caro v smile ***WON***

[caro]

I have started the ball rolling with other banks, but am taking a bit more time dealing with smile, because on the whole I find them much better to deal with than other banks I have been with, and want to stay with them. From what I have read so far, smile have been quite fair to claimants.

Have any of you who have succeeded with smile had any problems afterwards? eg withdrawing overdraft facility, or threatening to close account because of your attitude to terms and conditions (as Alliance and Leicester seem to be doing). I am confident in the process I need to follow, just want some reassurance that I won't spoil a fairly good relationship with smile.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

[Fully_charged]

I had nearly 800£ of charges taken off from my smile accounts recently. did'nt take long either. But just recently i've not been able to log on to my accounts (online) :o . havent contacted them yet but quite possible that its just routine site maintenance. will let you know.

[caro]

Thanks for that. Did you use the letters from this site, and if so at what stage did they pay back. I don't think they would stop your account without telling you first so hope it's ok.

By the way I see you are a newbie so let me welcome you to the site. You may have seen that there is a survey for people to complete when they get their money back. Wonder if you would mind adding your details.

Congrats on your success too!

[sunseeker]

Caro,

I had no worries with Smile. The credited my charges back before they sent my statements!!!!

Go for it, keep on at them over the phone after 2-3 weeks at 2-3 calls a week and you should find a credit applied to your account. Keep us posted on your progress.

On your other question, I have been able to use my account, still got £500 O/D facility and a personal loan with them, and had virtually zero communication from them since the refund apart from the e-mail ' your statement is ready for you'.

[caro]

Ooh thanks Sunseeker. I remember seeing you had won a few weeks back. Think I will revisit your thread and see how you did it. Charges are going up a bit more this week because I am skint. Still I look on it as a form of savings now

[Fully_charged]

Hi,

Yes i did use the letters on here. It took between 2-4wks before i got my refunds. Even though smile has refunded me co-operative bank hasnt taken the charges of my accounts with them (they are supposed to be the same ). Will be sending letter before action to the Co-op soon.

Thanks for the welcome and i have completed the survey(under my previous name)

[Jacksy1980]

Hi im in the same boat as you guys, i asked for my statements so i can work out my charges. The £10 went out, and my deadline passed, but they sent a letter acknowlidging my request. I sent secure messages for an update and amzingly every secure message sent regarding Data Protection Act information has been unanswered(about 5) So i rang them up and the nice lady said i should recieve something within 10days(there deadline they told me in the reply letter) So they have until this saturday.
Now you say they paid up before statements were sent, did u ring them saying why you wanted the statements etc
Any advice would be helpful

[Fully_charged]

Didnt have to ring them. Smile sent me a message online notifying me that they are refunding the charges.

I didnt have to ask for statements as smile is an internet bank. i went through my statements online to find the dates for the charges.

[Jacksy1980]

Ive been with them nearly 6 years, so my statements only date back 2 years at the most.

[Fully_charged]

Luckily for me the charges were in the last year and i could access it online. otherwise you'll need to ask to be sent a list of your charges by using the letter in the bank template.

[Jacksy1980]

Got my data today, added it up and it comes to £975, but i havent added the debit intrest onto that because not sure if that counts. All i counted was, service charge, daily excess charge, and commission.
Was wierd looking through the years of statements because at first the charges were low, and the commission never existed, then up to the last year, commission charges, and the daily and service charges have almost doubled!

[caro]

OK I’ve taken the plunge, although not by the accepted BAG method. Given the success of some smile customers from phone calls, I thought I would dip my toe in the water by phoning to ask for overlimit fees to be refunded from my smile credit card before going for the current account. I think it is only about £75.00 so I rang this morning and stated that I understood the charges were unlawful, so could I have them back please.

The young lady I spoke to said they were not unlawful, and were in terms and conditions but she would ask for them to be looked at. She did a note for the complaints department, read out what she had put, which I agreed with her and gave me a reference number. She advised me to do a secure message to the complaints department quoting the reference number explaining why I thought the charges were unfair/unlawful. She told me the complaints department have 4 weeks to reply and then 8 weeks to take action.

I asked if it would be the same for my current account and she said it was and would I like that adding to the complaint. I quickly thought, well OK it is their timescale etc, but they seem to have been ok with others, and if it doesn’t work I can always follow the BAG method later. So I accepted her suggestion. I borrowed the bank template letter and tweaked it for my secure email to the complaints department..

What a nightmare reducing it to 1,000 characters max allowed for secure messages. . This is my heavily tweaked request.

"I understand the fees applied to my accounts in relation to direct debit refusals, exceeding overdraft limit etc are unlawful at Common Law, Statute & recent consumer regulations. It has also been confirmed that your high level of penalties are considered to be unfair per se by the OFT report of 5/4/06 and are therefore presumed to be unlawful in the absence of specific proof to the contrary.I calculate charges of £1000.50 have been taken from my current account since opening, plus overdraft interest on this sum. I also expect charges this month. I have been charged approx £75 on my credit card which also accrued interest. My records may be incomplete so please check charges from your records, & if you dispute them, demonstrate by letting me have a full breakdown of costs to which you have been put by as a result of breaches, to reassure me that the penalties truly reflect your costs.

I request a full refund of charges on my current account & credit card ."

Fingers crossed.

[Fully_charged]

Quote

'but i havent added the debit intrest onto that because not sure if that counts'


I was told by smile that their interest calculation doesnt include any charges on the account but is based on the actual overdraft.

[caro]

Sorry everyone but I thought this was an answer for me as it is my thread. I am very clear on where I stand on the interest issue as I have given it a great deal of thought and consideration. I have taken the trouble to use the spreadsheet that is freely available for all in the bank templates library (thanks again Vampiress for this) for 2 of my claims. The only one I have not used this for is my smile claim, but if you had read my email on my thread you would see that I have asked smile for overdraft interest on the amount of my charges.

Please will you use your own threads for your own story and questions as this makes it much easier for others to follow individuals progress.

Thank you.

Rant over - no offence intended to anyone. Just had to get it off my chest.

[Fully_charged]

Further to what i said about not being able to access my smile account online i phoned the bank and was told by their advisor that my account has been closed:o . He said that i should have been notified by email about this which i have'nt . I explained to him that i still owed the bank some money (500£) in terms of overdraft to which he put me on hold, came back and said that i dont owe them any money.

That's 500£ on my current account and 800£ on my visa account waivered....??

they are a generous bunch.

Please can anyone who posts here stay on topic!!!

Caro has already posted above asking for users to stop Hijacking, but still it continues, please start your own threads!

Louise