Thread: Hardship case can they use my information against me?

Hi I have a large OD with Natwest,
I have sent a SAR and have now calculated the charges on the account I believe I was also miss-sold Advantage gold on the account too. The total claim including the 8% I could maybe get if it went to court would be approx 85% of the OD.

Ok I have a few question reading some of the threads in this forum I will not be accepted under the hardship cases, I have problems but no council tax or mortgage arrears. Is it worth me sending the I&E form back I don't want Natwest to be able to use the information I submit against me if they decide to take me to court? Secondly some of the charges on the account go back more that 6 years do I still include them in my court claim?

Basically I want Natwest to go away the charges and miss-sell virtual cover the OD outstanding amount. By the "test case" been on hold I'm hoping that this will stop any further action by them on this account.

Can anyone offer any advice please?

Thanks

Pumpytums

I have no idea what this means: --

Basically I want Natwest to go away the charges and miss-sell virtual cover the OD outstanding amount. By the "test case" been on hold I'm hoping that this will stop any further action by them on this account.

However in respect of the other issues you raise, you can claim will your charges back to 1995.

Secondly, you can certainly try to make a hardship claim if you want. You are unlikely to have much luck and you will to realise that the whole hardship scheme is a cosmetic con trick designed to allow the banks to tell the press that they do have a heart after all and that they waiver is not as one-sided as people might think.

Even the Ombudsman has complained that the banks are not taking hardship claim seriously.

Are you sure that you have calculated all your charges correctly? We tend to find that the majority of people have left a lot out. For instance have you considered that if you are overdrawn, then a lot of that overdraft and maybe all of it is comprised of your bank charges. This is true even if the overdraft is within your authorised limit. The bank would have been taking interest every month on your overdraft. If the overdraft is comprised of charges then this is your own money and yet the bank of being charged you for it.

Do you realise that? Have you taken into consideration? Have you then gone on to add all of the interest which has been taken in respect of your overdraft in so far as it is comprised of bank charges?

If you haven't then you ought to go back and calculate all of this as well. Then add 8% on to that.

Even where the accumulated charges total is only a portion of the total overdraft for that month,you should take back that proportion of the interest that they have levied on your account of your overdraft that month.

You may easily find that your true charges figure is equal to your NatWest overdraft or is even more so that the NatWest actually owes you money.

For instance have you taken out any loans during that time of your account? If you have taken out loans then some of this was used to replace money which the bank took away from you in charges. Why should you have to pay interest on the loan when in fact all you are doing was replacing your own money which have been seized by the bank. The bank may repay you 8% -- and yet you would have been paying the bank 15% or 20% or even more simply to borrow money from them which actually they have taken away from you in unlawful bank charges.

Sit down and think about this very carefully and then reassess your calculations

Thanks Bankfodder,
I should have re-read my post my apologies. Too be honest I want the fees and the unlawful charges to write off my defaulted OD with Natwest. Thats what I meant by wanting the debt to go away.

I have used the complex spreadsheet to calculate the proportion of each month interest from charges. One thing I didn't do is feed the proportion of interest back into the calculations eg one month I get charged £50 interest half the OD amount is charges hence £25 of the interest is unlawful too. Should I feed this into next month calc or can things get messy in claims for compound interest?

Over the period of the account however (20 + years) I have taken out loans etc to pay off the OD balance. I didn't even realise that I could claim this, thank you very much it does make perfect sense however.

The bank takes my money, charges me the OD rate on it I then borrow money at a rate (sometimes from the same bank) and get charged interest on it too. My word I have never realised how deep it can go.

I do believe now that the bank owes me more than the defaulted OD, I must thank you for bringing this to my attention.

At present I have only sent as a preliminary unlawful fees + levied interest I haven't included the 8% yet. This will of course be on my next letter once the 14days are up. I have also sent a separate letter requesting my advantage gold fees back and also the levied interest on the OD amount. Too date I have received no reply to the fees letter which from other threads appears to be there tactic.

Thanks for your help time to recalculate I feel

Pumpytums

Originally Posted by pumpytums

Hi I have a large OD with Natwest,
I have sent a SAR and have now calculated the charges on the account I believe I was also miss-sold Advantage gold on the account too. The total claim including the 8% I could maybe get if it went to court would be approx 85% of the OD.
I would keep the misselling of Advantage gold and the Bank Charges themselves separate from each other.
Ok I have a few question reading some of the threads in this forum I will not be accepted under the hardship cases, I have problems but no council tax or mortgage arrears. Is it worth me sending the I&E form back I don't want Natwest to be able to use the information I submit against me if they decide to take me to court?
They will decline you under financial hardship if you do not complete the I&E form which is for household income and expenditure.
Under the fsa waiver:
"6.
Where the firm does not have sufficient evidence to assess whether or not the complainant is in fact in financial difficulty, the firm will seek such further relevant information as is reasonably required to make that assessment. In the event that the firm reasonably requires relevant information to be provided by the complainant and the complainant does not provide the requested information within a reasonable period of time, the firm shall not be obliged to treat such a complainant as being in financial difficulty."

Secondly some of the charges on the account go back more that 6 years do I still include them in my court claim?
The site recommends that if you have held your account back to 1995 or earlier that your start date is 1st January 1995. For the purposes of Financial Hardship, the bank only have to consider the charges from 27th July 2001.
Basically I want Natwest to go away the charges and miss-sell virtual cover the OD outstanding amount. By the "test case" been on hold I'm hoping that this will stop any further action by them on this account.
They won't go away but you remain in a strong position.
Can anyone offer any advice please?

Thanks

Pumpytums

See the above. If you do not have priority debt arrears(mortgage or rent, council tax, utilities) I very much doubt they will look at financial hardship positively ie offer any form of refund.
Do you have credit cards, store cards or catalogue accounts with charges that you can reclaim as well including any £12 ones?

Hi yourbank,
thanks for your reply.

Originally Posted by yourbank

See the above. If you do not have priority debt arrears(mortgage or rent, council tax, utilities) I very much doubt they will look at financial hardship positively ie offer any form of refund.
Do you have credit cards, store cards or catalogue accounts with charges that you can reclaim as well including any £12 ones?

Yes I have a great deal of charges+PPI on my cards. The one I'm worried about is the MBNA they have an illegible agreement, the DN was flawed and to top it all they sold it on while the DN had more than a week to run. I don't want to get drawn back in in-case of unlawful enrichment, I have asked on my MBNA thread but to date no one has replied on this matter.

But yes I am in process of claiming my CC charges the companies are just very slow at sending the data, 2 of which I may add have now gone past the 40days. So letters will be off this week.

Thanks again

Pumpytums