Comments recently from people who have never been in debt or had charges, now aggrieved that they may have to pay monthly bank fee. The perception from some appears to be, "we are all going to pay for your bad money management". I am in the fortunate position that I have had very few charges so I am not claiming. Why am I here?
My sister has learning difficulties. Was on benefits and then got herself a little part time job a few yrs back and became much more independent. Only recently found out that she was in trouble with her rent and told me someone was stealing money from her account.
I was shocked by what I discovered. From one bank charge of £35 four years ago, things had snowballed (She only had one DDebit on the account for her rent. At Xmas 2002 the date of the DDebit changed and she went overdrawn for 2 days). Charges on top of charges, Abbey had helped themselves to thousands.
It got to the stage that as soon as her wages went in, she would take it all out immediately. The risks she took with £200 in her bag but she felt safer because "someone at the bank was going to steal it"
OMG the innocence of it all.
So I am helping her to reclaim the charges, probably out of a sense of guilt that we should have known what was happening. They knew she was vulnerable and had problems, we told them when we opened the account. We have opened another account and it is hard trying to get her to trust the bank enough to stop her carrying large amounts of cash around.
How many other vulnerable people have been treated like this? They might never get the opportunity to reclaim unless someone helps them (or further ripped off by the claims companies springing up now).
different perspective 
