a bank charges refund on the basis of hardship - but don't bank on it!

	Credit Report Click link to open in new window.

[charleyfarley]

CONGRATULATIONS!!

Can you tell me how far down the litigation route you had to go to achieve this?

ps......as to the default, I can see no reason why you shouldn't pursue this as well

[wiggins]

beleive it or not , nor very far. i had to put the account in the hands of a dmc, then made an official complaint to the office in sheffield.
Abbey advice me of the hardship ruling (which i was aware of) and i asked for the relevant paperwork to complete. (income/expenditure etc)
I waited 4 weeks then phoned to ask if the received my paperwork and was told that a letter what posted yesterday.
Money in bank the day after!!!

	Hardship By and large the "harship" provision in the FSA waiver is a myth which is intended to create a sense that the banking industry is sufficiently well-intentioned to act fairly towards its customers even though their right of access to the courts has been blocked. In fact there are very few guidelines as to procedure and very little definition of "hardship". One unfortunate spin off is that many people in difficulty get their hopes up and go to considerable lengths to plead hardship to their bank in order to get a refund or partial refund of their bank charges only to be refused. Neither the courts nor the FOS have the power to order a bank to make a charges refund on the basis of hardship. We hear of some people obtaining a partial refund quite easily. Others have obtained money by being very persistent - but mostly we hear that people are refused. Even benefits claimants do not automatically receive hardship refunds. By all means try to get a bank charges refund on the basis of hardship - but don't bank on it!