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Just WON in my case against Lloyds for penalty charges applied to my bank account. Now time to take on Lloyds for a small amount of charges applied to my CC.
My reason for writing is with regard to a deposit which was made to my account on 16th January 2007 for which I must thank you.
This was in settlement to a claim I had made for penalty charges placed on my personal bank account (6QZ83439). I was somewhat surprised to see it on my monthly statement as neither Lloyds or Sechiari, Clark & Mitchell your solicitors had notified me.
I do however have another issue to deal with, that being penalty charges applied to my credit card.
Whilst I appreciate your offices are busy I would ask that you don’t send a standard response letter as I don’t feel it will adequately deal with my questions.
At the same time I applied for my personal account statements I also had requested my credit card statements. During a six year period £348 of penalty charges were applied to my account of which I enclose a list.
I have made this initial approach to be reasonable and ask for this amount to be credited back to my Visa account.
If you do not agree in refunding the said charges I am quite prepared to file a court claim as I have done previously or take the matter to the Financial Ombudsman.
After filing a claim at county court any subsequent settlement or decision in my favour would mean additional costs to your company. An amount of between £55-£140 being applicable if I was to claim statutory 8% or contractual interest respectively plus court fees of approximately £50.
Alternatively if you are able to demonstrate that the penalty charges placed on my account accurately represent the costs to you as a company for each individual default by means of a full Breakdown of your costs I would be willing to relinquish any request for a refund.
Thank you for your time and assistance. I look forward to your reply.
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Customer Services
Lloyds TSB Bank Plc
5th Floor Sussex House
Gloucester Place
Brighton BN1 4BE
VISA Account Number: **** ****
Dear Sir/Madam
Thank you for your letter dated 13th February.
I can appreciate that your department is busy with penalty charge claims, however despite my request not to send a standard response letter it would seem this is what I have received.
As someone who has already reclaimed penalty charges placed on my Lloyds Bank personal bank account and who is familiar with the contract law at issue and OFT statement there are a number of inaccuracies in your letter.
The OFT set the figure of £12 as a level at which it would not investigate or initiate legal action against card issuers. It is not an industry standard and a charge of £12 can still be deemed unlawful if it doesn’t represent the banks true costs.
Whilst I appreciate that an average figure is applied because calculating specific costs for each individual default would be problematic for a company the size of Lloyds. I still believe the penalty charge of £12 is open to contention if it doesn’t bare a reasonable relation to the cost to the bank.
I would rely on the “Late payment” process being entirely automated and requires no additional personnel or systems other than those already in place. In addition I would rely on the clear contradiction of one of your staff stating that charges are to cover the banks costs, whilst the previous head of personal banking stating that charges of this nature are used to fund free banking for all customers.
The charges which I am requesting refund of are between the level of £18-£20 in all cases except for one instance of £12.
I agree with your analysis that a court is the only body which can decided whether a term is unfair in legal terms. However I am sure that you are aware that Lloyds TSB Bank Plc have not appeared at one single hearing to date to defend the past or present charging regime and settled in all instances and settled all complaints bought to the Financial Ombudsman rather than have a formal decision made.
I have calculated that £348 of unlawful penalty charges have been made to my credit card.
As such we have three options:
1) If you can accurately demonstrate that the penalty charges made to my account represent your true costs by means of a full Breakdown of costs I am willing to relinquish any claim for refund.
2) We can settle this matter by way of repayment of the above amount. This would have the benefit of not taking up valuable court time, and save Lloyds TSB the additional expense of not having to pay for court fees or interest if settlement is made or case found in my favour.
A schedule was included with my previous correspondence of 13/02/07, I enclose a copy of this again with this letter to particularise my claim.
3) Proceed to file a court claim to recover the amount due. The majority of documents including those to support any claim are already at hand from my successful case in reclaiming charges levied on my Lloyds TSB personal bank account.
I would draw your attention to the terms of the contract which you agreed to at the time that I opened my account. It is an implied term of that contract that you would conduct yourselves lawfully and in a manner which complies with UK law.
I require repayment in full of this money with notification of any settlement in writing. If you do not comply fully within 14 days then I shall begin a claim against you for the full amount plus interest, plus my costs and without further notice.
6 months ago I didn't know anything about reclaiming penalty charges. It's just a case of familiarising yourself with the issue and reading alot of other peoples experiences.
Have taken Lloyds on over my bank account.... and won. And am on the Citi Financial part of the forum, who are one of the few companies appearing at a hearing.
I've read alot on the contractual interest rate, though as yet haven't claimed it in my 2 claims so far.
There is some debate that requesting it may look unreasonable in the eyes of a judge - however as Lloyds tend to be settling rather than appear at court its an option that I am going to look into.
13th March 2007 is here, and low and behold no reply to my letter.
Wonder why, because there can be no reasonable response to what i've outlined.
Time to start on my N1 once my sister gets out of hospital. Will be very interesting once we get to the aq stage, got a very interesting letter for the judge to view once this comes.
Just received a standard fob-off response from Lloyds, making the offer between the charges and £12 as Full and final settlement.
Needless to say I won't be accepting it
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Reply for them:
Dear Jacqui
Thank you for your letter dated 13th March.
I appreciate your offer of a partial refund of the penalty charges placed on my credit card account, it is unfortunately one which I will be declining.
My reason for not accepting your offer is that I find it hard to believe that in the instance of a “late payment” it costs Lloyds £12 for what is an entirely automated process.
Whilst I am prepared to meet a reasonable and fair average for the costs incurred by your defaults department £12 strikes me as a highly inflated figure.
In addition the OFT set the level of £12 as a figure at which they will not proceed to investigate or instigate legal action. To quote their report, "We are not suggesting that default fees should be set at £12, and a court will certainly not consider that a default fee is fair just because it is below that threshold."
If this matter proceeds to court I am aware that in all claims of this nature Lloyds TSB have not complied with orders to produce documentation on which they intend to rely on in court, or turned up at one single hearing to defend their charging regime, instead preferring to make settlement before the hearing. This point will be made clear on returning my Allocation Questionnaire to the court.
As such I am prepared to be reasonable and accept a refund of £348 worth of charges, and forgo any claim to the interest that would be due at a later stage if settlement is made before 31st March 2007 and notification in writing is received before this date.
This would save any legal costs to yourself, having to pay interest, and not necessitate the waste of valuable court time.
If a this matter is not resolved by the 31st March 2007 then a N1 will be filed at Bristol county court for my claim.
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Any advice or opinion is offered informally & without liability. Use your own judgment and if in doubt seek advice of a qualified and insured professional.
Enron vs LLOYDS Round 2 - Visa CC *** WON ***
for penalty charges applied to my bank account. Now time to take on Lloyds for a small amount of charges applied to my CC.
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you certainly sound like you know what your doing. If i were them i'd just pay you now!!
Re: Enron vs LLOYDS Round 2 - Visa CC
Re: Enron vs LLOYDS Round 2 - Visa CC *** WON ***
