I sent Bank of Scotland the standard "can you please refund the charges applied to my account" and a mere branch manager responded with the following irritating and patronising communication:

"with reference to t and c's of your current account.......funds must be in the account before transactions are made....charges will therefore remain on your account..".

Wait for the best bit: "I understand your frustration" (do they really????!!) "as no one likes paying charges, please contact us if you need advice on how to manage your account." I think my branch manager needs to contact me for advice on how to manage customer accounts!!!!

As you may have gathered from the above, i am rather unhappy with the response i have received. Therefore i will be requesting all account details for the past 5 years and calculating exactly how much i have been forced to pay in unfair charges. I am fully prepared to take BoS to court over this, in fact i'd love the media to get involved and make a spectacle of the entire affair. However, after reading a lot of the posts and information on here, i am guessing they will settle out of court.

I'm not so much irked by the money being taken from my account, more the reason and strategy behind the blatant profiteering! It's ridiculous, we give them our money to look after (how grateful we are to them for doing so), but they dip into our accounts and use our cash to invest and generate huge profits for themselves.

Anyway, rant over........

Welcome, take a deep breath

Keep us posted.

PLEASE START YOUR OWN THREAD, YOU'RE HIJACKING SOMEONE ELSE'S! IT MAKES THINGS HARD TO FOLLOW FOR EVERYONE!

I must have paid over £500 in bank charges over the years and after paying £39 for a bounced £14.00 direct debit I am sick of it.

I used to work for business banking (BOS) in Speke and had a staff account but stopped working there years ago.

I have just requested 6 years bank statements from them and I want every last penny back.

Please keep me informed on how you get on and I will do the same!

Perhaps we can help each other!

sorry for hijacking.

Well, i sent off my letter requesting 6 years of statements on 16/03/06 and to my surprise received a huuuge envelope today containing 6 years worth of statements!

However, it seems BoS haven't taken kindly to my complaint regarding their charges. The accompanying letter reads as follows:

"Thank you for your recent letter........

I'm sure you will appreciate that like other organisations we incur costs for every transactio made. When we pay an item against an unauthorised overdraft or return an item unpaid, we incur extra costs regardless of the shortfall involved. We believe it is fair to pass these costs on to the accounts affected, rather than absorb them into other areas of our operations, penalising all our other customers as a result.

We clearly outline our charging policy in the terms and conditions that apply yo your account. In addition, we are committed to complying with the Banking Code, which sets standards of good banking practice for banks and building societies to follow when dealing with personal customers. The terms and conditions of your account state that you must have funds in your account to cover your transactions. We cannot be responsible if you have authorised payments against funds that were not available."

Blah blah

"Ultimately it is your responsiblity to amange your account. However, as a gesture of goodwill I am prepared to refund £136.00 of charges in full and final settlement of your complaint. I must stress that future valid charges will stand and we reserve the right to close your account if you do not manage it correctly. If you are prepared to accept my offer, please sign and return the enclosed acceptance form in the prepaid envelope."

They kindly totted up the changes i have incurred and it comes to a total of £312.50, although i have yet to check this. Looks like they are trying to appease me with £136 on the condition that i close my complaint and never complain about charges ever again. Reading a couple of other posts on this forum it looks as though i should continue with my complaint and attempt to gain back all of the charges i have incurred. The letter contained a name and direct number of a Customer Relations Manager; i shall be contacting her tomorrow morning and demanding a full refund. I am also considering contacting the OFT regarding the account closure threat.

Forgot to mention in previous post that BoS provided a list of bank charges and statements for the last six years free of charge "in the interests of customer service".

Have just trawled through all of my statements and calculated the total charges applied to my account over the last six years. A staggering £548! I shall definitely be asking for a full refund.

Posted another letter to the Customer Relations Manager today stating that i am not prepared to accept settlement of £130 odd pounds and that i wish a full refund of £548. Will just have to wait and see what the response is!!

Posted another letter to the Customer Relations Manager today stating that i am not prepared to accept settlement of £130 odd pounds and that i wish a full refund of £548. Will just have to wait and see what the response is!!

To get your money you must do the math side first and give them a schedule of the charges along with dates then apply statutory interest as opposed to contractual interest statutory interest is what the courts will allow you to charge you can find the INTEREST CALCULATOR HERE:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1141050760,24632,

pointless informing the OFT they will not deal with complaints about banks you need....

Financial Ombudsman Service,

South Quay Plaza, 183 Marsh Wall, London E14 9SR

Telephone: 0845 080 1800

E-mail: [email protected]

Website: www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk

But only get in touch with FOS if the bank say they are closing your account, you must get a deadlock letter from the bank to say negotitions are at en end. Nationwide were closing my daughter in laws account on 12th March I asked them for a deadlock letter so I may complain to the FOS, it cost a bank £250 paid to the FOS to investigate a complaint and you would probably be compenstaed to the tune of £125 if the FOS found the closure of the account to be a vindictive act brought by the bank because you claimed back charges from them... however I digress... Nationwide have still not closed the account 26 days after they said they would, all they said was we are still investigating the letter to them about a deadlock letter about the account closure. food for thought.

This topic was closed on 03/06/19.

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