Mechs & Wife vrs Halifax Card Services ** WON **

[mechs]

As advised I'm starting a new thread on this one.

But help! I feel so dumb so don't shoot me down if its obvious! For though I understand what to amend if I was sending in the preliminary letter to the bank I'm stuck as to what to amend when I'm going to send the same letter to Card Services regarding overlimit fees and late fees. And am I claiming back the interest that they have already taken out?

If anyone has sent a preliminary letter to Card Services can they copy it in here ... without their personal details of course.

What I have amended in the prelim letter so far!

Request for repayment of charges

Dear

Your Reference: xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx

My request
I am writing to ask you to refund to me the charges which you have levied from my account over the last 4 years.

I now understand that the regime of fees which you have been applying to my account in relation to overlimit fees, late fees, and so forth are unlawful at Common Law, Statute and recent Consumer regulations. If you say that they are not then you will pleased to demonstrate this by letting me have a full breakdown of the costs to which you have been put by as a result of my breaches in order to reassure me that your penalties really do reflect your costs.

Additionally it has now been confirmed that your particularly high level of penalties are considered to be unfair per se by the OFT who reported on the 5th April 2006 and are therefore presumed to be unlawful in the absence of specific proof to the contrary.

Your responsibilities
I would draw your attention to the terms of the contract which you agreed to at the time that I opened my account. It is an implied term of that contract that you would conduct yourselves lawfully and in a manner which complies with UK law.

I am frankly shocked that you have operated my account in this way as I had always reposed confidence in your integrity and expertise as my fiduciary.
I consider that your repeated representations that your charges are fair and reasonable are deceptive and that they have deceived me into agreeing to pay them.
You concealment of the true nature of your charges has prevented me from asserting my right until now.



What I require
I calculate that you have taken £000.00 plus £XXX which you have charged me in overdraft interest for the sum which you have taken. Total £XXXXX
Additionally you have entered a default notice against my credit record. This default occurred merely in respect of unlawful charges levied by you or was the result of impecuniosity caused directly by the taking by you of penalty charges which you had applied unlawfully to my account.

In addition to full payment of the sum mentioned above I require that you remove the default entry from the register. Please note that mere correction or amendment to the entry will not be acceptable.


My targets to resolve this matter
I hope that you will enter into a sincere dialogue with me about this matter and I am writing this letter to you on the assumption that you will prefer to do this than merely respond with standard letters and leaflets.

I will give you 14 days to reply to me accepting unconditionally my request in principle and letting me know a date by which I will receive payment.

If you do not respond or you do not respond positively within this time period, I shall send you a letter before action giving you a further 14 days in which to reflect. I believe that these targets are more than sufficient for a large company such as yours with dedicated staff and departments.

After that will be no further communication from me and I shall issue a claim at the expiry of the second deadline.

	Small Claims kit by Lawpack Sue your bank as many times as you like with just one Small Claims kit by Lawpack. Follow this link to read the review. The kit contains everything you need: instruction manual, templates, examples, forms and a comprehensive CDRom. Applies to England and Wales

	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.

[maddyrose1664]

I don't think they charge interest on charges. From the look of my statements of all my credit cards they only charge interest on purchases. I'm sure you would just be claiming for the charges and if it got to court, the 8%.

	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.

[mechs]

Thanks Maddyrose, thats what I told the other half ( she will come in as me ) you can tell its her cus er inglish is proper thtas cos i tawt her to speak proper devon LOL

[mechs]

anyone able to help with this one please?

[Movingon]

Have a look at my MINT thread in the Royal Bank of Scotland forum; it's got my preliminary letter to the MINT Card people which you should be able to amend to your requirements.

[mechs]

Thank you very much Tom

[mechs]

I received the following in response to my Data Protection Act letter and am somewhat puzzled as it makes no reference to the Data Protection Act:

Dear Mr Mechs

Our Reference xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx

I refer to an email received on the account.

I note you are asking for details of all manual intervention on account. We are under no statutory obligation to record this information and thus are unable to help further with this request.

We can, of course, supply copy statements. I therefore enclose all statements from account open date 24th June 2002. There is no charge for this service.

I trust this clarifies our position however should any of your concerns remain unresolved please let me know what you'd like me to do to put matters right. We are keen to resolve your concerns.

If I am unable to do sok, you will also find enclosed a copy of our Compaoint Leaflet that provides details of how you can contact the Finanacial Ombudsman Service for help. However, if I don't hear from you in the next eight weeks, I will assume you are happy and close my file.

Should you wish to discuss your concerns further, then please telephone me on the above number.

Yours sincerely

Margaret Rae
Complaint and Consumer Guidance.

There is no response to that following that was in my initial Data Protection Act letter:

'Additionally where there has been any event in our account history over this period which has required manual intervention by any member of your staff or any other person, we require disclosure of any indication or notes which have either caused or resulted in that manual intervention or other evidence of that manual intervention in relation to our Visa business with you.

If you are unable to supply data relating to manual intervention because there has been no such manual intervention then please be kind as to confirm this in your response to this request.'


Surely they are in breach of my Data Protection Act request?

	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.

[Movingon]

Yes they are; see my thread "My interpretation" in the Halifax area.

[mechs]

Thank you once again Tom!

[mechs]

Recieved today our statements adding them up it comes to £605

[thesubstation]

Hi there
I would be very interested in this case, as my Halifax Visa card is now on £1200 although the card limit was £500 and I was a mere £30 overlimit before they started adding all their ridiculous fees, despite paying the minimum amount monthly this is what it has amounted to
Any more advise please and I would love to know how you get on with them

[mechs]

Originally Posted by thesubstation

despite paying the minimum amount monthly

Hi sub ... Always pay more than the minimum amount! I can't recall where I read something about that it will take forever to pay off if you pay just the minimum. Hopefully someone with more financial acumen than I can explain why.

Any info, response we get we'll post in here.

mechs

[Movingon]

...because most of your minimum payment each month is simply enough to cover the interest they charge in that month. For instance I was only able to afford the minimum payment this month of £96. The interest they charged, after I had paid the £96, was £93.57.

Screwed? Not bloody half mate.

	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.

[thesubstation]

Good luck with your case, I hope you succeed and will be watching this space!

[thesubstation]

Hi Stonelaughter
Have you attemted to sue Halifax Visa yet?
I bloodywell hope so!

[mechs]

Originally Posted by thesubstation

Good luck with your case, I hope you succeed and will be watching this space!

We will keep everyone informed

[mechs]

Better do an update here,

We have got to the stage now where we are about to start court action .......original claim is 605 pounds..... today had a letter offering .as a good will jesture ...... wait for it now and dont get excited .........100 pounds and the usual form they want you to sign ..........but hey no amount on it if I filled it in and added a few 0000s would they notice it do you think, what a donation to this site that would be ................ guess they would so will have to reject it I suppose, they dont half make you work for your money dont they

[Marilyn]

Hey Mechs

See they are still playing hard to get with YOUR MONEY...just thought ld see how you were getting on....lve just sent my Prelim. Got a call and a letter from their Debt collectors, who they call, In house Collections, dont see the diff myself as they call themselves debt coll on their letterhead, more things to confuse us...anyways lve asked both the Halifax and their DEBT Collectors not to contact me again by phone and that l will not be making any payment until my dispute has been resolved to MY satisfaction, the amount l owe is less than what they owe me, so there!!!!!!!!!!!!

Keep me posted about whats happening with your claim interested to see how they play it...

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[mechs]

HI Marilyn, thanks for looking in, we will get there just have to be like you STAMP the foot a bit harder

I have had to lay the law down even harder in another thread , but hey we will get there

then we can thank BF and Dave and all the mods and not least of all the Banks for making us take out court action and giving us that extra feeling

The wife reckons its the Halifaxs way of getting us to save ........... I dont mind I am just going to raise a glass say Cheers to the Halifax and thats a drink or two less you can have at your xmas party

[brussels1]

Hi Mechs,,

I wonder how they work out how much to offer each request for a refund, because our offer was just over 50 % of £401.

I've read somewhere (I think it was on the bank employee's thread) else that the more an employee can save their bank- the more brownie points they get. This could only explain why different people are offered different amounts.

Anyhow go for it. I intend to both with Barclays and Halifax.