Hello

I wrote a complaint letter to Barclays asking for a refund of my charges due to hardship and the fact i blamed them for irresponsible lending.

Back around 2003/4 barclays allowed me to go overdrawn on my account ,it gad no overdraft facilities.

I was charged £30 then £30 for being £30 overdrawn then so on and so on.

However, whilst overdrawn even upto £500 barclays never declined or stopped me using my debit card, (I know j should have stopped but i was you stupid ans was suffering awful post natal depression)

Barclays have replied to my letter saying they will not refund me,

We do offer our customers tools to keep track of thier banking (not me)

Your acct went overdrawn as you continued to make payments from your account, you knew about these charges as they were set out in our terms and conditions.

Then goes on about section 5.1.4,treating customers in hardship fairly,

however the court ruling on 25.11.09 confirmed bank charges are a part of the price of having a current account so are not unfair,

We dont believe we have treated you unfair or caused you any hardship.

Having reviewed your history

I can see in 2007 you made a payment of £399 to haven holiday ,

we would class this as a luxury

( my 8 year old sons 1st holiday! 4 nights in a caravan.

.. paid for by his grandmother,hiw very luxurious. ...)

As of this luxurious purchase you should have considered the financial impact as you continued to be overdrawn till oct 2011 when you clised your acct.

I therefore conclude Barclays are not at fault.

Please can someone help me,

do I have a leg to stand on?

Or shoukd i just accept this?

Many thanks in advance.

Sorry for all the typing errors,I hope its readable

It would help if you could post up that letter in PDF format with the identifiers redacted .

Also, please could you tell us a bit more about the charges , how they were incurred, the total and also what kind of bank account did you have.

How often were there charges on charges ?

Thanks for replying.

I will upload that asap.

I was gettkng charged twice a month,one for being overdrawn and one for not having an overdraft on the account,most months it was around £62.

It ended up at £1000.

My bank acct was a barclays Current acct.

I went overdrawn originally by £8 this is how it all started.

hi ya

had to hide you pictures

we don't want your pers details on an open forum

can lead to people creating a fake ID with it

can you please pop them up as PDF

after following the UPLOAD

dx

Ah ok, sorry.. im not sure how else to do this,using a tablet

Thanks for removing them for me

read the guide

- IPHONE ONLY: Take a picture and Convert to PDF via an APP

Sorry I dont have a Iphone.

I will need to do this at the weekend when I have access to my son's phone or oyr laptop.

Thanks

same for a tablet

In your opening post you seem to say that you had no overdraft facility on your account. Yet later on you say that you have a current account.

Please could you tell us a bit more about the account. What do you mean that there was no overdraft facility?

Secondly, I'm extremely interested to know how often you received overdraft charges on charges.

I am trying to distinguish between the charges which you incurred because you had spent money on your debit cards or by cheques, on one hand and on the other hand, charges which were levied against you because parties themselves had imposed charges which then put you further into overdraft.

To my mind this is a very important distinction because I would say that where there are charges upon charges, this is certainly unfair and I think that if you wanted to make an issue of it then you would stand a good chance of getting your money back.

You should understand that banks are very reluctant to hand money back nowadays because since the bank charges crisis which started because of this forum in 2006 and continued until the Supreme Court decision in 2009, the banks had to deal with a floodgate of claims and paid out over £200 million. They are anxious not to let it happen again.

As a matter of interest, I have just noticed in today's news some official criticism of the level of bank charges from the Which magazine and apparently the FCA has started to look into them again.

I think it could well be that the banks would be worried about this at the moment and you would stand a better chance of getting some of your money back – maybe all of it.

It would also be helpful if you would tell us a lot more about your hardship situation.

Find it extremely abusive that they have looked into your personal circumstances on your account and seized upon what they consider to be a piece of luxury spending as evidence against you.

The following was being discussed on the BBC News this Morning...again..looks like it wont be going away.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37845849

Thanks for the info.

My account was a Barclays current acct with no overdraft facility.

I had a cheque book which I never used and a debit card which I used.

The charges an overdraft charge then a charge for using an unauthorised overdraft.

Barclays allowed me to keep going deeper and deeper into debt without ever stopping my card.

I could use my debit card at all times even though I had no money in my account and I was 100s of pounds in an unauthorised overdraft.

eventually I close my account.

I know its my own fault and I should not have kept using my card but at the time I was in financial dificulty and it was like free money.

We may be able to give you some help but we still need the letter posted up in pdf format and you have not done this. Also, do you have all your bank statements going back for the period that we're talking about.

I think that the exploitation of your personal data in order to produce arguments against you is abusive and unfair and I also think that they have misrepresented the effect of the supreme court judgement to you in a letter and to that extent their letter is misleading and deceptive.

However we need the documentation that we have asked for and also you have not told us about the charges which are incurred on charges and the charges which have been incurred as a result of expenditure

Lets hope I have got it right this time

I did have the statements but not anymore,

should I request these again?

The charges were..

.. £30 overdraft charge then charges for using a unauthorised overdraft then charges everytime a payment left the account.

As far as I can remember some of the charges were £14 some were £30.

imgtopdf_generated_1302171646032.pdf

You will require statements if you decide to pursue this.

can we have pictures that we can read please

thats blurred

dx

Thank you for posting up the letter in PDF.

However, I hope you won't be too offended when I say to you that the PDF you have put up is barely legible, blurred, not in the right order, and the wrong way round. We are incredibly enthusiastic about helping people and we do it free of charge, but we do at least like people to present their documents in a way that they would like to receive them themselves. This makes life much easier for us and it means that we have more time to help you and also to help other people who also have lots of problems.

Also, it would be helpful if you would engage more closely with the thread so that you come back to us with the material and the responses we need more quickly.

You may have financial difficulties at the moment but you would find it best if you bought a scanner which you can buy from PC World for less than £50. It will make life much easier getting help on this forum and also you will have it for a long time.

Yes, as you have been advised above, you will need to get your statements and you should send off an SAR as quickly as possible accompanied by cheque rather than the postal order so that you can keep track of its progress.

Once you get your statements then we can form a much better picture of what has happened and then we can help you challenge the bank and to get at least some of your money back – and maybe all of it.

Also, it is very possible that you will have to begin a County Court action against the bank. If you are in financial difficulty then you should start investigating the business of getting a court fee waiver. You don't have to be on benefits for this simply have limited disposable income. You will find that there is lots of information available if you follow this search link https://www.google.fr/search?q=county+court+fee+waiver&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b&gfe_rd=cr&ei=Ou2hWKf4AYTe8geGh4fQAQ#q=county+court+fee+waiver+uk

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?406096-LEGAL-EX160-160A-Court-Fees-are-you-exempt.-**Correct-as-at-April-2016**

Ok,sorry about that I have just noticed the state of the photos.

I will try again,Im not very good at this sort of thing.

New Document.pdf

I hope this one is right.

If not I appologies.

I will look into purchasing a scanner,thanks for that.

Here is a scanner from PC World which will do you perfectly – http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing-accessories/printers-scanners-and-ink/scanners/canon-canoscan-lide-120-flatbed-scanner-10029719-pdt.html

It is 50 quid and will last you for ages.

The image you have posted is much better. Thank you however, it is only one of the two pages and we have to read it sideways on or else corrected ourselves.

Have you set about getting your bank statements?

I still don't really understand how come you were meant to have a basic account and yet they allowed expenditure from it.

We've had lots of examples of people with basic accounts where attempted expenditure has been refused but the banks have imposed charges and then charges on those charges. But you seem to be saying that you have got a mixture of occasions when you have spent money on the account and the bank has permitted you to go overdrawn that he you were charges, and also that they have then hit you with charges on charges.

To my mind any bank which allows a basic account to become overdrawn either because of the customers expenditure or because of the imposition of charges and then charges upon charges, is acting unfairly. However, I'm not aware we have dealt with anyone who has had a basic account where expenditure has been allowed.

I think that in addition to getting your bank statements, I think that you need to take steps to clarify exactly what the account was. Was it a basic account, no overdraft permitted? Or was it a simple current account but with no overdraft facility?

Did you ask for an overdraft at all? And if so was it refused? These are all very important questions and it is important that if you don't know the answers then that you find out what the correct answers are.

I have just successfully challenged my building society on this matter and was able to reclaim over £150 in fees.

Although it took nearly 3 months of refusals I finally used an official complaint letter to get my result, backed up by my earlier calls that were recorded.

Even though I was successful I have now changed to a new bank!

Don't give up and please check carefully your terms and conditions of your account. They may help you in the long run...

It was a Barclays current account with no overdraft facility,I never asked for an overdraft and I was never offered an overdraft.

I will be sending off a SAR on my lunch break today.

Thanks

Thank you for this. Can we just be clear that it wasn't a basic account? Simply a current account but with no overdraft facility.

Frankly it would be more useful if it was a basic account but you would have to be certain of it. A basic account is an account where an overdraft is not permitted under any circumstances. A current account is an account where an overdraft is possible if the bank agrees it is opposed to a basic account where such a thing is not possible.

Also, did you at any time asked for an overdraft and it was refused?

Various options available

http://www.barclays.co.uk/basic-current-account

http://www.barclays.co.uk/CurrentAccounts/P1242557963414

Thanks for the info.

It was definitely a current account without ever having any overdraft facility on it.

I never asked for nnr was I ever offered a ovefdraft.

Thank you. So it seems not the a basic account. That's a shame because they would have been a good chance of getting all of your charges back. As it is, it is more likely that you would be able to recover the charges which have been levied on charges.

I think it is down to you now to get the information we need in order to see what you might reasonably be able to claim