Hello All,

This is my first post here, although I have been reading posts for a few weeks. I have a Current Account and Credit Card with Royal Bank of Scotland, credit cards with Capital One and Lloyds TSB, all of which have defaulted (made unemployed 3 years ago after an accident at work). All of which have incurred unlawful charges which I plan to reclaim one by one. I live in Scotland and am a little concerned about the differences in the Law, Courts and the £750 maximum for Small Claims Courts in Scotland.

I sent my SAR for 6 years of statements on 11th June, still waiting to hear back. I expect the charges to be in the region of £1200 but this is just a figure I have in my head - let's see what it actually is!

As a side note about 6 months ago I started getting charged £6/month "Service Charge", which it turns out, was for an "upgrade" to a Royalties Gold Account. I had never been pre-warned about the change or asked if I would like to change. I challenged my bank about this 2 weeks ago and was told they could change the acccount back but I was not entitled to a refund. I said I would visit the CAB to ask their advice, the teller then back-tracked and insisted I would be refunded in full! Two weeks later I have not been refunded and yet another Service Charge has been taken from my account. I went to the bank again today to be told they would phone back later, guess what? No phone call! I'll be visiting them again tomorrow!

I'll update when there is something to update on!

The bank can charge a service fee for certain accounts and this appears to be one of them. What they have done wrong is not to tell you about the charge. I presume you didn't ask for the account to be upgraded ? Keep at them.

Good luck.

Received £24 + interest today for the Royalties account upgrade which was done without my permission. The branch manager finally phoned my to discuss it after speaking to just about every other member of staff at the local branch. Her first offer was £24 as a "good will gesture!" I said no as it wasn't a good will gesture it was refunding what was technically stolen. She rang back 30 minutes later to say she would offer £24 + interest in full and final settlement (with no mention of it being a good will gesture!) I accepted. I think that's round 1 to me. Looking forward to receiving my statements and adding up the big money I'm owed!

Mark.

A month passed with no response from RBoS despite me chasing them up by mail and phone. I cancelled the cheque and went into the branch with a Data Protection Act letter requesting statements and manual intervention info. I think it was the first of it's kind in my particular branch as the gentleman dealing with it was a bit unsure as to what to do! I requested a signed receipt so no excuses this time. Oh well, I guess the 40 days start again!

Mark.

Got my statements today! They were for 6 years to the day. Took them 13 days from requesting in branch to receiving the statements. I have had a quick tot up and it's just under £2,000. As I am in Scotland I will have to sever the claim which I will have to read up on.

Just e-mailed my preliminary approach for repayment to Margaret King along with a schedule of charges for £1,990 plus £372.36 overdraft interest. I will mail out a copy to Tommy McLean and visit my local branch.

Mark.