After waiting 30-days from DPA for the copy statements, I received this morning a staggering 8cm pile of paper (about 800 sheets!)... It was only that size because each sheet contained a maximum of 11 transactions. The idiots.

Anyway, after a back-breaking job of going through the pile (which included about 50 duplicate pages, for some reason), I've calculated the charges since June-2000 as a whopping £4,993.25. April 2003 was a low-point in this relationship with £520 of charges. The most I have ever been overdrawn is £850, so the costs are very disproportionate.

Preliminary letter, following the BAG template, is going tomorrow by recorded delivery.

Parachute? Fully deployed...

Good luck.

What a great amount to be claiming for - can't get much closer to the £5k limit!

Bring it on!

can't get much closer to the £5k limit!

It was £5,035.25, but somehow two of the very earliest charges got ... er ... missed off the spreadsheet... ;-)

It was £5,035.25, but somehow two of the very earliest charges got ... er ... missed off the spreadsheet... ;-)

Oops - you will have to check your figures after you get your refund....just to make sure you didn't miss anything...like interest.

I've already told you I struggle with the whole interest thing!

It would be a boat-load of extra cash mind.... Now where's that spreadsheet with the interest thingy...

In the templates library. Vamp is happy to help out if you have a problem with it. Perhaps if you get bored when you have done your other nine claims you could go for them all again. I can't understand you folks who aren't interested in interest (no pun intended). I am quite disappointed I can't get any from A&L, but as I had an interest free overdraft during my 7 months with them I can't really get them on that one.

No reply to the preliminary letter.

Not even a "bog off" or a "we're investigating". Nothing. Nada. Bugger All.

Can't say I'm too surprised. They do seem very disorganised.

I had a very (un)pleasant chat with an A&L customer services robot on Friday about charges. She was the most stubborn, stupid and horrible person I have *ever* spoken to. EVER!

Looks like this one could be going MCOL...

 

Looks like this one could be going MCOL...

It's always best to assume this is going to happen anyway, then you get no nasty surprises.

Must be time for your LBA by now fivelaws.

Must be time for your LBA by now

Indeed it is. The LBA was sent on Monday by recorded delivery, lamenting their lack of reply and re-stating that I expect the full amount to be refunded by Monday 17th July otherwise the next communication will be coming from Aldershot & Farnham County Court...

Got a reply to the first letter this morning (that's a delay of 17-days), which ignored most of the preliminary letter and focused on the OFT's investigation of credit cards - with the stress on credit cards, not *banks*. Therefore, it is argued, the OFT haven't said that the charges are unlawful.

I know this. I also know that the reasons the OFT used to determine the lawfulness applies to any other contract, including theirs...

They will be mine!

Oh yes! All mine!

/manical laughing

I've been trying and failing to speak to somebody (anybody!) at the A&L about my complaint but they REFUSE to talk to me. The "customer care team" won't discuss the complaint, despite saying on their letter "if you require any further assistance ... please don't hesitate to contact me". They don't give a complaints phone number so you have to go through the normal charade of entering account numbers, passwords etc and waiting for a customer advisor.

I tried three times yesterday and each time they ended up cutting me off (after 30-minutes wasted). The final contact promised somebody would call me. 24-hours later, I phoned again only to be told the complaints people "aren't allowed to talk to anybody". You couldn't make this up!

I've just tried the "customer advocate" phone number in the contact sticky, but it isn't even an A&L number - it's for MBNA...!!!???!!!

Does anybody have an actual direct dial phone number of anybody in the complaints department?

Sorry fivelaws, can't help with a phone number, but did wonder why you want to talk to them?

Your LBA only went off this week didn't it?

Why not just stick to the timetable?

Our letters crossed in the post and I wanted to ensure they had received the LBA and that there was no confusion about what & why the second letter was sent.

I should have saved my breath.

For anybody elses info, the best number is group customer relations : 0116 200 4444. They will (eventually) put you through to somebody. Even if that somebody is as useless as a chocolate teapot...

No response and today is the deadline, so I phoned to find out what they were playing at. Apparently a letter was sent today. I asked what it said (in the hope it was some sort of concession) but no, it's a "sod off and die" letter.

I'm actually going to fill out a paper N1 and hand-deliver it to my local court (Aldershot & Farnham) on Monday morning.

Gross stupidity by the A&L. They have refused to enter into any meaningful dialogue about this issue and once I've got my cash back (plus a delightfully HUGE amount of s.69 interest) I will continue to pursue these idiots through FOS and if need be the FSA. I'd like to see the b*stards try closing the account either - I'll be injuncting them so fast they'll get a nose bleed....

Smile Complaints Team have a policy of not speaking to complainants either. I would just give them the 14 days for the LBA and then off to Moneyclaim.

BTW Fivelaws I have merged your threads, because you confused me by having more than one.

Just got back from the County Court.

Good job you can't be done for contempt just delivering papers - I must have been the most inappropriately dressed person ever to walk through a County Court (Trainers, knee-length shorts and a t-shirt). I should wear a rubber chicken costume next*

Anyway... Counter lady was very nice and quite funny. She explained that you need 2-copies of the paperwork (which I didn't know) and charged me £2.20 for photocopying the ones I had (that's £1 for the first page and 20p per page after that). Everything else seemed in order. I guess I'll get a claim number some time next week?

Woo-Hoo!

* © Alexi Sayle

I was reading another post about something else on Friday afternoon when Baracad mentioned that you have to include the s.69 interest in the "total claimed" value on the N1. Which (of course) I didn't do. After a brief exchange of questions and answers, I realised I had indeed dropped a spanner...

Just got off the phone to the court and there is no problem. They weren't able to issue the proceedings anyway, not because of the interest problem - but because I'd also forgotten to add my name & address to the claim form... doh!

This was the saving grace however; You can amend a claim as many times as you like for £FREE as long as it hasn't been issued. Apparently, if it has been issued, you need to pay a £35 amendment fee.

So it was only my gross stupidity that saved me this time.... ;-)

Off to Aldershot ...

... back from Aldershot.

The problem with amending the claim to include the s.69 interest was this; it tipped the total claimed over the magic £5k boundary. I knew that the interest didn't count towards the tracking (small claims v fast-track) so I'd (stupidly) assumed it didn't count towards the fee payable either.

Not so. I needed to stump up another £130. Except I don't have another £130 (I'd borrowed the £120 in the first place). So instead, I had to manually work backwards through the list of charges+interest until I got back below £5k - and all without the aid of a calculator or Excel whilst sat on the floor of the waiting room...!!

Got it to £4,995.49. Which is darn close. Will start ASAP claiming for the "missing" 1-years worth of charges - an accusation of "sever" will be defended with the justification that I couldn't afford the court fees... should be fun!

Got my claim number.

Having read the sticky - I will PM a mod tonight with the details so I can go into 'litigation in progress'.

Huzzah!

Got my claim number.

 

Having read the sticky - I will PM a mod tonight with the details so I can go into 'litigation in progress'.

 

Huzzah!

Under cover of darkeness eh fivelaws. Very cloak and dagger:cool:

Got a letter from Jackie McGuirk, A&L Solicitor this morning.

Acknowledgement of claim dated 25-Jul - they intend to fully defend.

Funny thing is - the average response time for letter upto now has been 16-35 days, but this one got turned around within 24-hours! Now if only their customer service was normally that snappy....

Just over a week after the "defend in full" letter, the delightful Ms. McGuirk has written again telling me that "without accepting liability, yada-yada, future conduct, blah-blah, please find the enclosed cheque".

And what a cheque to find enclosed! Bearing in mind I had to manually sever the claim at the £5,000 limit because I couldn't afford the extra £130 in court fees, the A&L have settled in full - including the bit I didn't actually claim!.

Cheque for £6,194 deposited this afternoon.

Going on holiday on Saturday! What a smile that has put on our faces!

Big thanks to Caro & Barracad for thier help/assistance/support/comments.

(have done survey, will do donation when the cheque has cleared and we get back from holiday).

Yay!

Back from holiday.

Before going, I thought I'd better pre-empt their account closure tactic, so I wrote 2 letters;

1. Asking for the return of a further £150 deducted from the account since I started this process in June.

2. Formally lodging a complaint about the first lot of charges with the Banking Ombudsman Service and demanding than no "punative action, including account closure" be taken until this complaint is resolved.

Got back today to find not one, not two but three letters from A&L. The first two, dated 9-Aug are identical "we are looking into the issue you have raised and will send a full response within the next 28 days" and both from "G Bartley". The third one was dated only 2 days later on the 11-Aug from "R Rimmer" apologising that the "investigations are taking longer than expected. I am sorry for the delay and would like to assure you that we are dealing with this as quickly as possible. A detailed reply will be sent within the next 28 days".

All three letters have the EXACT same reference number... This is a new and worrying level of incompetence by the A&L.

Thank god the cheque books and debit cards have already arrived for the parachute account!

Arf!

Here we go!

1. Letter received today stating that as a "goodwill gesture", they have refunded £134 in respect of charges raised.

2. Another letter received today from Andy Benson;

Despite our acceptance of your claim and refund of charges, we have not admitted liability and we have continued to state that the charges are regarded by the bank as fair and reasonable.

 

Consequently, as it is clear that you do not accept certain aspects of the terms and conditions for the operation of your account we regret that we are unable to continue to offer you banking facilities. We are therefore now giving you notice that your account will be closed on or shortly after 26-Sep-2006.

I've read the various closure threads but I am DETERMINED to fight this.

Unless I'm mistaken, there isn't a FAQ for this issue, but it looks as though I should;

1) File an injunction with the County Court under the small claims track.

* and to generate a storm of letters *

2) Complain to the FSA.

3) Complain to FOS.

4) Complain to the Banking Code Standards Board.

I'm happy with all the complaints, but does anybody have any experience of the County Court process for this?

Has anybody actually done this yet?