Thread: OFT ruling, Not for businesses

Spoke to my (BOS) bank manager today regarding the excessive charges being inflicted on my account, he reckons the OFT ruling only applies to consumers and as I'm a sole trader with a business account, the ruling doesn't apply & therefore the charges are perfectly legal.

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Strictly speaking he's correct

HOWEVER if they charge consumers at the new low consumer rate but continue to charge business's at the higher rate (for providing the exact same service) they would be showing that the business cost included a significant profit element (around 100%) thus further strengthening your case that the bank is profiteering from your breach.

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Yes these are unauthorised o/d, & failed/bounced d/d & cheque charges, totalling £325.00 accumalated over the past 4-5 weeks.

Since starting this thread I've had a few telephone conversations with several members of the BOS Business Banking team, both in Glasgow & Motherwell

I was initialy offerred a refund of my £100 o/d arangement (but no refund charges) which I refused as (a) they are entitled to charge for this service and (b) I reckoned they would then be entitled to demand my overdaft amount be repaid immediatly.

I then spoke to an advisor? from the Glasgow office who confirmed that the process of dishonouring cheques D/D etc, is outwith bank staff control, as this process is dealt with automatically by the system. It was at this point advised to cancell all automated transactions (s/o's & d/d's) to prevent further charges to my account, however a few have still been applied and then refunded.

During a second call to the Glasgow office, an advisor confirmed that processing all cheque, d/d & s/o payment and applying charges is automated, in "fact the only manual intervention is when staff have to access the system to refund charges"

on my third call I requested a meeting which was refused, I was then offered a refund of half of my charges, which I accepted, however this offer was quickly withdrawn because I wouldn't give up the right to request that the remaining half was also returned (as the conversation was becoming somewhat heated it was ended without agreement)

My final call was from the Business banking section in Motherwell which was in response to a polite letter I sent in requesting that they consider refunding the full £540 penalty charges. This guy told me he was only prepared to discuss a repayment schedule of my debt, The unfair charges issue only applied to personal not business accounts, and "As far as refunding these charges I'm telling you now, that's just not going to happen".

As this conversation was also becoming rather heated I proposed that all future correspondence regarding this matter should be conducted in writing, he refused to agree to this and insisted that they (BOS) would only be corresponding by phone, as this speeds up the process. I guess I'll be recording all my calls for a while.

What I would do, is IMPOSE the condition on them which you stated, and refuse to discuss it with them over the phone. If they phone you up about it, say that for security reasons you're unwilling to discuss your accounts over the telephone and would they please write to you? CLICK burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Then write the standard template letters to them as per the "Business" templates in the templates library. Set your own timetable and do not be swayed from it.

I have a Ltd Company account with Co-op - all £800 charges over 2 yrs being returned. It can be done!

Thank you BF Dave et al - donation en route.!