I hope you are in a union because I think you really could do with their advice to sort this out, although given whats happened to you so far I would be very surprised if you've had union involvement and they've allowed this to happen. Firstly if your employer has entered anything onto your personal file that they are terming as 'disciplinary' then you do have the right to appeal against it. Employers cannot just add whatever notes they choose to your file after something like this without giving you a right to appeal against it. If they didn't feel that there was enough evidence to take any action against you then that should be it, end of and no notes on file. With regard to the original allegation if you feel that it was malicious then you would need to raise a grievance against your colleague for it to be dealt with, thats the only way your employer would be able to deal with it. The same with the way the investigation was carried out, if your not happy about how public it was all made then a grievance is the way to go. Lastly if the damage to your reputation etc has now made it difficult for you to continue working there, and I can imagine that the necessary trust between you and your employer may well have been damaged by all this, then my advice would be to lodge these grievances and enter into the procedure because you might find that your employer would be happy to 'pay you off' (if thats what you wanted) to avoid dealing with this mess, thus enabling you to put all this behind you and go find work elsewhere (this is not unheard of within local authorities). Just my opinion but hope it helps.

The way to proceed for those on benefits seems pretty clear but can anyone shed any light for those of us not solely reliant on benefits but who still consider ourselves to be 'hardship cases' what can we do to convince the bank FOS that this is the case and that our claims should continue to be considered? For instance in my case a split from my husband has left me with a considerable lump of my wages being taken up by mortgage repayments each month (on which there is some arrears) and numerous credit card debts (which I am repaying by way of a DMP). The charges that I am trying to reclaim would pretty much clear all of this debt and leave me in a much better position financially each month. If I have to wait upwards of a year to maybe get these charges back that will only serve to make my position worse with each month that passes. Would this be classed as hardship?

Just wanted to clear up a point made earlier, I'm not surprised that T&G's helpline doesn't cover employment law matters, thats what shop stewards reps/ officers and then the local office of whichever solicitors the union use are there for. The helplines are pretty much a call centre set up and deal with any other legal issues. Also union officers (at least in my union) don't filter which cases get put through to the solicitors as such but officers are trained to recognise which cases may have merit and if there is any doubt then the case will be passed to a solicitor for their opinion, it's not in any union officers best interest to tell members they don't have a legal case if theres any chance at all that they might. That would just leave the union open to being sued for misrepresenting members. I do think the issue of unions endorsing credit cards etc is a good one though, I've never thought that that was a particularly good move, especially with the mounting debt problems in this country!

Mmmm, maybe I was just a little hasty with that rejection letter...given recent developements! Also see from IF's website that they've posted an anouncement basically saying that they won't be dealing with any claims till after the test case and will be seeking stays on any court cases pending. Just have to wait now and see what happens I guess.

To be honest I don't really know enough about the law etc to have a view on whether this test case will be a good thing long term or not although I suppose it was bound to happen at some point. What makes me furious though is that while this test case runs its course, it seems to me, that we the consumers have been shafted again! If I'm reading this right everything is now on hold until the test case is concluded (which I'm sure might take years) yet the banks can still keep taking these outragous charges from us. I could understand if new complaints were to be put on hold till this is done but surely anyone who has got past the stage of sending the first letter to the bank asking for charges back should still have their complaint dealt with and as for those who have already gone down the MCOL route and paid out for it I think the fact that the banks could request these cases to stayed pending outcome of the test case is a disgrace. I just hope that the 'wise ones' of all the forums out there come up with an action plan for us, because I (and I'm sure many others) think the fact that we're now supposed to sit and twiddle our thumbs whilst still being charged until this is decided is outragous!

Have received letter from If today offering 50%, although not 50% of amount I had claimed. They are giving the total as about 200 less than I made it but this could be cos they know which are current a/c charges and which were for credit cards! Anyway I have sent them rejection letter and copied it on their messaging service through their website, so we'll see what happens next but please keep everything crossed that they come back with a full offer!

This update is really to advise anyone who hasn't yet written requesting details of their charges to write to the IF address detailed above and not the Halifax address like I did. Reason being today I received a letter back from Halifax with my original letter and cheque attached asking for details of the account as they could find no record, now I had made it very clear that I was referring to an IF account and had included a/c no sort code etc plus my address (which was the info they were asking for) and this was 2 months after I originally wrote to them. Not sure whether this is just part of a delaying game and fortunately didn't much matter to me anyway as I had taken the advice given above and called IF to ask what was happening so the list of charges was sent to me as a result of that phone call. But just thought this might stop anyone at the start of the process from wasting time. My only problem now is that I've sent the initial request for my charges back to the Halifax address aswell so am just wondering whether there is an IF address that I sould send a copy of that to just in case. Thanks

It all helps, thnaks v much. As it totals under 5,000 could I leave it all as one claim even if it went to court? Cheers

Thanks for that, on the list they've sent to me it doesn't even say current or credit just a list of charges and the dates they were applied. Although there is a seperate list of mortgage charges. So lets hope I don't have to file in court cos I wouldn't have a hope of seperating them. Also there are different amounts of charges that were applied on the same date i.e one lot for 28 pounds one lot for 30 pounds so I can't even see what the individual amount per charge was iyswim was yours the same? I hope they settle mine much as they did yours, I'm keeping everything crossed!

Hi again, List of charges received this morning. However although I asked for charges only for the current account they seem to have provided a list of all charges on the plan (which also included 2 credit cards) but the carges are merely listed as an amount and the date they were applied so I'm not even sure if they all relate to the current account or whether some may have been for the credit cards. Anyway I'm goint to try an reclaim the whole lot under the plan number rather than just putting the current acoount details. Has anyone else had this problem with IF and how did you deal with it?

Hi there, called IF today, they claim not to have received any requests so I guess the advice about writing to the Edinburgh address to request details of charges is correct. I used the Halifax address and clearly it gives IF the chance to claim never to have had the requests passed to them. Anyway they have put a request through today for details fo charges to be sent out to me so will keep you informed as to whether I ever receive them. Cheers

Many thanks, they have until Friday and then I will start chasing them by phone. Does anyone have any recommendations as to a particular phone number to call or department to ask for or do I just call the normal customer service (or not!) number. Thanks again.

Thanks for that, I've been using the Halifax address. I may well try giving them a call if I don't receive the statements within the next week. Cheers.

Hi all, there seem to be a relatively few of us taking on IF so I just wanted to say hello! Sent off my SAR to them well over 40 days ago and surprise,surprise nothing! So have followed the template letters and have one all ready to post to them tommorrow (so fingers crossed). On the plus side it does seem from some of the posts on here that when you finally get to the stage of identifying charges and claiming them back IF do seem a little more forthcoming than some of the other banks in terms of settling without getting all the way to court (hope this continues). Have already found many of the threads on here very useful and I'm sure I'll continue to as this thing progresses.

Just wanted to say Hi to everyone else who is (or has) taken on abbey! They responded fairly promptly to my SAR so have now prepared my list of charges (plus interest) and will be getting that in the post to them tommorrow. I guess this is just the begining which is why I thought I'd begin my own thread as I'm sure I'll have many, many questions along the way. Thanks to everyone whose threads have got me this far! The info on this site really is excellent and I've only waded through a really small part of it so far.