Thread: Letter from Lloyds - Closing Complaint

Hi,
We have previously successfully claimed one lot of charges from Lloyds including the interest, and after doing this started a claim on another account with them. At the time, we had written the letters to Lloyds threatening Court action etc, but as the Courts had then started putting the cases on hold due to test case we never lodged it with the Court, and it has been on hold with Lloyds waiting for the outcome of the test case. We have now received a letter from Lloyds stating:

"I promised to keep you up to date about any developments that affected your complaint about unplanned overdraft charges. Your complaint has been on hold while we and some of the other major UK banks have been in legal proceedings with the OFT about the level, fairness or lawfulness of these charges.

These legal proceedings came to a conclusion on the 25th November 2009 when the Supreme Court decided that, as long as they are clearly set out, the level of unplanned overdraft charges cannot be assessed for fairness under the consumer fairness legislation known as the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations.

We understand your complaint is that the charges we made are penalties and/or are unfair because you believe they are too high. The outcome of the legal proceedings means that the bank charges you've complained about are not penalties and the Supreme Court has also decided that the consumer fairness legislation means that the level of charges is not a reason for finding them to be unfair.

As a result of these rulings we will not be upholding your complaint or be providing a refund of the bank charges that you complained about.

We hope this answers the points you raised with us about your bank charges complaint and you feel that there is no need to reply to this letter. If you come back to us and we cannot come to an agreement, I'll give you details of the Financial Ombudsman Service in case you want them to consider your complaint independently.

If there's anything other than the level of charges that you're concerned about, or if there is anything else we can do to help, please contact us. If I haven't heard from you by the 9th March I will close your file.

Yours sincerely."

What I am asking is, is there any point in replying to this letter and/or continuing with the claim, and if I don't reply by 9th March would this then prevent us from taking any action in the future? Does anybody know if there have been any successful claims from Lloyds, other than hardship ones, since the outcome of the test case?

Thanks

sit tight for now

had the same letter as you

Me too - although mine was filed at court just prior to test case result

I wouldn't like to give you false hope that there is a one size fits all approach that will work. It's taken the top legal minds in this country years to reach the conclusions that resulted in the Supreme Court finding in favour of the banks.

CAG has been looking at this issue for 4 years now, so a new solution is unlikely to be found in the next few weeks in my honest opinion.

However, not all cases are the same, and it may be that some cases are winnable in the longer term. The Leeds Mercantile Court stayed hundreds of cases in August 2007, and will be looking at them again later in the month, so perhaps something there may give us further insight.

It's very early days, but just because a complaint is not upheld now does not necessarily mean that if there are new developments in the future a new complaint can't be started then.

Thanks very much, will sit tight for now.