FSA and Hardship

[veester]

It would be nice to have a streamline process with "number" and "ID Tags" for forms; of course the post office has them.

In fact any organisation worth there salt has 'process' and 'forms' which are duly attached to said process.

As for hardship; its ironic that i've heard and have my own case were charges were refunded for a given period (6 months) at a branch level, after which i was told "policy is to only do so for this long", so the banks have a policy in place allready, but it is not encompassing enough for those in hardship - the FSA hardship guidlines provide some hope.

I would argue of course that the banks need to go the whole hog here and bite the bullet; well see eh!

[abroadgirl]

hello all
i am abroadgirl, I have been reading your thread with interest, i am with well was with abbey and it has been a long hard brawl i do have my own thread abroadgirl v abbey.
but abbey has accepted my hardship but they are still not paying me, i have EDIT at fos (case worker) fos refered my cas to a case worker as they said i had a case oh my have i had some replies from her, so she got them of me too, so when i went to court Youl will see how i got on in my thread) ty
the juge rung rings round abbeys rep, and said that he blamed abbey for my situation and that he had read my case with care, and that he in his order put to claim the sum of xxxxx with intrest,
he said dj edit that he had phoned abbey about lifting the the stay but abbey replied they would appeal as the test case was nr approching.....i was in cout 8th jan 2008
ty for reading
hugs
abg

[yourbank]

Veester, you are lucky because NatWest do not have that policy.
one question I have specifically for those who read this thread is to do with the hardship I&E forms. Are they simply in a set format or do they have your own unique reference on them?

[MARTIN3030]

Originally Posted by yourbank

I do think Martin has a valid point about being able to put within the forum, the I&E forms. The only reservation I have is whether the I&E forms have reference numbers on them when they are sent out or whether they are fairly standard templates. Could CAG approach banks with a view of alleviating the frustration of consumers in financial hardship by obtaining blank ones and therefore speeding up the response times of the bank? Would that be something that CAG would be able to do or morally feel that they could do?

Yes certainly-following it being made apparant in the last week or so that there was a need for this...I have been trying to organise it and its underway.
The banking codes revisions in March included the new guidance for hardship and so I think its reasonable to assume that this form the banks are using is pretty standard.We could quite easily confirm this by looking at them all.I am led to believe that these forms are openly available within the public domain,therefore I cannot see any problems in making them accessible to users of CAG.

[veester]

They are different forms for each bank from my personal experience

HSBC - No reference number, 1 very basic 2 column form

Nationwide - Unique reference number, 2 pages with pretty comprehensive listing.

I would be careful here though as all they are is I&E form; there is nothing to make it 'hardship' form, it is simply a doc sent out to anyone who needs to provide I&E.

There is no area or indeed any 'question asking you to explain' or provide a paragraph of reason for hardship; one still has to provision a letter and explanation on seperate paper.

[MARTIN3030]

Ah ha...Bingo.
I think I have found something.

The Form I have borrowed from a neigbour is headed ;
MAT/BBA COMMON FINANCIAL STATEMENT (V3)

one one side is Money advice trust-other side BBA logo

The questions on the form all have a number before the question (ie BF3)

There are supporting explanatory notes with the form,and also related info as to where the forms can be viewed and presumably downloaded.
These include;
BBA – British Bankers' Association - Home
FLA






Footnote;

The covering letter with the CFS in the case of HBOS merely is a consent to agree to them investigating under the Data Protection Act.

I have removed the link to MAT since they are concerned with offering services and support to those in the industry as opposed to individuals.

[yourbank]

Design an income and expenditure form for claimants. Add space for Name and account number. Possibly add a header....Hardship claim form or something to that effect and hey presto you have an LBA that can have maybe an additional line added to state that you wish your claim to be dealt with as a hardship claim and bingo, time for response reduced. Worth looking at new FOS waiver in conjunction to add additional weight to it possibly.

[MARTIN3030]

Originally Posted by veester

They are different forms for each bank from my personal experience

HSBC - No reference number, 1 very basic 2 column form

Nationwide - Unique reference number, 2 pages with pretty comprehensive listing.

I would be careful here though as all they are is I&E form; there is nothing to make it 'hardship' form, it is simply a doc sent out to anyone who needs to provide I&E.

There is no area or indeed any 'question asking you to explain' or provide a paragraph of reason for hardship; one still has to provision a letter and explanation on seperate paper.

Agreed within itself theres nothing to acknowledge it as being a hardship form-its the information thats supplied within it that supports the criteria to be viewed as a hardship case.
If can be reasonably expected that the use of a form used by one bank and carrying the info as I have posted-should offer all the info (once completed) that they require to proceed.

The questions as to whether they should be of a specific bank issue should be irrelevant since any version will have boxes to insert your own reference numbers.

IMHO

[MARTIN3030]

Originally Posted by yourbank

Design an income and expenditure form for claimants. Add space for Name and account number. Possibly add a header....Hardship claim form or something to that effect and hey presto you have an LBA that can have maybe an additional line added to state that you wish your claim to be dealt with as a hardship claim and bingo, time for response reduced. Worth looking at new FOS waiver in conjunction to add additional weight to it possibly.

Onto it YB-great thinking

[veester]

Originally Posted by MARTIN3030

Agreed within itself theres nothing to acknowledge it as being a hardship form-its the information thats supplied within it that supports the criteria to be viewed as a hardship case.
If can be reasonably expected that the use of a form used by one bank and carrying the info as I have posted-should offer all the info (once completed) that they require to proceed.

Agreed, i think though causation is an important and complicated aspect, it opens pandoras box....

How to distinguish between illness - mental, emotional (a partner leaving/berevament), then how do you manage and attribute a correct remedial path with respect to financial difficulties.

Relief may need to be extended for quite some time in some cases.

To the layman it seems easy enough; grant relief as long as is needed, but i guess when you are in it for profit, its a different kettle of fish.

[ravenbluemoon]

Originally Posted by MARTIN3030

Onto it YB-great thinking

RE: Income/Expenditure sheet: I have one of these already made up as a fully working spreadsheet - PM me if you want a copy of it.

[MARTIN3030]

Thanks will do.Theres 3 team members working on this now so hopefully we can see something available soon.
Thanks to all who have been involved at this stage.

[yourbank]

nice to see a good kick up the backside works

[MARTIN3030]

Originally Posted by yourbank

nice to see a good kick up the backside works

...no kick up the backside YB....just being threatened with no coffee breaks till its sorted

[yourbank]

.......now that is very bad. Have you looked at your contract? pmsl.