Claim for charges taken from benefits

[trollstar]

more update
went to the Benifits office today, seems even they are unclear as to what is and is not allowed
sadly the letter does NOT state that in righting but in the part filled form has writen 'financial hardship- breech of banking code- banks fail to assist or limit chasrges applied- customer has been on benifits as a carer for 15 years and is being hit by bounced DD's'
cover letter says
' i have written to Nationwide to let them know you have a complaint. Nationwide should now contact you for details of the complaint, if they do not already have them.if you do not hear from them within a few days after recieving this letter, you may wish to contact them mentioning we have already written to them. they should issue a final responce in writing within 8 weeks of the date they recieve the complaint'
ok...so i am confused yet again!!!
this implys its up to them to find out why i'm upset?
feeling defeated at the moment, Nationwide took another £120 in charges today so my account is again at minus £85
rather bizzarely (i think??) they removed 1 charge of £30 there and then!! but only after i stated my income support would be paid by giro not to them as of next tuesday till i can get another account and handed them a pile of letters of first right of appropriation to cover my sons disability payments and my child benifit(interview with Barclays on weds cos they are the ONLY bank seems to offer the tiny buffer i need on a basic account which is all anyone will give me)
so ALL of my £80 Carer will go to them monday cos i didnt get that first right of appropriation letter in on time.
am going to start the 'process' now
will apply for 6 years as 'data protection' will write direct to Nationwide claiming hardship, will remove ALL DDs and payments from the Nationwide account
so? i do all i can then wait? 8 weeks?
right now i just want to....SCREAM!!!!!

[steven4064]

I'm sorry to say this but it might be longer than 8 weeks. 8 weeks is the normal time for handling complaints but , for bank charge claims, the banks have effectively been given permission to wait until after the test case. THey are supposed to deal with hardship cases quicker, though, so you may be more fortunate.

[fluffykitty]

I really wish i had seen this thread. Just sent Subject Access Request this week. I survive on Disabilty Living Allowance and Carers Allowance as I have a disabled child and when I first applied for DLA last year it too months to sort out by which time I built up a £900 o/d. when £900 came in from DLA bank took £800 straight away !!

[steven4064]

Welcome fluffykitty

Just to reiterate - the two pieces of legislation governing the payment of benefits (the Social Security Adminstration Act 1992 and the Tax Credits Act 2002) both appear to say that bank charges taken from benefits are illegal. However, this is not the case. Those acts do not say that bank charges are illegal. Unfortunately .

Cases for reclaiming bank charges taken from benefits are therefore exactly the same as for bank charges taken from income. As such, any claim will be put on hold by the bank and stayed by the court if you go that far.

The Financial Ombudsman has given the banks a waiver that they do not have to abide by the usual 8 weeks to deal with complaints in the case of bank charge claims. If you are benefits, you should make your claim via the FO and cite hardship - that way your claim will not be subject to the waiver and the bank will have to deal with it more quickly.

[fluffykitty]

Thanks Steven. I will look around for details of Financial Ombudsman and give details of my circumstances and how the deduction of charges from my benefits have led me into dire financial circumstances

[trollstar]

has anyone started a thread just to establish how many are affected i e those on benifits only income, what section would such a thread start in.
the petition is a great idea but i can also understand how and why many would be too scared to sign it

[steven4064]

A lot of people are on this thread

[Vital Spark]

So, the tax payers are to pay £900 each to help northern Rock. Seems to me that if any other business goes bust, the shareholders just have to count their losses. Why do banks always seem to come up smelling of roses while the rest of us land in the Sh**?

Government inefficiency and incompetence loses the identity details of 25,000,000 families exposing them to possible identity theft horrors. Why is nobody suing them? Will they pay out , if any one of those affected is hit by such theft?

Will the tax payers be asked to (oh, sorry , no, the taxpayer isn't asked, the government decides that they will) pay to cover governmental errors?

Anybody on CAG got it together to appraoch a bank with the suggestion that they should drop bank "charges" and gain many customers? Co-operative Bank please????????