Having recently sent a letter to Nationwide asking for my bank charges to be refunded I was sent a letter back basically saying 'no'.

I then asked them to send me copies of my statements since opening the account in 2003. They sent them within a week at no charge.

I've now calculated that Nationwide have charged me £6602.14 in just over 2 years! No, I have not added the 8% interest on that yet!

Does anyone know if I can still pursue them in the small claims court - limit of £5000 - or what other process is available to me to take these robbing bankers to task?

Any help would be gratefully appreciated to try to get back some of this money.

Are you able to claim for a years charges, say 2003-2004 as one claim, then set up a second claim for 2004-2005?

This would surely bring both claims under the £5000 limit?

This is just guessing and not backed up by any legal experience. Maybe someone else has other advice?

Claim back about 4 years so that you have a figure of about £4000. deal with that. Then when it is sorted out, start a seond clim for the first 2 years. Do it in that order so as to attract less attention to what you are doing.

Reading from the OP the account only goes back 3 years so stting the first claim to cover 4 years isnt feasable

Well whatever it takes - sever the claim.

Should I send two letters before action to Nationwide asking them to pay back charges for 2003/04 and another 2004/05?

Or should I send the back one letter with the full amount and then do two different claims if I have to go to court?

I would split it by date. Complete one claim so that about £3500-£4000 is covered (date closest to today). Go all the way using that until you get your money back.

Then make another claim recovering the remainder of the debt. Hopefully, you will not have to go as far (i.e. to court) as the bank is already aware that you are willing to go all the way. You never know

Seperate by type, not date.

If you seperate by date, the bank could argue that you should have combined the claims and are trying to work the system

You could then argue that you used the statements that were available to you. For example, I have used the online statements from LloydsTSB

The impression I get is that banks will try every tactic in their book against you.

If you try the 'I only used statements available to me' line this may well be a justification to date.

But what will you do when then judge says, 'fair point, but there are other monies that bring this over the threshold. This is going to the multi track.' ?

I think perhaps you should get some professional legal advice. The multi track is not something you should take lightly.

Without sounding too pesemistic. In the multi track you beome liable for the other sides cost if you lose your claim. This could be massive amounts of money. It is for this reason you make sure you know what you are getting into.

FP

Handle the two claims separately, one at a time - each without reference to the other.

Finish one first and then start with the other.

Do not try to run them together. If the bank realises what you are doing they might try to consolidate the claims.

Are they all the same type of charge? If there are different charges, you could, say, do the overlimit charges first, then the late payment charges separately. Or whatever.

Easier just to do it in 3 year or something chunks at a time.

How much could the fees be if you lost on a larger claim, does anyone know yet? And if previous cases are anything to go by, the banks would not want the embarrasment of having ripped someone off with large amounts, they know they should not be doing this and the press would make a meal of it.

Is a claim for £5000 about £350 to bring? Something like that.

believe me it is a good investment.

This topic was closed on 03/06/19.

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