Thread: RBOS - The start of the legal route

I take it the the letter you sent was the preliminary approach. Now the deadline has passed, I would move straight to lba. Although I am slightly behind you, I have read just about every live thread in this forum and the one thing I do know is that the bank will delay as much as possible. With this in mind, stick to your own deadlines and proceed as normal.


JB

Firstly, I think the general consensus is to send letters to your branch - its certainly worked for me so far.

Secondly, like johnburns says, assuming the letter you metion you have sent is the correct Prelim letter your next step should be an lba not straight to the courts - you'll have missed out a stage then!

Have you read this? http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...back-your.html

Hello
Sorry for the long winded entry below.

This is what I sent requesting my bank statements, with which i got the statements within 40 days:

Dear Sir/Madam


ACCOUNT NUMBER: xxxxxxxxxxxxx
SORT CODE: xxxxxxxxxx

Under the Data Protection Act 1984 and 1998, and including the right of subject access under these acts, please supply me with a complete list of transactions and charges relating to my bank account since August 2000. Alternatively a complete set of bank statements for that period will be acceptable.

Additionally where there has been any event in my account history over this period which has required manual intervention by any member of your staff or any other person, I require disclosure of any indication or notes which have either caused or resulted in that manual intervention or other evidence of that manual intervention in relation to my banking business with you.

If you are unable to supply data relating to manual intervention because there has been no such manual intervention then please be kind as to confirm this in your response to this request.

I enclose the statutory maximum fee of £10. You have 40 days in which to comply. Furthermore, if I discover that you have levied disproportionate penalties against me then I shall be reclaiming them and also reclaiming the enclosed £10 Data Protection Act disclosure fee.

Furthermore, I am sure you are now aware due to the sheer amount of these letters you receive plus the massive media attention, that every time you receive one of these letters it will be followed up by a request for a full refund of any disproportionate penalty charges, this will give you 14 days to do so before court action. Please note if I have to take court action to reclaim these charges then I will do so. Therefore, to save yourselves some time and money, if you could just refund all these charges dating back 6 years immediately you will not incur the court fees or your solicitor’s fees and the 8% interest I am entitled to claim.

And this is the letter i sent giving them 14 days in which to repay the unfair charges:

Dear Sirs

Account Number: *********
Sort Code: **********
Due to recent media coverage on bank charges I am now aware that you, Royal Bank of Scotland have been charging me, charges, that are contrary to the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999. Schedule 2 (e) of the said regulations gives a non-complete list of terms, which may be regarded as unfair, such as a term that requires me as a consumer who fails in his obligation, to pay a disproportionately high sum in compensation.

I believe that your charges are disproportionately high and therefore they are contrary to the Unfair Terms in Consumer Regulations 1999. In addition I believe that your charges are a Penalty. Penalty charges are irrecoverable at common law. The precedent for this was Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co Ltd v New Garage and Motor co Ltd [1915] AC 79. Along with Murray v. Leisure play [2005] EWCA Civ 963, it was held that a contractual party can only recover damages for an actual loss or liquidated losses. It is clear that your charges do not reflect any actual and or real loss.

Furthermore if you fail to comply with this letter, I request without further notice a breakdown and proof of all costs involved, in regards to your actual or liquidated losses involved in any breach of contract to which these charges relate with yourselves, and that these charges reflect your true costs In relation to the said charges, and are proportionate to the charges levied on my account as defined in Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999. Schedule 2 (e)
I also hereby request a detailed report of which clause in your terms and conditions each charge has been applied against.

Your charges appear to be nothing more than a profit-making scheme. Therefore I require you to refund me a total of £4273.77, representing the total, unlawful penalty charges during the last 6 years. I hereby give you 14 days to refund the charges back to me, since my account is now closed please contact me to arrange how the payment will be made. I also ask you to remove any default notices on my credit record that are related to these charges. A correction or amendment to the entries is not acceptable. For the avoidance of doubt, if this is not done within 14 days, I will commence my claim in the courts without further warning. This action will inevitably involve you in additional costs.

I have not received any answer to the second letter, which gives them 14 days, so I guess it is now time for the court??

No because technically, the first letter was only your S.A.R - (Subject access request). Therefore your second letter is your Prelim, so you still need to send an lba giving them 14 more days. You have to be seen to be giving a fair amount of time for them to give you your money back. Also, I would suggest keeping your letters more simple - don't want to confuse them with all that info from the outset!

(You've left your account details on the second letter too :o)

If you've been getting responses from that address and its working for you then yep, keep using it

I'd edit your post to take out your account details if I were you, just to be on the safe side!

All the best, hope you get a quick settlement!!

Hello

I have had a letter from Tommy McLean, RBS Customer relations.

The meat of the letter is as follows:

"We believe that our charges are fair, reasonable and transparent. We consider that the amounts debited to your account have been applied strictley in accordance with your agreement with us and our published tariff, which we are satisfied complies with all applicable laws and regulations. We are also committed to ensuring the transparency of the information that we give out customers about the operation of our products."

Hmm

The worry I've got is that the templates I have used, as above, for writing my letters, were from the penaltycharges.co.uk website. These letters are different to those available in the library for this website. In my final letter, I stated at the end

For the avoidance of doubt, if this is not done within 14 days, I will commence my claim in the courts without further warning. This action will inevitably involve you in additional costs.

The website also indicates court proceedings should be undertaken after a response to my final letter,. which possibly would mean that I would look stupid if i sent an lba. Is the letter above not , in more or less words, the same as the LBA on this site?

And if is the case, would my next step not be the court route, as advised by penaltycharges.co.uk?

Yes you can MCOL if you use the branch address of the bank as the Defendant's "place of business". If you want to use the Scottish head office address, you need to submit your claim the "old fashioned" way by sending your Claim Form, Particulars of Claim and any other documents to your local county court and put on your claim form the following phrase:

'I state that the High Court of England and Wales has power under the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982 to hear this claim and that no proceedings are pending between the parties in Scotland, Northern Ireland or another Convention territory of any contracting state as defined by section 1(3) of the Act.'


Personally, I prefer to use the "old fashioned" route because it means that I am not limited to how many words I can use on MCOL and I can attach physical documents to my claim, like letters before action, spreadsheets, responses from the RBS to my letters, etc.