For those that have looked at their statements and may be wondering, what can i claim for?, and why are the descriptions confusing?, what about the overdraft interest is that claimable aswell?

wonder no more.

you can claim for anything which is deemed a penalty charge, which includes:

returned direct debits,

card mis-use,

unpaid standing order,

unpaid item,

exceeding your overdraft,

overdraft interest (see below),

total charges (see below)

notifed fees

Unauthorised overdraft arrangement fees

(more will be added as and when confirmation is found)

you can not claim for:

ATM (cash machine) usage (typically £1),

an agreed overdraft fee,

anything which is deemed a "service" by the bank

(more will be added as and when confirmation is found)

Overdraft interest

This is the single most confusing part of most peoples claim, and one of the most frequently asked questions

overdraft interest is applied to your whole overdraft, however if some of your overdraft is made up from (unlawfull) charges,

then a proportion of the interest has been wrongly applied and is therefore reclaimable

Example

you have a £400 overdraft, you purchase something that day for £200 so now you are -£200 on your current account balance, but on the same day £200 of charges are placed on your account, which means that your current account balance is now -£400 and the bank will charge interest on the whole £400, but as we are contesting that these charges are unlawfull, then the interest should not be placed on the whole amount, only on the amount that you have actually spent,

therefore in this example you can claim back 50% of the interest, however these calculations have to be done daily to truly reflect the amount which can be reclaimed,

Dont worry, Vampiress has made a spreadsheet that will calculate this for you, you can find it here, but please read the instructions that come with it;

Overdraft interest calculator thread

Total charges (HSBC)

Again this is another issue which many people aren't sure about,

total charges are reclaimable, they are a seperate issue to the other afore mentioned charges (card mis-use, returned d-d's etc), and are not simply all of these charges added together each month. so they are also claimable on top of the other charges

"total charges" also listed as notified fees refers to the charge they put on your account for going over your overdraft limit, this charge is calculated daily, and they can charge up to a maximum of £125 in one month for this, it is then debited from your account on a set date every month

Important!

For buisness accounts ONLY the "total charges" include a combination of reclaimable and genuine charges, and you will need a breakdown to exactly know what proportion of "total charges" are unlawful.