Heres a very good piece to put in your defence and argue at trial-in particular if you have multiple charges that were applied consecutively.You should use both arguements.

Now that the the OFTs rulings have been universally applied, and them saying they would take legal action against Credit Card Companies levying default charges above £12.00 each,

we are now starting to see Credit Card companies only agreeing to refund the portion of every charge over £12.00. In fact CitiCards supposedly "proved" (I'm using the term very loosely) that this is the amount it costs them per default.

Actually Citi claim that it costs them MORE than this !!!

To counter this strategy, it is necessary to use what I call the "consequential charges" arguement. In short what you argue is that but for the bank levying the first X unlawful, or partially unlawful, charges (usually a small number) then you wouldn't of incurred ANY of the other subsequent charges. Accordingly the subsequent charges should be refunded in full.

To illustrate this example lets assume that when you first open your account you incur £250.00 of default charges in your first two months of holding the account. Let's further assume that at every subsequent incidence of you incurring a default charge the balance of your account at the time is such that you wouldn't of incurred such a charge but for the PREVIOUS unlawful charges (i.e. you wouldn't of incurred the charge but for the previous £250.00 of charges levied on your account). Under such circumstances according to the BANK'S reasoning you would be entitled to a refund of every one of your "subsequent" charges in FULL and the portion over £12.00 of the initial charges.

A second arguement is the "inflation" arguement. Basically, the arguement goes that £12.00 today would be equivalent to £10.00 six years ago. Not much of a difference but the combined effect of this and the above arguement, in some circumstances, can be much more effective than the above one on its own.

Both of the above arguements would usually be brought up in a reply to a Defence. It is important to put at the start "the Claimant denies the Defendant's allegation that the Defendant's refunding of the portion of every charge over £12.00 relieves it of its liability to the Claimant".

That is a very well written article Martin and I am surprised you haven't put it as a stickie

I had though of it-I wanted the Citi claimants to see it first-I think it will also be good for the Egg forums-Citis sister card.

It might be worth putting it as a stickie so that it is more prominent today.

Yes Ok -a stickie it is then.

apologies, Martin3030, it was an unfortunate morning to post it up. I thought you were taking the proverbial. Will slap my own wrist later and look at it properly tomorrow.

To illustrate this example lets assume that when you first open your account you incur £250.00 of default charges in your first two months of holding the account.

This wouldn't have ever happened in the first 2 months - Citi historically applied a maximum of £50 per month charges.

Yes this is correct although I did have 3 charges in 1 month-there was £25 applied for return of a cash convenience cheque which was only valued at £15.00.

So potentially if this happened twice in a month over 2 months-you could be landed with £200 in charges.