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£20k? WOW. Good on ya. Invest it wisely. Odd

It's all over. Nat West has given up the fight stating in a letter that although it believes the "particulars of the claim disclose no reasonable grounds or course of action against the bank" it will settle the claim as it is not "commercially viable or cost effective for the bank to defend". This letter was attached to a cheque for a £128.32. However, it also put in a gagging clause. That was removed when I telephoned the bank telling it that I did not accept the terms of settlement. It really is quite absurd that these banks can continue to do this without their shareholders getting quite ****ed off. If it had paid up the £30 that I requested rather than wasting its time (and undoubtedly, its money) then it wouldn't have cost almost £100 more. Still, I guess £100 is nothing to Nat West.... But £100 x 1000 claims (or more) surely can't be ignored....

There's a lot of panic here. Please do get it all in perpective. This is one loss out of thousands and there appear to be a number of reasons for it (discounting conspiracy theories) Court is a serious step. MANY, MANY people have been encouraged by the thousands of cases and thousands of wins and have throw their ball into the Court, so to speak. I think it's extremely easy to get swept away in the euphoria of the success stories and encouragement from people on here who, like me, have very little legal experience. This is not a dig, just a statement of fact. The upshot can easily be that we begin to lose sight of the relatively serious nature of all this and start taking things for granted. As soon as you do this, you're causing problems - it's easy to become complacent for instance and miss vital things that need to be presented should you ever face a judge. This appears to have been a contributing factor in this Birmingham case. The Small Claims Court does not expect us to be legal eagles, but it does expect us to be dilligent and reasonable in our claims and presentation of cases. If we can't manage this, then the chances of losing increase. Put this loss into perspective and take it as a warning that without proper presentation, etc. you might not get the outcome you want.

For the moment, I am seeing this as a blip - nothing more. Facts are: 1) Thousands of cases uncontested in court - If the banks thought they could win, they've have been in court EVERY TIME. They all push us to the time limits and cave in - they don't have to cave in - they choose to on "economic" grounds. This is ballcocks and much of thier expenses have already been incurred in the fight up to the point of caving in. 2) It's quite possibly a mistake as touted in the followup BBC news story BBC NEWS | Business | Was the bank victory an accident? 3) If this goes to appeal, there's a VERY good chance that the bank won't let it get that far - it's well aware that a loss at that stage could be catastrophic. This is probably as much of a wakeup call to the banks as it is to us. We are suddenly aware that things might not go our way after thousands of cases where they have. It's a reminder that every case is different and that we can win or lose. It's also a "coffee smelling moment" for the banks as this minor victory (which is quite possibly an accident caused by overwork) could quickly turn out to be anything but a victory. There's also the possibility that it's a "staged loss" in order to put the frighteners on us. DO NOT GIVE UP THE FIGHT

An interesting concept and certainly not one that I would put past these operations.....

Ah, but if you disputed the charge, that would be a different story, surely?

Here's an idea. If we refuse to pay BT these extra charges, what will it do? I would suggest that if it cuts you off if you pay the bill minus these charges it will be acting unreasonably as you've paid the bill for the service provided. Views?

Given that many judgements are based upon people being "reasonable" about things, I would argue that 10 days (especially when you can lose some of those days by delaying the sending of the bill) is a little unreasonable.

There's a huge amount of digression here so, trying to get back to the matter in hand.... BT's outrageous attempts to screw more money out of us without actually raising its telephony charges. There's a lot of talk about debts and legal tender. Here's a spanner. I beleive I am right in saying that the BT phone bill is made up of two elements; 1) the provision of the line and 2) the calls made. I beleive I am also right in saying that the provision of the line is billed IN ADVANCE and the calls are billed in ARREARS. If this is the case, as much as it pains me to say it, the argument about the settlement of a debt is somewhat changed as only part of the bill is a debt. Please ignore me if I'm talking rot.

Indeed. The UK banking system is slow by design - it may be old and antiquated but it's well within the powers of the banks to change this. The fact is, they choose not to.

Sorry, I don't agree at all. You can't just make sweeping generalisations like that. Just because someone earns £1m a month don't mean they don't have commitments of £1.2m a month.

Quite.

Errr? Yes, of course big businesses would be "bothered" to do this. Many of these big businesses didn't get big because they are nice and cuddly. It's surely worth bothering if you can lever more money out of people on a false premise that's going to largely go unchallenged. Let me think where this may have happened with other big businesses.... Ah, yes, I remember now; banks and unlawful charging. I run my own businesses - 3 in fact. I don't charge my clients for processing their payments - I respect them too much.

That day can't come quick enough. Good luck to him.