Hiya, Thanks for your help so far, I could give you more info in terms of money owed (about 8.5k altogether) but I don't know how much the charges would be as yet. I am in a bit of a tricky situation as I have quite a few creditors, and finances are so bad that I can't afford to pay £10 to each to get the details. I am in the process of trudging through all my random pieces of paper to find old statements (luckily I haven't binned them!) so should have a better picture of the situation soon. I'll post again when I have a better idea of the amounts I am dealing with Thanks again

Hello, Just a quick one to share my good news! I wrote to the Co-op on the 14th March asking for £195 worth of charges plus £6.26 of interest back. After 2 letters back asking me to wait 7 days, I finally received a letter on saturday 14th April telling me that as a "gesture of goodwill" they had refunded charges and interest into my account! I checked the money was there straight away, and by Saturday pm was in town shopping!! It's not a huge amount of money but I only had the account a year, and decided to claim the money back as revenge for them deciding to close my account. I had a lovely weekend, all courtesy of the Co-op, hurrah

Couldn't agree more, unfortunately common sense isn't my forte and it usually takes me a while (and numerous charges) to learn from my mistakes! :o I have now turned over a new leaf, and on my new account I have set everything up on SO (except my mobile which is still on DD) and everything goes out on payday so there's no risk of anything bouncing... I hope!

Thanks gondukin, Looks like I'll just have to give the landlord a call to suss out the situation. In the meantime I'm off to the post office to stock up on pound coins!!

Hi, I wouldn't necessarily tell people to avoid the Co-op altogether (although they aren't my favourite people at the moment!!) But... if you're like me and likely to forget the odd DD every now and then, you should bear in mind this rule. I think you can get away with bounced DDs as long as you don't get 3 in one month (mine were in january, you think they would have given me a break as it was just after xmas!!) Fizz

Hiya, Thanks for your reply. The banks haven't offered to reduce the debts, they have offered to accept reduced payments. Sorry if that wasn't clear! What I did was work out how much I could afford to pay my creditors after essential living costs, then I divided that amount between them all, based on how much I owed them. E.g. if the amount I owed company A equalled 10% of my total debt, they would receive 10% of the total I could afford to pay each month. Does that make it clearer? Sorry, I'm not very good at explaining these things! Fizz

Thanks for the info! I am a bit concerned that I have lived in the flat for nearly 6 months and haven't seen a statement! I don't even know who the supplier is! I think I'll need to give the landlord a call and see if I can get a bit more info. Thanks again Fizz

Hello, I have written 2 letters of complaint to orange and have yet to receive a satisfactory response. I wondered if anyone could offer their opinion on the situation and advice on what to do next. It's a bit longwinded so I will try to keep it as brief as possible! 1) At time of opening the a/c, I gave them my bank details for DD 2) For the first 6 months they took no payment, despite several phone calls to ask why they hadn't done so - they confirmed my bank details each time and claimed to have set up the DD with my bank 3) Eventually, after 6 months, they set up the DD with my bank (the bank have confirmed that Orange hadn't been in touch to set it up prior to this) and took 6 months worth of payments in one go (consequently, I suffered financial hardship that month) 4) A few months later, I moved out and transfered the Orange broadband details to my mum's name, giving them her bank details for the new DD 5) The following month, they tried to take the DD from my a/c instead of my mum's, I had no money in there and so i got a £19.50 charge from my bank 6) My mum gets a late payment charge of £5 added to the broadband a/c, even though it was their error! I have written to them outlining the above issues, and their response basically ignored everything I had written!! In reference to the initial DD problems, all they said was that as a result of MY failure to pay (ha ha) the account had been suspended for a couple of weeks and we had not been charged during that time. They do not acknowledge the fact that they had failed to set up the DD at all. With regards to the more recent issue, they quote the DD guarantee, stating that they gave us the required 10 days notice that the details were going to change. Firstly, THEY didn't change the details, WE did, and secondly, we received no correspondance whatsoever during this time. I have since written back to them restating the exact issues I would like them to address, and am still awaiting a response. To be honest, I am more interested in an explanation and apology than any financial compensation, but would be interested in your views on this. Incidentally, I am in the process of claiming all my bank charges back from the Co-op, so the £19.50 charge should hopefully be coming back to me in any case. Fizz

Hiya, This isn't a major issue, but it is quite irritating so would appreciate some advice! I moved into private rented accomodation in October, and everything is fine with it except the gas and electricity meters... they are both pound coin meters and I find them SO inconvenient! I am completely ignorant about how these things work, and I wondered if anyone could tell me how I would go about getting them changed (preferably to some sort of card meter), if I have to pay to do this, and if I can do it myself or need to go through the landlord. I wouldn't mind, it's just that I am so absent minded I ALWAYS seem to end up sitting in the dark with no pound coins in my purse! At least with a card I can stick a load on on pay day and forget about it! As an aside, does anyone know if these old coin meters work out the same cost as paying by other methods? How would I work out how much I am paying per unit? Thanks in advance Fizz

Hi all, Just thought I would share my experience of basic accounts (seem to have become a bit of an expert!!) I had a Natwest Step account (with Solo card) a few years ago, but they closed this down when they transferred my student account to a DCA Last year I had a Co-op Cashminder account (Electron) which was all fine and dandy until they closed it down last month... apparantly they have a 3 strikes and you're out rule (I responded to their letter to this effect with my own reclaiming the charges ) I have since applied for a Barclays basic account (declined). a Lloyds cash account (accepted, cash card only - can only withdraw from lloyds machines) and a Halifax Easycash (accepted, electron) My credit rating is rather apalling, but I have no CCJs. I think the reason barclays declined me is because I have a monument creditcard (owned by barclays) which has been overlimit/in arrears for years!! The easiest to open was Halifax, all done online and hassle free. Lloyds was over the phone, and they were really nice, although getting the online banking set up was a bit of a mission. Neither seemed to mind that I had opened 2 accounts, and having them both is making managing my money much easier. All the a/cs mentioned accepted SOs and DDs HTH Fizz

Hi guys, I've got a couple of questions I would really appreciate some help with!! To cut a very long and dull story short, I have accumulated a lot of debt which has spiralled out of control, partly through charges but mostly through my own mismanagement. I recently contacted National Debtline to discuss the possibility of a debt management plan, but they suggested that I try to contact my creditors myself first. I did this, and to my surprise they have all accepted reduced, pro rated, payments. They have all frozen charges and the majority have frozen interest. I would like to reclaim the charges previously incurred on these accounts, but I am worried that this will jeopardise the arrangement I have with them. Am I crazy to be thinking about doing this? The charges owed would not cover the amounts outstanding, so am I better off just to leave things as they are for now? Another, related, question - I have one account that I haven't had to make an offer to, as the amount I calculated through my budget more than covered the minimum payment... if I claimed back the money from them, could they insist that I pay back the full outstanding debt? If so, what would I do? Thanks for reading, and many thanks in advance for any response! Fizz

Hi, I have had a look through the FAQs for this and couldn't see an answer so I hope I'm not repeating something that has been asked 100 times before! I used to have 2 accounts with Natwest, 1 of which was a student account with an overdraft facility. After going over the limit on both accounts several times (and incurring numerous charges!) they closed both accounts down. I am now making monthly payments to a debt management company to pay off what used to be my student overdraft. What I am really worried about is that if I try to claim back the charges from my old student account they will try to make me pay off the existing debt all in one go (and I don't think the charges will cover this amount and I certainly can't afford to do this!) Can they do this? What would my position be if they did? Sorry for the waffle, hope it makes sense!! Thanks in advance Fizz