Thread: OFT report only applicable to Credit Card companies

Hello
After my premliminary request for a refund of the £3000 odd HSBC have taken in the last six years, I had the "thanks for your letter but we don't owe you jack!!!" response which I was kind of expecting.... Although the second paragraph states that the OFT report relates to Credit Card companies only./.. Has anyone else had this??? Where do I stand???
Please help
Many thanks
Chris and Linda

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i contacted the oft who passed me on to consumer advice in kent who said i should pursue my claim.

Thanks all... will just carry on
and good luck

What the OFT has ruled is irrelevant.

Bank charges are Penalty charges and not liquidated damages which are allowable.

Irrespective of what the OFT has ruled these charges are probably illegal and cannot be substanciated in court.

i dont want to get into an argument, but
try this for a recipe

add one spoonful -unfair contract terms 1977-94 ,
add 2 spoonful-uk Banking Code and practice.
just add a dash- uk law
loads of helping of -consumer action group.
result = one lovely helping of returned charges,
oh and serve cold.

oh by the way as a prt time law student 2 years - i do have more than a little knowledge of procedure.
and many thanks for your valid input. much appreciated.

The OFT ruling jsut means that they won't investigate any complaints where the charges are under 12 pounds for credit card companies at this stage. (hence why all they have all reduced them, so they aren't investigates, eh?). the ruling hasn't said that they are legal charges at all.

Keep claiming guys!!

Originally Posted by timwils

a court of law has still to decide if the charges at 12 pounds are too high. this figure is only a guide if you.

Absolutely! So, keep claiming- the only way a court can decide is if banks disclose the true costs to them of dealing with the breaches we make, which NONE of them have doen yet!

It costs them nothing - I have made a program that replicates a bank account and I wrote the code and leave it. Put mock balances in and if it goes "overdrawn" the program automatically issues a 35 pound charge onto the balance. however, the amount of the charge can be changed with ease whenever I want to!!

Even if I mae ti issue a letter, it would only cost around 1.50 max because I could only charge for the paper, ink, envelope and stamp.

The banks are only allowed by law to charge to cover their costs.

There are a few more bits that they can claim such as infrastructure costs for the IT systems + call centre peoples time answering your call when you ring up to complain etc. You are right on the premise that £12 is still an over inflated charge.

Remember the bigger the bank the more they benefit from economies of scale, thus their unit cost to apply the charge is less.

A bank is never going to disclose costs into the public domain so I doubt that they will ever challenge a case brought.

Just think of how many examples you can think of where banks apply penalty charges:
- Non Payment / late payment of CC
- Non / Late payment of mortgage
- Bank charges

etc

Once the flood gates open and fees are reduced we will all get stung in another way. The banks need to claw back the revenue somehow.