Just thought I would let everyone know I phoned the local branch of RBOS today asking for 6 years of statements for my two accounts. They are organising them and sending them out and charging me £20 which is £10 for each account which I was told is the maximum they are allowed to charge. I was also told it should take about a week.

Hope this is helpful

Woolfie

Dont know if this one has been answered appologies if it has. As well as my personal accounts which I am going to apply for charges back, I have a business account, could they close this? it is a limited company account if this makes any difference.

I think my claim to the bank will be about the 4k mark. I may well split this down into £750 bits if it has to go to court but do i still send the letter for full amount or do i send consecutive letters for £750?

Cheers

Woolfie

While all my accounts are held in Scotland I was wondering about the possibility of raising an action against RBOS English Head Office to potentially take advantage of the higher limits on the small claims court i.e. £5000 as opposed to £750. Can anyone out there advise if this is possible or practical?

What would the pitfalls be? Anyone got any thoughts on this?

Woolfie

Just for your information. I was today charged £228 for 3 bounced standing orders (total of standing orders was £40) and 2 bounced direct debits one was over £150 and the other was £1.99. Now the funny bit!

I had the money in my account to cover them.

How is this possible i hear you cry...

well i will tell you. I transferred the money on Sat from another RBOS account. This is apparantly not good enough. I should have transferred the money on the Friday (last working day) prior to the day the DD's etc were due to come off!!

Now call me an old cynic but is it just possible that the bank has put this system in place to grab even more money from us punters? Think about it, they told me that if you have a direct debit coming off on the 2nd of the month then the cleared funds have to be in the account on the previous working day. They must be making a fortune relying on people not complaining about this. Its bad enough getting charged at all but when you have money in your account, thats just taking the you know what!

Now I complained (bitterly) and they have refunded my charges (on this occasion blah blah) but i really am a naughty boy and will need to be more careful in future!!

At first they tried to quote the banks terms and conditions till i pointed out that they were supposed to give me 14 days notice about any charges applied to my account, then they quietened down.

Rant over.

Oh how happy they will be when i send them my letter demanding my money back for all the other charges they have taken over the last 6 years!!

Woolfie

Bump

Hi there, Just thought I would give you a progress report. Got my statements today for 2 of my RBOS accounts and the total so far is £7534.25 and I still have another year to add up. I have also requested details/statements for three other accounts that we have held with them over the years.

I knew we were due a fair bit but I had no idea it would amount to this. The deeper in trouble we got the more they hammered us!!

I will keep you all posted I am gonna get my money back.

Woolfie

One word: YIKES!

Scary innit we had no idea. We bought a house which was ok till my contract got terminated early and we couldnt meet the £1200 per month payment RBOS allowed us to slip further and further into the mire and were charging us upto £400 per month in unpaid item charges etc etc. We managed to sell and clear things a bit, also took a £38k loan with RBOS just to stay afloat.

Things are much better now but I want all my money back that they are due me!!

When they see a customer slipping like we did they should be there to help not to add to the misery. Although I can smile about it now we went through months of hell!!

Woolfie

Wow that's a hellova lot of money!

I'm pretty shocked!!

Ok now have a total on the two accounts of £8495.44!!!!

Let the battle commence

Woolfie

You are going to be able to buy one BIG bottle of champagne for celebrating with when you get that lot back.

I wish you luck, I will keep an eye on your case.

I am seriously considering seeing my solicitor and going for the whole lot in one. I cant help but thinking that banks will not want this to go to court regardless of the amount because they must know they are on a hiding to nothing!!! Also unless someone takes them on then we will never get a case in court.

I will be speaking to courts in both Scotland and England on Monday and will try and get into the solicitors next week too.

What are peoples feelings on the OFT statement made this week. Will this do anything to help our case?

On another point, if when going through my statements I had included a charge that had, later in the statements, been refunded or if I had included overdraft interest which was, in part, for authorised borrowing, would this be enough to have the case rule against me?

Thanks Again,

Woolfie

Personally, yes, I think the OFT announcement WILL help our/your case.

No judge is going to rule against the OFT. The OFT even said that even if a charge is higher than the £12, this does not neccissarily mean that it's legal or fair.

So you reccon I should just go for the whole lot then? I need some encouragement here!! lol

Woolfie

I may also be considering action against this web site for loss of earnings as i was late for work yesterday cause i was reading the posts. I think i may be addicted!! lmao only kidding guys

You could go to a lawyer, but he will charge you (and will probably need at least £1k up front). If possible it's definitly worthwhile keeping it below £5k so that it stays in Small Claims. This is important protection in case they defend it and win, because it means they can't recover their costs from you. Remember, if your case is proceduraly flawed, they can get it thrown out without having the actual issue addressed, which would be a real bummer, because you'd then get hit with their costs (probably several thousand). If it's in Small Claims, there is simply no upside to them for defending it.

Bear in mind that you can treat every single charge as a seperate issue, so it is perfectly acceptable for you to sue them in chunks of £5k, until you've recovered it all. They'll probably get the idea after the first lot and do a deal to settle the lot.

One other thing to remember is that you need to add interest to each charge of 8% per annum, calcualted daily. In your case I imaging it will bump up the final amount by quite a bit. you can download a spreadsheet elsewhere on this forum which will do it for you.

Overall, unless you feel you must, I would stay away from lawyers. First of all, you'll probably have to convince him that your claim is valid. Secondly, in my experience lawyers get pretty humpty if you try to tell them how to do their jobs, so he'll probably resist taking detailed instructions from you about how to fight the claim. Also, there is almost no chance that your lawyer will be as motivated as you to get your dosh back, so he'll probably spend a lot of time trying to get you to settle for half or something like that.

I am in Scotland and the small claim limit is only £750. I am looking at the possibility of lodging my claim in England to take advantage of the £5000 limit there. If I break my claim down in Scotland does the total claim have to be under £750 including the 8% interest? When I win can I also claim expenses i.e. for loss of earnings?

cheers

Woolfie

If you are in Scotland, you won't be able to sue a Scottish bank in England (unless, possibly, the account is held at an English branch). Yes, the total value of the claim needs to be below £750, but you can treat each charge as a seperate issue, so that if you're recovering more than £750 you can one claim after another until you've recovered it all. No, you can't get your costs back in Small Claims - that's the whole point. More importantly however, neither can they!

I thought if you had a correspondence address in England then you could take action against the banks head office in england?

woolfie

Perhaps, but don't be surprised if they turn up in court and challenge the jurisdiction. I 'm not sure what the position is here, you might ask someone like Bankfodder - he seems to know everything!

Personally, yes, I think the OFT announcement WILL help our/your case.

 

No judge is going to rule against the OFT. The OFT even said that even if a charge is higher than the £12, this does not neccissarily mean that it's legal or fair.

I might be wrong, but didn't the OFT say that even if a charge was LOWER (not higher) than £12, etc. etc.

I spoke to the Money Claim people today and they reccon I can sue a Scottish company in England providing I have a correspondance address. I explained the situation i.e. living in Scotland tackling RBOS and that seemed to be ok. She asked what I was after RBOS for and when I told her I wanted to claim my charges back she laughed and said she had seen a lot of these recently!!

Woolfie

I take it you're a business customer with such high charges??

If theres anything bank wise that would help just ask as I work in an RBS branch and get on well with our business manager.

Not sure how the legalities of you living in Scotland and taking a Scottish company at an English address to an English court would work out but good luck in any case.

Could loss of a days earnings and travel/accomodation expenses for attending court be added to your claim? (I'm not sure about the legalities of this just an idea)

Although I am a business customer, £8250 of these charges were on my personal account! I have only once had a business charge!

I think I speak for everyone, however, in saying a big thanks to you

thegoodsamaritan for all your help on here it is really appreciated!!

The main reason i dont want to split up my charges in Scotland is cause i would potentially have to take 11 days off work and I would loose too much money to make this really viable.

Woolfie

Oooops forgot to post my progress. I sent my 1st letter and got the bog standard reply, (Very sorry but we are keeping your money!!) Sent LBA today, only going for £230 from one account at the moment then I will start severing the big one into £750 chunks.

Woolfie

I take it then that you're doing it in Scotland? If so then I think that's the prudent course. A Scot suing a Scottish company in England, especially for the amount you're after, struck me as asking for a serious challenge to the jurisdiction by the bank.