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Recently I posted a thread asking about claiming back overdraft charges (consumeractiongroup.co.u k/forum/Lloyds-bank/154073-too-late)
With only one reply but that reply saying it was a good idea still to claim I went ahead and wrote the following letter... sent 31 july 08
Lloyds TSB
Dear Sir or Madam,
Ref: Account number: xxxxxxxx
I have come to learn that the fees that you have been applying to my account because of failed direct debits, exceeded overdrafts and other reasons are unlawful according to common law and recent consumer regulations.
I therefore would like to request a refund of all the default overdraft charges that have been applied to my account since 31 October 2003.
Under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 charges must reflect administration costs and cannot be punitive. I believe that the following overdraft charges are unlawful as they do not reflect the true cost of going into an unauthorised overdraft.
You have taken £608 from me in overdraft charges since 31 October 2003 and I would like to request repayment of this £608 total sum. I also ask you to ensure any default notices entered against my credit record are removed entirely.
Please repay this money in full and remove any default notices within 14 days. If this is not done, I will begin a claim against you for the full amount, plus interest and my costs.
I also request any correspondence to be in writing as this will be necessary to my case.
Yours Sincerely,
I went straight ahead with the letter requesting the charges back because i downloaded and printed out all my statements and went through them adding up total overdraft charges.
I recieved the following letter back soon after.. dated 4th August 08
Dear mr Green
Complaint reference: xxxxxx
I am just writing to let you know that we have recieved your complaint - and to say how sorry I am to learn that you feel you have cause to complain.
We expect all our enquiries to be completed within the next four weeks but we will try to get our response to you sooner if we can. If theres a delay, we will let you know why and we'll give you an idea when you can expect to recieve a full response to your complaint. I hope we can sort things out for you.
In the meantime attached to this letter is a document called 'voicing your concerns'. This tells you al lyou need to know about how complaints with us are resolved.
If your complaint is about the level, fairness or lawfulness of overdraft bank charges, then a different process that weve agreed with the financial services authority will appl. We will write to you shortly to explain how well handle that complaint and what steps we will take to protect your rights. In responding to you we will also consider all the things raised in your letter, as well as any further information we have about your financial circumstances.
What I was wondering now.. do I go along with their four week timeline or start getting serious with my procedings because they have failed to comply with mine?
Hi
Well as you realise you've two choices wait four weeks IMHO a delaying tatic from ltsb, and issue the claim or do it immediately.
Your claim will be stayed as all such claims are until the test case is over, however at least your claim will be in the system.
Andy
Advice is based on my personal opinion, and what I have learnt from this forum.
If you need legal advice please consider consulting a lawyer.
The four weeks thing is indeed a stalling tactic and one we've all seen during our claims.
To satisfy the court that you've tried to resolve the matter before claiming through courts they usually wanna see two things - a preliminary approach for repayment (what you have there, really) and an LBA (letter before action). I'd send an LBA now (templates are on-site to help ) and give them their 14 days to respond, then file at court (unless they pay up... yeah right!).
thanx for replys..
What I was also wondering about is what do they determine as 'hardship' ?
Because for a while now I have been on disability benefit that gets paid into the bank every fortnight.
Numerous times, Lloyds have put on charges at the start of the month and when I havent been able to pay straight away, theyve put on more charges and several times, out the £172 a fortnight i get they have happily taken more than half of that leaving me well and truly screwed for the rest of the fortnight and then struggling even more to pay the following months charges. This has ended up as a vicious circle for months at a time, even when i have phoned and explained the situation.
For the benefit of the doubt I am willing to extend the initial 14 days required to respond to 4 weeks to make your enquiries as you have stated in your letter but NOT to 8 weeks as mentioned in the “voicing your concerns” attachment.
If no effort has been made to reimburse the full amount of £608 before September 1st 2008 then I will have very little choice but to issue a lba.
Only being on disability allowance I have suffered on numerous occasions from the charges that you have applied to my account. Several times you have taken over half of the money I am entitled to through disability in punitive charges which has left me with very little to no means of paying following months charges, which in turn has incurred me additional charges. I have made calls to you in the past and have also made enquiries in branch explaining the financial situation I was being put in but received very little in the offer of help other than to speak to a financial advisor to suggest ways of managing my spending.
For this, I would like you to take into account the matter of “hardship” as I meet the criteria suggested by the FSA in the updated waiver.
Yours sincerely
I havnt yet sent this letter and was really hoping on some advice as to send it as is or to make any changes..
You really don't have to extend your deadlines, and to be bluntly honest if you do it'll achieve nothing. They're stalling for time on ALL cases now, refusing to deal with anyone (even where financial hardship is proved).
If you're using the templates from this site for your prelim/lba then there's a section in them where you can explain the fsa waiver for financial hardship and state your case - worth putting in even though they won't react to it.
If you're finding it difficult to get by because of them taking charges you have a few options. You can either send off a right of appropriation for each payment ( http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...stop-bank.html ), open another account elsewhere (there's lists of 'parachute' accounts on this site to help with that one) or you can call them/stop in the branch and explain the situation, hoping they'll extend any overdraft to cover due charges.
There's also the entirely satisfying final alternative - speaking to the peeps who pay your benefits. From what I've read elsewhere, they have the ability to take the funds back from the bank if they've sucked up benefits for paying bank charges!
Ash and Lloyds tsb claim start.
charges (consumeractiongroup.co.u k/forum/Lloyds
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) and give them their 14 days to respond, then file at court (unless they pay up... yeah right!).