Bandit v NatWest - The Full Story And Finally**WON**

[the_toilet_bandit]

grrrr halfway thru printing my prelim letter and my printer goes up in smoke (literally)

Having to wait till wedsnesday now till my new one gets delivered.....

[twiddles thumbs]

[the_toilet_bandit]

<Significant Nudge>

Had a reply from my MP regarding the OFT's position, and regarding my NW statements....here it is!

Dear Mr Toilet Bandit

Thankyou for your letter of 28 May

At about the same time as receiving your letter, the attached response from the OFT arrived. Do, please, let me have your views once you have had an opportunity to consider John Fingleton's reply.

I am most concerned to hear of the way in which you received your statements from NatWest, especially with regard to receiving a statement destined for another customer.

Do, please, let me have a copy of the response you receive from the Customer relations Manager. If it is not satisfactory, I should be more than happy to take up your case with the Chairman of NatWest.

I look forward to hearing from you.

With best wishes.

Yours sincerely

Ollie

He enclosed his reply from John Fingleton, here it is......

Dear Mr Letwin

Unlawful penalty charges

Thankyou for your letter of 18 May, enclosing correspondence from your constituent, Mr Toilet Bandit of Bridport. You have asked me for our comments on the points raised by Mr. Toilet Bandit about penalty charges levied by high street banks and for information that the OFT has done on this subject.

The OFT is aware of many concerns about penalty charges. We have recently carried out an investigation, under the Unfair Terms in consumer Contracts regulations 1999, specifically into credit card default charges. We stated in July 2005 our provisional conclusion that eight major credit card issuers were setting default charges too high and wrote to them to consult on this view. The closing date for responses was 25 October 2005. Please see our press release attached. Further copies can be downloaded from our website.

Since October, we have been working through the issuers' detailed legal arguments and confidential accounting information, holding meetings and seeking more information where necessary. As a result of that work, we published a final statement of our position on the calculation of fair default charges in credit card contracts, on 5 April 2006. The relevant press release can also be downloaded from our website. I attach a hard copy for your information.

The statement sets out our view of the principles credit card issuers should follow in setting default charges. The broad principles set out in this statement are likely to be relevant to other default charges in standard agreement with cunsumers, such as those for mortgages, store cards and bank accounts. We have said that we expect the banks and other financial businesses to consider the wider implications of these principles, and to bring any similar charges they impose for breach of contract into line with them, where and as appropriate bearing in mind the different legal and practical contexts in which they operate. If appropriate steps are not taken within a reasonable timescale, further regulatory investigation of the positions can be expected.

We are not ruling out the possibility of taking legal action in future if we feel it appropriate. However, the OFT cannot obtain redress for individuals. Individual consumers are free to take action themselves but should seek independant advice if they want further advice about their rights and obligations under their credit card agreement. We would also strongly recommend that consumers having financial difficulties seek early help and advice from one of the free advice agencies such as Citizens Advice, Citizens Advice Scotland, Advice UK or Consumer Credit Counselling Service.

The OFT published a guide for consumers clarifying our position regarding the credit card default charges and providing further advice. Again also available on our website, I attach a hard copy for your information.

Yours sincerely

John Fingleton
Chief Executive

His enclosures were:

OFT consults with eight credit card companies on the level of their default charges - 26 July 2005

Current credit card default charges unfair - 5 April 2006

OFT's action on credit card default charges (Adobe Acrobat needed)

Looking at the OFT letter I can only see paragraph 4 as being of any relevance. However, my MP wants my views on it, so if anyone has any views I shall add them into my letter. It seems he really wants to do something about it.

PS. Received my monthly statement and this was on my charges/advice interest sheet:

CHARGES ALREADY REFUNDED

A charge for the previous period was reduced from £28.00 to £0.00 on 31 May 2006.

Isn't that nice of them, only another £1200 to go

Mickie

[MARTIN3030]

Whooooooooooooo

The Chairman himself ??????????

Nice one..........and looks like you will soon have some money to pay for more than your broken printer !!

[the_toilet_bandit]

Well, Prelim letter sent, now I've hooked up the new printer

The Fun is beginning again

Mickie

[Tinkerbelle]

Wow!! You are certainly going for it aren't you!!

Well done, your confidence seems to be growing with every post

[MARTIN3030]

BTW maybe you can tell your bank manager Tesco are selling some really nice envelopes dead cheap.

(I believe one of the big banks underwrite the tesco insurance)


Not only will he get good comments after posting statements with Data Protection Act info.....he will also get clubcard points..................w hich he can use towards his next purchase of ........................e r................ envelopes.

[the_toilet_bandit]

Dear Mr Toilet Bandit

Thankyou for your letter of 7 June 2006 and for returning the statement. I have arranged for this to be redirected to it's rightful destination immediately. I am very grateful to you for returning it to me and I apologise again for the mistake that was made.

With respect, i didn't confirm that there has been any manual intervention on your account. In the event that there had been manual intervention, there was no requirement to make a note of such action and therefore I have no record to make reference against. This does not mean that there was no such intervention.

There is nothing I can add constructively to my last letter except that we have since responded to the OFT statement of the 5 April 2005. After due consideration, we do not accept its findings in relation to the setting of credit card fees. We are concerned that the Office or Fair Trading has publicly called into question the setting of charges applied to other products, including current accounts. The Office of Fair Trading has restricted it's investigation to credit cards and made no attempt to consult with RBS or the industry in relation to other entirely different products.

I am sorry to disappoint you but we will not be refunding any past charges, and as a consequence, I note your proposed action. I have alerted our lawyers and litigation department to this development and they will deal with any papers that you issue at the appropriate time. To ensure that they reach the rightful place as quickly as possible, can I please ask you to serve those papers on our registered Office address, which appears below. Thank you.

Thank you again for writing to me and returning the statement.

Yours sincerely

[squiggle]

Stuart Higley
Senior Manager

Off with the LBA then! I'm quite surprised I'm not getting standard letters, but then again, I am rewriting the templates (putting sentences in different orders, etc.) and requesting non-standardisation.

Also interesting to see that they don't accept the OFT's finding and seem to be prepared to ignore it. Oh well, keep you posted

[MARTIN3030]

Originally Posted by the_toilet_bandit

Off with the LBA then! I'm quite surprised I'm not getting standard letters, but then again, I am rewriting the templates (putting sentences in different orders, etc.) and requesting non-standardisation.

Also interesting to see that they don't accept the OFT's finding and seem to be prepared to ignore it. Oh well, keep you posted

Of course they dont accept it..........if they DID it would make our claims a lot easier !!!

Have to laugh at their remarks about manual intervention there is none ....but then again there might be ?

Looks like they are pushing you further along and even have the audacity to give you a referral pointer to their legal guys.

Did you keep a copy of the other persons bank details they wrongly supplied you ?

that one was really quite dynamite and they know it.

[the_toilet_bandit]

Dear Mr Letwin,

Thankyou for your letter of 5 June 2006.

I enclose a copy of the reply give to me by Mr Stuart Higley, Senior Manager of NatWest's Customer Relations Unit, in relation to myself receiving somebody else's personal private account details and the poor attempt to securely send my own statements. It seems to me that he is genuinely sorry for the errors, but it would be interesting to see if anything is done regarding the matter in future.

I have read through the enclosed reply from John Fingleton and I thankyou for taking the time to write to him. I believe that the OFT should also make a separate investigation as to the charges levied by banks regarding current accounts. I believe it should be a separate investagtion, as to me, the OFT's stance on current account charges etc. seem a bit vague.

I am also in communication with Mr Higley regarding the refunding of my bank charges. During my last correspondance with Mr Higley, he has stated that NatWest do not accept the OFT's findings in relation to the credit card charges. Does that mean that they weill appeal the OFT's findings and keep unlawfully appying extortionate charges to peoples accounts? I also enclose a copy of this latest correspondence as I would like you to know what one high street banks' opinion is on the OFT report.

I look forward to your reply and thank you for your time.

Yours sincerely

Mr Toilet Bandit

Enc.

Yes I did keep a copy, as theres a bank transfer transaction that gives me another set of account details.....proper dynamite.

OMG just noticed the spelling.....could have sworn I spellchecked it.....hopefully it should be ok, cuz I got my hand stuck in a postbox before, not going to do THAT again

[the_toilet_bandit]

Ok, I posted the LBA letter along with my reply to Ollie. Also phoned up my County corst and asked for the info as I was wanting to put a Small Claims case in, that should arrive soon. One of the big peeps here (maybe BF) mentioned somewhere that now is the time to get up to speed with the court processes.

I'm not showing shock or surprised at it getting to court (been reading the FAQs again ) I'm relishing the opportunity. It's just I want to go in fully armed, just for my own peace of mind really, I don't want them to walk all over me when I'm there. I know that most if not all the cases are being settled before the court stage, but I want to be fully prepared if mine gets defended in court, especially with the profiling that sir Trev's programme gave this site. I can imagine theres been a steep rise in registrations for here? Thinking back on that programme, if loads of people take up the fight, it said that one day it might get moved to a higher court, I'm just slightly anxious that it might be mine. (btw, your wife's well tasty, dave).

But anyway, back to my point. I've been hunting around for all the codes of practice that the banks are breaking, I've obviously missed a place cuz I cant find them anywhere. Can someone point me in the direction of what and which subsection, paragraph thingies apply? just so I can learn and print them off for use, if it gets that far. I'm also going to do a googlysearch and see if there is anything in print online that can help me, although points in those directions would be gratefully received also. It might seem like i'm getting too much into this, but I just want to be prepared in case it goes all the way.

Many thanks in advance to those that can point the way :o)

[MARTIN3030]

Toilet Bandit (cant say this without laughing....where did u think up this ?)


All that you need to know is here on this site did you see the ppl thatys won their cases ?

do you see in the face of bulls*** members staying onboard ?

You have come a long way and we are all following you !
Whats good for Whizz is good for the toilet-bandit

STAY WITH IT AND STAY HERE

We want to see result..............I was on the car boot sale yesterday and saw a printer going for a tenner.........I immediately thought of you !!!


keep posting and keep to the script if you do that then you cant go far wrong.

[StoneLaughter]

Bandit -

Read in the FAQ - you will find lots of stuff there. They're not breaking any "Codes of Practice", they're breaking LAWS.

The Unfair Terms in Contracts Act and the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations state that if a party to a contract breaches the terms of that contract, the other party may reclaim their costs or a legitimate pre-estimate of those costs that they incurred as a direct result of the individual breach. Our argument is that the action the bank takes (or the Credit Card company) in instances of default is automated action taken by a computer and therefore costs them a number of pence rather than the £35 often charged. These charges therefore far exceed the incurred costs and as such are unlawful.

The banks then try to protest that the charges are for some diaphonous "service" they are rendering to us when we default. Our argument is that, under the Sales of Goods and Services Act, the charges for that "service" must be reasonable; and to charge £35 in a case where a limit was exceeded by a few pence is NOT reasonable.


Hope this helps; these are of course not the ONLY approaches we've been using, but they are by far the most common.