DPA letter sent today, thanks to all those who have offered advice and keep up the good work! Brew.

Confused by interest!!

I have received my last 6 years worth of statements and having gone through them am pleased (or should it be dissapointed?!?!?) that my charges amount to no more than £280.00. I am however confused over interest.

I have always had an overdraft facility, starting at £200.00 (raising gradually to £500.00!!!!). Looking at my statements for the six years, during the 4 years prior to the merger with Halifax, my interest debits amount to around £1.00 per month, give or take a few pence. This interest charge seems to be fairly consistent throughout the 4 year period even on the months when I did go over my authorised overdraft.

Since the merger with Halifax, again this interest charge seems fairly consistent at around £1.20 ish or thereabouts per month except when I have gone over my authorised overdraft when it rises to anything between £2.00 & £5.00 (peaks at £4.87).

I am confused as to what I should include on my schedule of charges (if anything) as far as interest is concerned as I can't say what is normal interest on agreed overdraft and what isn't.

Any advice eagerly accepted! Many thanks.

Although you can reclaim interest, I (personally) found this a very complex process to work out.

Your easiest option is to simply tot up the actual charges, bung them into the Spreadsheet (in the Bank Templates Library) and send them your Prelim Letter to ask for this amount back.

Be careful to only ask for the total amount of Charges back at this stage - DON'T MENTION the additional 8% untill you get to the stage of Court Action.

Advice required please

Sent LBA and got a letter shown below in response:

“I refer to your letter received the 19th July 2006: naturally I am concerned that you have found cause for complaint and at the outset please accept my apologies that you have not received an earlier response.

I appreciate your concerns regarding the above account and please allow me to explain that HBOS disagrees with the legal analysis of default fees outlined in the OFT’s statement, published in April.

However, the group has today confirmed that it will be reducing default fees across its credit card product range to £12 from 1 August 2006.

Until that date, all existing terms and conditions apply.

Our charges on current accounts/credit cards are a genuine pre-estimate of costs that generally arise when customers breach their agreements with us. They cannot take into account the individual circumstances of each particular case. In the circumstances, we do not agree with you that they represent and unlawful penalty or unfair term under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts regulations.

Please note that we are at this time working in conjunction with the Office of Fair Trading and although they believe charges are to be no higher than £12 there has not been any legislation passed which would force us to reduce our charges on our Bank Account products at this time.

It is the customers responsibility to ensure that funds are available to cover Direct Debit/Standing Order, cheques repayments and also charges due to be debited from their account as we give you an adequate notification period of 28 days to allow you time to do so and also advise that you will receive further charges if your account is not conducted so.

I note from your account that charges were in fact due to you exceeding your agreed Overdraft facility therefore it was not an error caused by the Bank of Scotland we would not look to refund any debited charges at this time. Although I have as a gesture of good will cancelled pending charges due to debit 31 July 2006 to avoid escalation of your balance at this time.

Should any of your concerns remain unresolved please let me know what you’d like me to do to put matters right. We are keen to resolve your concerns, if we are unable to do so we’ll provide you with details of how you can contact the Financial Ombudsman Service for assistance. If I do not hear from you within the next eight weeks I will assume you are satisfied with our response to your letter.

Yours sincerely

Blah blah blah"

Should I ignore the letter and just send the next letter when the 14 day period expires or should I respond in some way to this letter. Incidentally, with reference to the 'goodwill' gesture of cancelling impending debits due on 31 July 06, I wasn't aware of any of further charges due to be debited!!!!

All advice gratefully received, thanks.