We have many issues with the RBOS and cannot decide whether to separate each issue and/or take the matter to the Ombudsman or County Court.

Over the last six years we have been charged over £1000 in overdraft fees and referral fees. We have always been informed of the fees but never the referral charges which have come as a shock the day after being implemented. Many of these charges arose after I initiated an international transfer to my American bank account. When the payment had not reached my USA account in the time expected we chased up the matter with the RBOS and found that the bank had inserted a wrong digit and payment had hovered over the Atlantic for around three weeks and eventually landed back in our account minus a few charges and a loss from currency exchange. At the time it was mentioned verbally that they would compensate us. Nothing was heard further but eventually the bank refunded our loss from the currency exchange and refunded the cost of the transfer. When we mentioned the compensation we were told that the man who had promised it no longer worked for the company. As a result of the delay in sending payment it caused an effect of delaying payments we had to make from the USA account and resulted in receiving a letter fromUSA solicitors threatening to take a lien on our property in the USA. We could have stopped this by paying all court costs, solicitors costs etc. but this would have been in excess of a thousand dollars. We contested this and contacted a USA soliciotr but he wanted $5000 upfront to handle the matter. Consequently we were left to handle this on our own and had to spend many an hour studying American law on the internet and copious documentation with the American solicitors to try and stop them taking a lien on our property. As a result I lost a considerable amount of time and money which I could have earned from other sources and therefore the bank charges mounted up and the bank were in effect cashing in from its own mistakes.

We did contact the head office and were offered £250 compensation but this did in no way reflect our losses of time and expense and did not cover the bank's own charges.

Another issue we had was that we sent international transfers on a regular basis and the published fees were £9 including all the foreign bank charges. This did not happen - we were also charged by not only the foreign bank but also sometimes an intermediary bank. We queried this on many occasions but were fobbed off and told to contact the foreign bank but the foreign bank told us to contact the RBOS. On one occasion when we sent a sample statement to show that we were paying charges the RBOS refunded one payment only of £5.

Yesterday, my husband who is supposed to be at home recovering from an operation had to call in to the bank (I was attending a hospital appointment myself) paid a sum into the bank to cover overdraft fees that we had been notified so as not to incur any further charges and this morning find that we have also been charged £60 referral fees that we had not been notified, despite these not showing up online at the same time as the overdraft fees although they were both taken at the same time.

We did send the bank an initial letter requested our charges back (before I found this site) and received the standard letter from them saying that the charges were legal etc.

Another matter which probably now goes back too far is when we had a sale of our property. the buyer wanted a quick sale and our solicitor wrote to the bank asking for the deeds. No response. Wrote again - still no response. We rang and were told initially that we should have contacted Edinburgh where the deeds were now stored. It appears that they just ignored our solicitors letter because it had been sent to the wrong place. Eventually our solicitor received the deeds but they were the wrong ones and after waiting again for the right ones the buyer got fed up and decided not to bother.

We really are getting fed up of the way RBOS has been dealing with our accounts but it seems never ending as the first time we took them to the Ombudsman was in 1993 because of overcharging.

Sounds quite complicated.

I'm certain you could get all the "penalty charges" back through templates on this site and county court etc etc

If there is bank error involved (ie the foreign payments being sent to the wrong account and then back and you losing out on exchange rates) then I suppose this could be taken to court as well (provided you could show that it is more than likely bank error was involved)

I would say try the ombudsman first for the bank errors that caused you expense and then go through litigation to reclaim "penalty charges" if necessary. (You are still allowed to go to court regardless of the Ombudsmans decision)

All the best.

This topic was closed on 03/08/19.

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