PLEASE!!! Someone help me with Cahoot

[ladybird17]

I posted this yesterday, but nobody has replied - come on you clever lot, someone MUST have an opinion!!

WHAT should I ask for from CAHOOT?
On Dec. 6th I got an e-mail from Cahoot saying that they were stopping their "Flexible Loans" and because of that (and to reflect "current market rates") they were increasing their interest rate to 14.9% in two increments, the first one coming into effect on......Dec. 6th! This was, I believe sent to all customers, and whilst everyone was previously paying slightly diferent interest rates, this was still a huge hike for most people. Also last year, they e-mailed me saying they had "reviewed my account" and were reducing the upper limit on the flexible loan. I have never, ever missed a payment, the payments are made by DD and always on time.
I wrote to them pointing out they were in breach of T & C's regarding the notice period for interest increases, (and the Banking Code) and also that their T & C's give a load of reasons why they can reduce your limit - none of which applied to me - plus a final catch all of "any other valid reason". So I also asked them to clarify the valid reason they had in reducing my limit. They e-mailed me back saying they would respond in 5 working days, and that is up tomorrow and haven't heard back from them yet- but now I've got to this stage, I'm not sure what I should be doing next!! Any ideas?

	Are you letting your bank keep your money Are you giving away thousands of pounds?? Many people aren't claiming all of the money they are entitled to when they make their bank charges claims. You have been forced to pay unfair bank charges. Have you forgotten that your bank has charged you inteest on those charges? If you are overdrawn and the bank owes you charges - then your overdraft is made up of charges - money which you bank owes you. Yet you are paying interest to the bank - on your own money!!! Follow this link to see the discussions on this. You might even double th size of your claim.

[sbb1979]

I'm absolutely no expert on this, but from what I've seen from other posts on this site, the banks can pretty much get away with whatever they want in these cases. They'll probably just ignore you, and there are no real damages that you can claim from them in court. Your best bet is probably the financial ombudsman, but they seem to be a bit useless and it will take a long time.

Sorry I can't be more upbeat about it! Unfortunately, all they're doing as far as contract law goes is not fulfilling their side of the contract by not providing a service, and all that you could really claim financially would be the amount that you paid for that service which in this case is probably nothing. Therefore, its the ombudsman who can help you more than the courts.

	The Financial Ombudsman Service For the most part, don't bother. The Ombudsman is an industry arranged service which is under-resourced, takes too long, lacks clear transparency. You have no idea what evidence the FOS has received from the bank or how your complain has really been handled. The FOS is the preferred complaints route for the banking industry. The county court is to be preferred by consumers for its speed, openness, the quality of its awards and also because it will award 8% interest on top of any damages won by you. The Ombudsman should normally be used to solving little technical difficulties or customer service problems which you have expereinced with your bank.