Hi all, had a stab at this some time ago but had to postpone due to family problems, anyway...........

22/06/06: 1st letter sent (value £339)

23/06/06: Call from branch confirming reciept and advising that customer services would respond with 10 working days.

Fingers crossed..........I have Capital One in my sights now!

Good luck!

opps

Morning all,

Recieved a letter from RBoS this morning. I am not sure if they are responding to my letter or initial phone call.

Prior to submitting my first letter I contacted my branch to request they refund some fees, customer services registered this as a "customer concern" and said that someone would respond within 48 hrs. I did receive a call advising me that half the charge would be refunded (£15) and a they would waive a £28 fee due to debit in July. I was not happy with this and explained that I expected a full refund of these recent fee's. I also advised the branch that I would be sending a letter requesting a full refund of the other fee's soon.

I will copy the full letter bellow, most of it seems standard but there is some detail in there unique to my situation.........

Dear Mr .......

 

Thank you for your telephone call of the 12th June 2006 and I apologise for any dissatisfaction caused by the application of charges to your account.

 

We believe that out charges are fair, reasonable and transparent. We consider the the amounts debited to your account have been applied strictly in accordance with your agreement with us and our published tariff, which we are satisfied, complies with all applicable laws and regulations. We are also commited to ensuring the transparency of the information that we give to our customers about the operation of our products.

 

We have considered and responded to the Office of Fair Trading's statement of 5 April 2006. We do not accept the Office of Fair Trading's findings in relation to credit card fees. We are concerned that the Office of Fair Trading has publicly called into question the setting of charges applied to other products, including current accounts. The Office of Fair Trading has restricted its investigation to credit cards and made no attempts to consult with RBS or the industry in relation to other, entirely different products.

 

Consquently, against that background, we must differ with the views expressed in your letter. Despite this, we have taken the opportunity to review the charges that have been applied to your account and as an exceptional matter we have agreed to refund £15 and waive the £28 due to debit on the 20th July 2006 as a gesture of goodwill. Acceptance by you of this payment will be in full and final settlement of all claims you may have relating to our charges. However, our terms and conditions will continue to apply and any charges that accrue in the future must stand.

 

Again, thank you for taking the time and trouble to call and I hope that your complaint is now resolved to your satisfaction.

 

Yours Sincerely

 

Zoe Hardcastle

Service Quality Manager

My questions are.............

1) They have already refunded the £15 to my account and I expect they will not apply the £28 in July.....I did not accept this and certainly will not accept it as full and final settlement....However, as they have already credited the money to my account it appears that I have. What can I do about this?

2) Should I accept this as their response to my first letter?

3) Should I send the LBA now or wait for the 14 days to expire?

Thanks for reading all that.......I look forward to receiving your advice!!

hi keep me informed on how you get on zoe is also deling with my case ive just started

I'd just write back saying your not accepting as part of your LBA and just count the refund as a partial refund and reduce the claim by it.

i sent 1st letter of requesting 6 years bank statements within 40 days that was up 26th june zoe rang there had been a mix she was not allowed to get them for me from this branch it had to go some where else so it may take a little while longer then another phone call wed 28th the request had got lost in internal mail so have to start again i know they are messing me about hoping i get fed up (which i wont)

I have already reduced the amount I requested in my first letter by £15.

My worry is that this will get to court and RBoS will defend by stating that the matter was already resolved.

not if you've wrote back saying that you don't accept and you will be carrying on for the full amount.

Update.

I have decided to treat the letter above as the banks response, even though it is dated 2 days prior to my initial request. It's interesting to note that the banks response refers to my initial contact as both a phone call and letter. I did contact the branch by telephone on the 12th of June to request that they refund some recent charges. As this was to no avail I followed up with a letter requesting a full refund (22 June 2006).

My draught response is listed below, comments please.....

Account Number: 1.........

Sort Code: 1.-..-..

 

Letter Before Action

 

Thank you for your letter of response dated 20 June 2006 and received 30 June 2006. I am disappointed that we are unable to reach agreement over this matter.

I note that your letter is dated 20 June 2006, two days prior to my letter requesting you refund charges levied against my account. It is not clear whether you are responding to our telephone conversation or my letter to RD, 22 June 2006 as you refer to both in your response. I accept your letter as notification of the banks position regarding this matter.

 

I understand that the regime of 'fees' which you have been applying to my account in relation to direct debit refusals, exceeding overdraft limits and so forth are unlawful at Common Law, Statute and recent Consumer regulations.

 

I would draw your attention to the terms of the contract which you agreed to at the time that I opened my account. It is an implied term of that contract that you would conduct yourselves lawfully and in a manner which complies with UK law.

 

I am frankly shocked that you have operated my account in this way as I had always reposed confidence in your integrity and expertise as my fiduciary.

 

I calculate that you have taken £339.00. I am enclosing a copy of the schedule of the charges which I am claiming. I have already sent you a copy of this in my original letter of the 22 June 2006.

 

I am aware that you have already refunded £15.00 to my account 20 June 2006. I do not accept this refund as full and final settlement as it was credited to my account without my knowledge or agreement.

 

I require repayment in full of this money. If you do not comply fully within 14 days then I shall begin a claim against you for the full amount plus interest plus my costs and without further notice.

 

Furthermore, I shall submit a Consumer Credit Act 1974 complaint to the Office of Fair Trading upon the basis that you have failed to comply with the Office of Fair Trading's direction of 5 April 2006 and are therefore not a 'fit and proper person' to hold a consumer credit licence under the 1974 Act. If you do not understand what this means then seek advice from your legal department.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

RSS1979

Can anyone offer advice regarding the above post please??

yeah sounds fine to me!

22/06/06: 1st letter sent (value £339)

23/06/06: Call from branch confirming reciept and advising that customer services would respond with 10 working days.

30/06/06: Standard response recieved

03/07/06: LBA Sent

........................onwards and upwards..................

my second (first) repsponse..

Dear Mr. XXXX

 

Your complaint regarding charges has been passed to me and I am sorry we have failed to reach an agreement with you. Please accept my appologies for any unintended inconvieniance or upset.

 

I regrety that there is little that I can add constructively to previous comments but having reviewed your account, I can find no instance where charges have been applied when they were not properly due. The have all been associated with the lack of covering funds in the account at the time the items were presented for payment. Accordingley, the charges that have been applied to your account should stand.

 

That said, in the hope of forgoing a compromise and settlement with you, Zoe Hardcastle from our Wakefield branch proposed an offer of £44 as a gesture of goodwill and without admission of error or liability. This would be paid on the basis of a full and final settlement.

 

I know you have declined this offer but it is not to be increased. If, on relection, you decide to accept please contact Zoe who will be able to arrange payment.

 

I suspect that this is unlikely to be the answer you might have hoped to receive but nonetheless thank you for taking the time and trouble to contact us.

 

Your Sincerely

 

Tommy McLean

Manager, Customer Relations Unit

I am going to send another LBA as this is clearly the response to my letter. The previous letter must have been a response to my telephone call.

I am going to send another LBA as this is clearly the response to my letter. The previous letter must have been a response to my telephone call.

Don't send another LBA. Stick to the guidelines here, and the timetable you have set. If no response when the 14 days are up start Court action.

Surely though, I shouldn't react to a letter that was sent before my initial approach?

There was a lot of confusion at the start of this process, I made an initial telephone call requesting some charges be refunded. When I hit a brick wall I made a request for all the charges using the libraby template. The response from my initial request came after I sent the letter and as it refered to a letter I assumed it was their response,............

Very confusing I know, if you read up it should make sense.

Read through the step-by-step process in the FAQs.

Prelim - LBA - Court.

You can keep sending duplicate LBAs for months - the only difference it will make is that you will run out of stamps. You told them in your letter that if they didn't respond within 14 days you would start legal proceedings - why did you say this if you aren't going to do it?

I'm confused, you're confused and I expect the bank is confused.

The one thing that is sure to straighten everything out is moneyclaim, anything else is wasting time

ok...........I think I need to explain...

May and June some charges were debited from my account

12th June - Called Bank to request those charges be refunded

22nd June - After no response to my initial call I sent preliminary letter to branch.

30th June - Recieved a letter from Branch dated 20th (before my prelim letter) refering to both a letter and a phone call and advising that only a partial refund could be offered (see above).

1st July - Sent LBA

8th July - Recieved standard letter from Tommy McLean in resonse to my preliminary letter.

So now I plan to send an LBA to branch, this is sticking to my original timetable and in line with the threats made in my letters.

Don't you agree?

So now I plan to send an LBA to branch, this is sticking to my original timetable and in line with the threats made in my letters.

 

Don't you agree?

No!

Did you not read the previous answers?

Regardless of phone calls, responses from the bank etc etc the situation is this:

1) You sent the bank a letter saying 'give me my money back within 14 days' - they didn't do this.

2) You sent them a letter saying 'last chance - give me my money back within 14 days or I'll takr you to court' - they haven't done this.

So the next stage would be to do what you have said you'll do - take them to court.

The letters you have received from the bank are completely irrelevant unless they've offered you a full refund, which they haven't.

Stick to the step-by-step guide and do what you said you'd do. If you had no intention of taking them to court when the 14 days were up then you shouldn't have put this in your letter.

Read through the step-by-step process in the FAQs.

 

Prelim - LBA - Court.

DONE!!!

You can keep sending duplicate LBAs for months

Not months, one week and only two.......the first of which was not sent after 14 days, but earlier as I made a mistake and responded to the wrong letter.

You told them in your letter that if they didn't respond within 14 days you would start legal proceedings - why did you say this if you aren't going to do it?

My ultimate intention is to proceed to court should they not pay up within the next 14 days.

I am not really sure why you have an attitude and comments like.........

If you had no intention of taking them to court when the 14 days were up then you shouldn't have put this in your letter.

really don't help anyone.......

Just to clarify, I take this situation very seriously and understand that the way I conduct this claim could affect the next person that tries the same.

I am not playing games here.........a little mutual respect would be nice!

I am not really sure why you have an attitude and comments like.........

If you say you'll take them to court in 14 days and then don't but send them another LBA they'll think you don't know what you're doing and that you aren't willing to take them to court - this will only make it more difficult for yourself.

You've asked the question, been given advice and are still asking the same question, how else would you like it to be said. It is not an 'attitude', merely trying to make it as clear (albeit blunt) as possible.

To clarify, 14 days from the date of your LBA - if full settlement is not received take them to court - that is what you said you'd do in your letter, so do it.

HELP!!!

I am trying to complete the claim for on moneyclaim.gov.uk and have got to the "particulars of claim". There is a 1080 character limit and I can't really condense my wording down any further.........can I?

1. The Claimant has an account (number ******) with the Defendant which was opened in April 2002.

 

2. During the period in which the account has been operating the Defendant debited numerous charges to the account in respect of purported breaches of contract on the part of the Claimant and also charged interest on the charges once applied. The Claimant understands that the Defendant contends that the charges were debited in accordance with the terms of the contract between itself and the Claimant.

 

3. The Claimant contends that:

 

a) The charges debited to the account are punitive in nature; are not a genuine pre-estimate of cost incurred by the Defendant, exceed any alleged actual loss to the Defendant in respect of any breaches of contract on the part of the Claimant; and are not intended to represent or relate to any alleged actual loss, but instead unduly enrich the Defendant which exercises the contractual term in respect of such charges with a view to profit.

 

b) The contractual provision that permits the Defendant to levy such charges is unenforceable by virtue of the Unfair Contract Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations (1999), the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 and the common law.

 

4. Accordingly the Claimant claims

 

a) The return of the amounts debited in respect of charges in the sum of £339.00 and any interest charged thereon;

 

b) Court costs;

 

c) Interest pursuant to section 69 County Courts Act 1984 at the rate of 8% a year from various dates to 24th August 2006 of £ £45.54 and also interest at the same rate up to the date of judgment or earlier payment at a daily rate of 7.458 pence per day.

 

I believe that the contents of these particulars of claim are true

All help much appreciated!!

I think this is the link you need....

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bank-templates-library/634-guide-notes-completing-moneyclaim.html

Copy and paste this in the moneylaim box and obviously fill in your details....

Wx

P.s don't be too sensitive love, people here just want to help! :>)