Bank charges A&L

[adamsdad]

Hi All,
only joined the forum yesterday mainly because i'm having a few problems with A&L on behalf of my wife.We are at a stage were they have offered a pittance of the amount claimed and having rejected it and threatened them with court action i have just received a letter back saying that is their final offer.So it looks like were going to have to get the ball rolling with court action and thats were we are going to need some help as we ain't got a clue!!
Any help would be greatly appreciated.Cheers

Oh,and by the way,does anyone no if you can claim back "Paid item charge" and "Monthly overdraft charge" from theses theives!

[N£m£sis]

Hi AdamsDad,

Welcome to the forum. Yes you can claim back the "Paid item charge" and you can claim back the "Unauthorised overdraft charge" of £25. I am roughly at the same stage as you, having just received a letter making me an offer of about 25% of my claim. I am rufusing it and am going to court stage next. If I can be of any help I will, but there are dozens of really helpful people on this site who are just as sick of the A&L as us. Keep on fighting. Good luck.

N£m£sis.

[adamsdad]

Hi N£m£sis,
thanks for taking the time to reply to me it's much appreciated.I have claimed back all the "paid item charges" and the "unauthorised overdraft charge"(but thanks for reassuring me)but their are many charges of £25.00 for "monthly overdraft charge" and i'm unsure whether they are the legal monthly fees as per the terms and conditions(if only we kept those boring t&c's) of the account which is just your bog standard current account.Any idea????????

[N£m£sis]

Hi again AdamsDad,

I looked through some of my old statements to see if I had any of these "monthly O/D charges, because I have not claimed for any. Sure enough I spent ten minutes going through them and found 4 straight away. They always came out on or about the 24th of the month, but not every month. I would say that these are default charges and a reclaimable, but it would be nice to get this confirmed so we can claim them prior to court action. So it is nice to talk, you've found me another £100 in 10 mins. Cheers! If I go through all my statements I bet there are a few more. Hopefully someone can clear this up for us. Off to work now speak to you later.

N£m£sis.

[kog]

Well if you don't have a clue the first thing to do is vist the step-by-step instuctions - they are very helpful. Follow this link

Example Step-By-Step Instructions - Now updated to reflect the OFT court judgment

[monkeyboy65]

Hi
I think most people have claimed the £20 difference between the standard monthly O/D charge of £5 charged if you stayed within your agreed O/D limit and the £25 charged if you went over the agreed limit.
MB

[fagash]

hi can some one please tell me where to get a template letter, saying thanks for the offer but no thanks.

[jansus]

they are in the green section - bank templates library (under FAQ)

Jan

[adamsdad]

Hi All,
I've been so busy with work lately that i haven't been able to chase this up so last week i sent A&L the first request letter which i picked up from the CAG templates asking them to allow it to overide any previous corospondence(i did this because the previous letters i sent were basically self worded because by then i had not been put onto this excellent site)
Well they have written back basically saying that because of the test case some banks have become involved in(A&L not being one of them)they have asked both the Financial Ombudsman Service and the courts not to proceed with any other case they are hearing until the test case is resolved and that if i choose to issue a claim in the county courts they intend to apply for an order to stay my action until resolution of the legal procedings with the Office Of Fair trading.
So what i was wondering was do i just continue with my claim as outlined in the step by stem guide or does this put a different slant on things.
All advice would be greatly appreciated.

Adams dad.

[allen0601]

Hi Adams dad my advice would be to carry on as the step by step instructions suggest, yes lots of cases are being stayed (frozen) by the courts but i would still carry on, things may change and once it is sorted out you will be way up the ladder instead of being at the bottom. There are plenty of people on here who offer really sound advice and from what ive read on other threads this is the way to go
Hope this helps
Nicky

[adamsdad]

Hi Nicky,
it's a coincidence that you should reply as i have just been reading through your own thread but i had to go out before i reached the end,
i just got upto were you knocked back a couple of grand,
did you manage to get back the full amount in the end?????

steve.

[adamsdad]

Hello All,
can anyone advise me on my claim to date.I took A&L to court using the N1 form at a cost of £120.00 but they did not bother responding to the court within the 14 day period required so i then requested judgement which was granted about 10 days ago but as i haven't heard from A&L i contacted the court to apply for an "enforcement" but was told that the court would not be issuing anymore enforcements untill after the test case and that i should seek legal advice if i wshed.As i dont really want to start paying money out for solicitors if it's going to be a waste of time i was hoping someone might be able to advise.cheers

[blueskies]

The test case issue is only in respect of the legality of the claim and future decisions of judges hearing cases. The fact they didn't respond is taken as an admission of the fact that the charges are unlawful and this was backed up with the judgement you received. Unless the bank is attempting to set aside the judgement, enforcement should be a fairly automatic process unconnected with outside influences

[adamsdad]

Blueskies,
Thanks for the advice,i've since read on the site that A&L may have asked my local court to automatically "stay" any action against them so i'm going to use the relevant form to ask the court to lift the stay using a letter template that is also on this excellent site.I will keep the thread updated.Cheers

[adamsdad]

Good News!!
Wrote a letter to the judge asking him to allow me to enforce my claim as i was awarded judgement and he has obliged so i paid the £55.00 charge(which A&L have to pay back to me)yesterday and the bailiffs letter will go out in the next couple of days.Here's to another victory for the man in the street!

[gort the good]

Hello - this is my first day on this forum and this particular thread caught my attention.

The sum of money I'm dealing with - £25 - is nothing compared to some of the charges other consumers have had taken off them by the A & L but I thought someone may be interested in my experience.

I've had a current account with the A & E for 13 years with an overdraft buffer of £10. I've always stayed within this buffer so have avoided being hit with any "unauthorised overdraft" charges. Then in Nov I checked my account on the phone and found I was £25 down - I phoned up to find out what was going on and was told that a direct debit had taken me beyond my buffer and so I'd been charged £25 and I said that this was impossible. Then I checked my account online and it turned out that, without my knowledge, my reward for 13 years custom was to have my overdraft buffer reduced from £10 to £5 and a direct debit took me 17p over the new reduced buffer so I was charged £25.

When I phoned the bank about this I was told bluntly that they're not dealing with any claims for unfair charges until this court case is resolved which could take 12 months. Now I've had a bad few months financially and could do with that £25 that they've taken off me and don't fancy waiting 12 months for it. Am I going to get anywhere if I write to them demanding it back?

[adamsdad]

Hi All
In relation to my claim against A&L i thought i had successfully won via the small claims court having been granted the opportunity to enforce via warrant.but i have since received a letter from the court telling me that A&L's legal team have applied to the court to have a hearing on the grounds that they did not receive the original paper work which they had to respond to when i submitted my N1 form and because they also feel the outcome of the test case will put them in strong position to win this claim,this application was accepted by the court.
my problem is that this letter explaining this was delivered two weeks ago to the wrong address and i only received it two days ago and the date set for the hearing is this thursday(03rd jan 0 as i havn't a clue what to do any advice would be greatly appreciated.Adamsdad