Hi all

Just thought i'd open up a thread of my own.

I've been through all my old statements and have amassed a grand total of 1300 pounds in charges over the last 6 years (Not including interest). These have all been excess o/d charges and end of month (admin?) charges.

I am about to send my preliminary approach for payment letter by registered post first thing tomorrow (April 14th) asking for my 1300 back. Im sending it to the branch where I receive my statements from (or is listed on the statement) rather than my local branch as I opened my account whilst a student at Stirling. (Now living in Stranraer). If someone else replies then I will start corresponding with them I suppose.

Just a couple of quick questions. If/when I get to the claim stage should I do two or 3 seperate claims for the money or just do it all in a oner? I've seen people say its best to claim under 750 pounds and others say its fine to go to a summery case.

Can I do this at Stranraer sherriff court or do I have to do it in Stirling?

Anyway I will keep you all posted, Im off to open another current account or two as backup for my overdraft!

Update:

18th April 2006 - Preliminary letter sent by registered post.

28th April 2006 - Standard letter of response received

6th May 2006 - Letter from Customer Relations offering a "gesture of goodwill" of £165 as a full and final settlement of my complaint, received. Informed me they had tried to phone me but were unable to get in contact.

8th May - Telephoned Customer relations to inform them I would not be accepting their goodwill gesture. (No Deal!) No counter offer made.

9th May - LBA sent. Reiterated I wouldnt be accepting the offer. Included list of my charges split into two. Up to 2003 (£645) and 2003 to present (£655). Informed them they had 14 days to repay me or I would be taking them to court for the first block of charges followed at a later date for the second block.

I await their response eagerly!

Just a quick note - I'm at th same stage as you - but their LBA deadline runs out on Thursday this week. Good luck & keep us updated!

Update: 13th May. Received another letter from a different Customer Service Manager. Along the lines of sorry you did not want to accept our offer of 165 pounds how about 490 pounds. Will phone them on Monday to turn down this latest offer. I think I'll inform them that they might as well give in as i am more than happy to go to court and also get a few hundred pounds interest on the money they've taken from me. (As well as an article in the local paper?)

I would like my entire 1300 repaid however if they make me an offer over a thousand pounds I may just take it as I could do with the money, and would save me any more hassle!

(I also wonder where they are getting these figures from, they seem pretty random to me?)

moderated: please do not post comments that may be seen as libelous ,this is for the protection of the site

Good Luck!

Lou x

Hi there,

Stranraer court has a small claims thingy bit so your ok there,

seems we are both in the same boat as im from Stranraer also, and had near the same figure as you from the last 6 years,

good luck and keep us posted.

Update: 15th May - telephoned customer services again to inform them that I would not be accepting their new and improved offer of 490 pounds. The girl I spoke to didnt seem too bothered, so I just reiterated I would go ahead with my court action when the time on my previous letter was up, and left her to stare into space.

16th May - Sent them a letter in their kindly provided free postage envelope confirming in writing my refusal

Dear Sir/Madam

As per my telephone conversations with the advisors yesterday I would like to reiterate that I will NOT be accepting the £490.00 “in full and final settlement” offered to me in your previous letter dated 10th May 2006.

If I do not hear from you again, agreeing to a full refund of my previously mentioned charges, before the timescale mentioned in my previous letter is up I shall proceed with court action immediately.

The advice I have from the Bank Action Group and the Govan Law Centre is that these charges are unenforceable penalties, inproportionate to the costs incurred by the bank, and I am more than willing to take this to court to recover them (plus my costs and the not insubstantial interest I would be entitled to should it reach court).

Yours faithfully

Bert Raccoon (Thats my real name - honest!)

Beginning to enjoy myself now

BertRaccoon,

Re the values the offered 1st time (£165) and second offer (£490), the difference (325) is exactly 25% of what you claimed they owed you. How they came up with the first offer of 12.7% is anybody's guess.

Tomorrow (17th May) I'm posting my first letter to Bank Of Scotland, requesting for the breakdown of charges I've been hit with in the last 5 years. I'll post updates as I go along.

I must say, very encouraging to hear you say you're prepared to go further with this - please keep posting...thanks

Seems that a rule of thumb is 1/8th *roughly* offered in a letter, 1/3rd offered when you refuse that.

Whilst this is a "Goodwill Gesture" in their terminology, it's very interesting that it relates to the amount of charges claimed for so clearly. They're determined not to admit to the charges being illegal and therefore being repaid.

You know, I hope that Gary R D Kettle and the rest of the board are sweating buckets at the potential loss of 1/3rd of their inflated profits, and what their shareholders are going to make of this.

Update: 06/06/06 - Handed in forms and 39 pound fee to Stranraer Sheriff Court caliming first 655 pounds + costs + interest. Followed the notes in the Scotland section and they were very helpful at the court also. Suppose its just a case of wait and see now.

See my JMio Vs Bank of Scotland Easy Cash Account thread.

You WILL get your full refund!!!

Letter received this morning (7th July) telling me they intend to defend my claim, then later saying that it wasnt viable and they were willing to (without admission of liability) reimburse my claim for £655 + £39 court fee.

Phoned up the customer services number listed and asked them if this figure would include the 8% interest as per the claim (currently £206.89 according to my calculations)? The woman said she would need to speak to the legal dept and get someone to phone me back so I gave them my mobile number.

I then asked about my second group of charges (£645 from 2003 to mid 2004) and she went off on one saying if I incurred anymore charges the bank would possibly close my account! Told her that these were old charges and she said "Oh! I see!") - Possibly under stress?

Anyway she said I would have to raise a new court action for this amount costing the bank another £39 court fee and £150 in interest (at the moment) - fair enough. When I write to accept my first amount (if they offer the interest) I will enclose my LBA for the second claim giving them 14 days.

Should I have just accepted the £694, or am I entitled to the interest now I have raised a claim?

I look forward to their call! )

Others might advise you differently, but I've put in the 8% from the beginning. My reasoning is that the bank has unlawfully removed my money from my account and used it for their own benefit.

Had I had my money I might have invested it elsewhere and earnt interest on it, as such, although it isn't a loan on my part, the bank charges 16.9% on a loan of £2500 (quoted to me by their loans department on request) Therefore I am asking for only 8% on money I would normally and legally still be in possession of, had the bank not unlawfully removed it from my account.

Also, they have had numerous opportunities to give me my money back at several requests and refused to do so, having been informed that the longer they continue to do this the more charges they are going to incur on the sum, just like they do when they tell you you are over your OD Limit and will incur charges.

You must decide for yourself if you want to use this argument.

Rebel

Letter received this morning (7th July) telling me they intend to defend my claim, then later saying that it wasnt viable and they were willing to (without admission of liability) reimburse my claim for £655 + £39 court fee.

 

Phoned up the customer services number listed and asked them if this figure would include the 8% interest as per the claim (currently £206.89 according to my calculations)? The woman said she would need to speak to the legal dept and get someone to phone me back so I gave them my mobile number.

 

I then asked about my second group of charges (£645 from 2003 to mid 2004) and she went off on one saying if I incurred anymore charges the bank would possibly close my account! Told her that these were old charges and she said "Oh! I see!") - Possibly under stress?

 

Anyway she said I would have to raise a new court action for this amount costing the bank another £39 court fee and £150 in interest (at the moment) - fair enough. When I write to accept my first amount (if they offer the interest) I will enclose my LBA for the second claim giving them 14 days.

 

Should I have just accepted the £694, or am I entitled to the interest now I have raised a claim?

 

I look forward to their call! )

Hi bert, like you I did not get my 8% and so had the case called in court, very unsympathetic judge who thought I had 'done rather well so far' and that to pursue the 8% interest would entail a long and complicated legal case and advised I drop it. I am ashamed to say I capitulated (£209 lost). For my next claim at LBA stage tomorrow, I will make damn sure of my facts and if it goes to a claim, make damn sure i get my 8% (currently £104)

Well that was the basics of what I told them over the phone - they have had ample oppurtunities to repay me my money when I asked for it in the letters Ive sent before it reached the claim stage. If they had paid me before it reached this stage I would have agreed to ignore the interest but now I expect to receive it as it was mentioned in the claim. They didnt phone me back on Friday but they did say at the time that it might be Monday before they get back to me.

Obviously I would like the interest as it adds up to 207 pounds for the first half of my charges alone, but not sure if I would take my case all the way to court for it, (although I will tell them that I intend to). Not going to be happy if I dont get a call on Monday whatever they decide.

Another thing they said was that they would write to the court to let them know the matter was settled, which is a bit presumptious of them. Have just checked my online banking and have two credits labeled cash - 655 and cash - 39 which is nice.

Will wait and see what they say then decide what to do but I expect to be sending the LBA for the second half of my charges this week.

Thanks to everybody for the advice and support on here!

Oops forgot to ask - What is the procedure for stopping the claim, do I just phone up the court or do I have to notify them in writing/in person.

10/07/06 - Got a phone call from Customer Relations regarding my 8%. They couldnt work out where I was getting my figure of £200 + as they calculated the interest at approx £58. Which I found a bit strange?

Anyway emailed them a copy of my spreadsheet (far be it from me to teach a bank how to calculate interest, though!)

Hi BertRaccoon ,

Congratulations.

Hope you get your interest.

When was your return date for court. I submitted my claim same day as you, but return date is not till 18 Aug.

I havn,t heard a thing from the bank since then.

Mairi

Cheers Mairi

If I remember rightly the return date was 21/07 and court date was 27/07, but am at work just now so dont have my forms etc. They never got back to me today after I emailed them so I expect a phone call tomorrow. they seemed quite friendly today, which was nice!

Update 11/07

Telephone message from BOS agreeing to pay "my" calculated interest of £207, which has duly appeared in my account.

Therefore got £655 + £39 court fee + £207 interest, so away to work out how to tell the court its been settled.

Now for round two. Wasnt going to give them any time but as they are starting to play ball I will send them a LBA for the second half of my total claim amounting to £645 for charges from 2003 onwards. Surely it would be in their interest to pay this before a court case is raised costing them another £39 + £150 in interest?

Dont mind either way!

Hey Bert

Well Done You.

In another 3 weeks hopefully i'll be celebrating too.

Mairi

Update 13/07/06 - Wrote to court to cancel claim.

- Wrote to the customer services manager who dealt with my first claim and the interest problem etc explaining that they had 14 days to give me my second half of claim or I would raise another small claim and look for expenses and interest. Surely it is in their interest just to pay now and save the bank approx £200! Thank goodness I dont have any shares in any of these banks if this is the way they are ran! :grin:

Update 26/07/06

Received a letter dated 25th July from Halifax Customer Services (wish they would make up their mind who Im dealing with!) informing me that they have already paid £655 of charges back to me and are unable to agree to any further refunds. Oh well, I'll just forget about it then!

Forms printed out and heading to Stranraer Court tomorrow.

Bert.

Oops forgot to ask - What is the procedure for stopping the claim, do I just phone up the court or do I have to notify them in writing/in person.

Simple answer - don't drop your claim as it will leave you liable for extensive costs.

Update 11/07

 

Telephone message from BOS agreeing to pay "my" calculated interest of £207, which has duly appeared in my account.

 

Therefore got £655 + £39 court fee + £207 interest, so away to work out how to tell the court its been settled.

 

Now for round two. Wasnt going to give them any time but as they are starting to play ball I will send them a LBA for the second half of my total claim amounting to £645 for charges from 2003 onwards. Surely it would be in their interest to pay this before a court case is raised costing them another £39 + £150 in interest?

 

Dont mind either way!

I see what you want to do. Just phone, or write if that works out better for you.