Hello All.

earlier in the week i emailed the sites moderators and they told me that i should start a thread here. The thing is though, i am not really looking for help. My issue with my ex bank has been going on now for two and a half years. This is quite a long story so be prepared for a read.

My main hope is that the founder of the site Marc Gander can contact me regarding this issue. First, i will post a link to a site where Mr Gander talks specifically about having your credit files damaged when one receives a bank charge. Then i will copy and paste the actual details of what this bank has done to my family and I. Here is the link to Mr Gander's comments.

Banks 'should pay for credit damage'

you might need the 3 w's and the http bit.

The next bit has the details from my case. I have many documents detailing all this to different degrees so its hard to know which is best to show you all, probably not the court particulars, just yet. The info below is from my recent complaint to the British (W)Bankers Association where i stated what the bank had done to us. it was rushed a bit but you'll get the jist. I have changed the banks name to "the bank"

Hello.

I hope you don’t mind me contacting you via the BBA page on the release of new codes, your email is at the bottom.

The thing is, I am currently attempting to take the bank to court over a data protection issue. I have tried to complain to your BBA about the behaviour of the bank both before and during my legal actions against them. I was fobbed off by your complaints people who told me the Consumer Direct or OFT may help me. Both these two know nothing of the subject I am about to tell you about, or rather, the situation. I’ll try to say this quickly.

Basically, the bank caused a delay, Feb2006, they started adding charges to an account they were supposed to be managing (performing an agreed action on). I refused to pay the charges. We did not know but they were registering the fact we didnt pay the charges.

I complained to the bank June06. During the 8 week complaint response period they froze just one of my accounts, cancelled direct debits and reopened it after ten days by which time we had incurred more credit damage from other companies for not paying DD’s etc. We complained to Ombudsman Sept06. Bank offered to refund all charges. Ombudsman said he could do no more as they were offering to refund but he advised us that it was a Data protection issue and to report it to the Information Commissioners Office. He also told the bank to remove all credit entries they had made. The bank said they did this.

We tried four times but couldn’t get a loan. Xmas06 we started a re-mortgage process (last resort). Feb 07 we signed mortgage papers. Mid March07 I discover the banks damage had not been removed from Wife’s file. Damage eventually got removed and 5 days later, mortgage money in bank.

June06 to Nov07 bank periodically phones us for the money we owe them (5k) we dispute the amount as they were adding interest for a period of delay which they caused.

Nov07 Information Commissioner tells us and bank that they have broken the Data protection act and we can claim for damages caused (though we still didn’t know the full extent at that point) Nov07 Bank suddenly starts calling everyday demanding the cash we owe (now up to 7K) 30+ phone calls in Nov.

Dec07 one, two then three letters arrive from bank threatening to take our house if we don’t pay (happy Xmas I thought)

Mid Nov07 I launch a claim for 5k through courts online service. I told bank my claim would have been for a lot more had I had the money to make a bigger claim. End Nov, My solicitor starts talking to banks solicitor.

Between then and February 08 we got letters from THREE other separate solicitors. One of them even had a judgement passed against me, which eventually was cancelled. We have been in so called Negotiation since then and the bank has only offered to knock off the interest (that I say they are not entitled to) from our sums we owe them. We have never once disputed the fact we owe them but got to a point of extreme incompetence by them that we had to suspend everything until it gets heard by a judge.

You may have gathered by the behaviour of the bank and its legal teams that it doesn’t want me to get in court. The above behaviour is well known pressurising techniques used in the hope that i run out of cash and halt my action against them. The FSA Handbook has rules which the bank have broken on pressuring customers. the bank know that they are supposed to treat joint account holders as one in legal proceedings. This is to avoid unnecessary legal costs for the customers and also to avoid wasting valuable court time. their solicitor and the bank both also know that any claim the bank had against me should have come as a counter claim to the proceedings I had started against them. This is why I have reported the bank to you, the Information Commissioners Office, the ombudsman, the OFT and the FSA. I have also reported all the solicitors involved to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. They have attempted to stop me getting them into the court room and so far their plan has worked to a certain extent.

My solicitor, having to deal with four firms increased my ongoing costs to such an extent that I have had to let my solicitor go, but fortunately, not before he was able to organise a 2 thousand pound conference with a barrister at Kings Chambers in Manchester, ironically right behind a gigantic the bank building which made me smell something fishy that I am still looking into.

My claim is now in the process of being amended and I am now claiming for unliquidated damages. I have also written to the courts requesting that my case be heard in the High Court because I believe it may have implications for a lot of people. The bank charges reclaim test case by the OFT could be linked.

I wonder how many other people have not paid those charges and received credit damage for it. In my letter to the courts I have also pointed out some things that my barrister told me. He said that a bank does have a right to freeze peoples accounts in some circumstances. If that is true then my case highlights a conflict between banking rules and Data Protection laws. This is on top of them damaging my credit rating for not paying charges that they later admit were applied in error and offered to refund in full £1000+). This is on top of them not removing the damage when told to do so by the Ombudsman until 6 or 7 months later.

Making the damage on for over 12 months (previously absolutely no credit problems). I have also informed the courts about the behaviour of the bank in the way they use and waste millions of pounds of public money each year. I am about to request under the Freedom of info act from the bank, details on the numbers of people taking court action against them, the ombudsman and the Information Commissioners Office for the number of complaints they deal with too.

So far, since the Information Commissioners Office told us we can take the bank to court under section 13 of the Act, they have cost us nearly £7k. But now I have no legal team, they have one weapon less. And with the FSA and SRA sniffing round the bank and its solicitors, they are likely to behave from now on. I have told the courts that there is absolutely no way that negotiations can continue and told them why.

My point is the bank's dreadful behaviour through out this whole time is clearly totally against this new addition to your new rules. I wonder if you think I have a complaint for your organisation in here or not.

This all started one month after we got married and this financial turmoil caused by the bank has made it three miserable years. We have two babies aged 3 and 2 also.

Once I have won this case I am compiling a dossier to send to my MP who will take it to London. It will highlight all the difficulties I have had in obtaining justice. I have actually had judgement passed when they failed to respond but their solicitor made up some lies to get it back in negotiation, which I am now glad about as my amended claim contains the full details of all of the above including their attempts to stop me bringing action and the unliquidated bit means a judge can assess fully what we are entitled to, a hell of a lot more than 5k i reckon.

The solicitor I hired was the 14th solicitor I visited. All the previous ones had some commercial interest with the the bank. This is another point I will be highlighting in court. What chance does a person have when a company is allowed to have 80%+ of the countries legal workforce in its pocket. When the the bank were hiring 28% of the countries legal teams to fight me and my wife I told the Ombudsman hoping he would be able to do something about the bank trying to stop me bringing court action on a case he had found in my favour. He told me that he couldn’t deal with any issue I had unless I first COMPLAINED TO THE COMPANY!!!

I told him he must be joking, that I complain to them about the way they were breaking FSA Handbook rules on pressurising customers. He said he wasn’t so I then said that I could not use their customer complaints procedure as I was no longer a customer. He would not accept it and refused to get involved. When the Information Commissioner informed the bank that in his view, they had broken the Data Protection Act, they should have been coming to us with some kind of Data repair plan. They know all about the effects of mishandling this type of information. Instead they launch a campaign of pressure and harassment.

Also, on the subject of freezing peoples accounts, this rule for the banks, if it exists that they can freeze a customers account for no reason, or because he complained, may have been slightly valid a long time ago. When banks were places that people used to store money and we just went there to get some out if we wanted to spend anything, I can see a reason for banks to freeze a customers account to get back monies owed. But in this day when the bank is the financial hub of my world, it is quite inappropriate that they should be allowed to deny a person access to his account causing him to incur credit damage from companies that he has had long standing relationships with. They didn’t just freeze the account, they cancelled the direct debits, took my card at the ATM caused me to fall behind with some payments and incur damage for months after. We left them at that point and went to Lloyds. They gave my wife an extremely limited account and would not put me on at all.

Thats about the full story so far. I am waiting for the courts to accept my amended claim and to consider if it should be in the High Court. in case you are wondering what the BBA's article was about, it said -

an enhanced promise by banks and building societies to treat customers fairly and reasonably -

So as i said earlier, my hope is that the CAG may give us some support seeing as though this bank has destroyed our capacity to have legal representation and its just my wife and me against the bug guys. I would like to be able to give the CAG more details of my actual calim and details of the conflict between bank rules and Data Protection laws, which i have of course, informed the courts about.

Hope nobody gets bored reading this and can make it to the end.

My one question i need an answer to is :_

When can a bank freeze a persons account?

I know they can if the suspect crime but thats not the case here, any other circumstances they can do it please.

Thanks very much and keepup the reclaiming too but all reclaimers get looking into Data Protection and your credit reports.

Daz

ps hope the admin dont mind the link, the system just tried stopping it. sry.

Honey, I'm sorry to say this, but if you want anyone to read this in full, you should try hitting the return key a bit more. As it is, I am sure I can't be the only one who just can't face this massive block of writing.

ok cheers. i'll edit. it. Thats half the problem the saga has been going on for ages and it takes half an hour just to write the basic explanation. i will bang some space in ther thoug has you suggest. thx

Hi and a very warm welcome to CAG.

Sadly, your experience is all too common. You will get all the help here, once people read through your post. Don't worry and please be patient.

I have tried to help you by editing the post, not altering the text or what you said- only to break it up into paras to make it easier to read as Booky said. We read an awful lot of posts and it can be difficult at times.

If you feel I have inserted breaks in the wrong place, please hit the edit button and correct them.

I'll catch you later, but remember, you will get feedback, advice and suggestions from some excellent folk on this friendly forum. You are not alone!!

Thx very much Kennythecelt and Bookworm. Would it be possible for you to convert that link to a real link. I know newbs arnet allowed to post links but it points to words from the CAG's founder member Marc Gander.

Cheers

Daz

Here is the text from the page which refers to Marc:

"Banks could face a barrage of angry calls from customers who have seen their credit ratings suffer as a result of bank charges, it has been claimed.

Marc Gander, the founder of the Consumer Action Group (CAG), has pointed out that not only is there the possibility that millions of pounds of bank charges were unfair, but that it may have damaged customers' credit ratings.

This means that these people may have had to pay more for loans and could have been refused credit from other outlets, even though they would otherwise have been entitled to it.

According to the BBC, the Office of Fair Trading has won the right to investigate whether or not bank charges are excessive. The banks have until May 22nd to appeal.

Mr Gander said that the banks should fix the damage if this is found to be the case, but that it could be "super expensive".

"Anybody who has had a bank charge has this black mark put on their credit record. If all of these charges should never have been levied, what are the banks going to do about repairing all these broken lives and broken reputations?" he asked.

He added that the CAG is currently working on a set of claim templates for people to make complaints to their banks about the damage to their credit reputations."

Hi

Nobody seems to know anything about my problem. i only contacted the CAG as it was their founder Marc Gander who was talking about being damaged in the exact same way as i have been and that it is directly related to receiving bank charges.

Can anyone please answer this one question.

When is a bank allowed to freeze a persons account??

There are a few different circumstances where they do it but i don't know all the circumstances.

~Cheers~

1)Court Judgement-Court asks that account be frozen

2) Marital Dispute

3) Government sanctions--terrorist links, etc, etc,

4) Death of account holder(only if it is one name and not joint account).

5) Bankruptcy, I believe, but that may tie in with 1 at certain points and not at other points.

6) The bank deciding for "commercial reasons" to close the account but they may have to note that down on the account.

Not sure of any other reasons off the top of my head.

A card can be temporarily stopped if there are Loan Arrears, potential fraud transaction(overseas maybe), though not the account.

Nice one friend. Thanks.

Non of those reasons apply in my situation and i am now 99.9% certain that this bank froze my account purely to cause us disruption, because i had made an official complaint to them.

They had already damaged me at this point by applying over a grands worth of charges to our account and reporting on my credit file that i did not pay them (or my wife). I complained about that and they respond by freezing the account which caused us to miss more bills and get more damage that way. What a load of A holes they are.

Then they admit the charges were applied in error and the ombudsman tells them to remove this damage. They assured us it had been removed but 6 months later, i discover it hadn't. We had been refused loans left right and centre so we remortgaged as a loast resort. The remortgaging took about 3 months to sort out through the broker and we found the RBS damage still on file a few days before the remortgage completion.

Anyway, thanks for the response. it's very helpful.

I googled your name "yourbank" but didnt see what your signature was implying. What site am i looking for?

Cheers mate.

Still racking my brains still, so there may be other circumstances. Actually, I may have worked it out(probably not if the FOS/Information Commissioners Office have given a ruling but will give it a go).

Were they bouncing Direct Debits/Standing Orders/Cheques?

Were you within any overdraft facility on the account?

Yes the account was over the overdraft amount. It started like this.

They phoned my wife one day and said we have been looking at ways we can help our customers. They said that we could be helped by transfering our overdraft ob to an existing loan, thus freeing up the overdraft facility. My wife agreed. If it had been me that answered, she would not have got passed the first sentence.

The paperwork never arrived. It was eventually the fourth set of papers and nearly 4 months before they sorted it. In that time, our account approached the 2000 OD limit, and my statements clearly show me transfering 500 from my other account to bring this one down while they were causing a delay through pure incompetence it turned out.

The only problem i had was when the bank finally sorted it 4 months later, they said, "Oh, by the way, the loan will now be at a higher rate than previously agreed". "Why", I shouted. "it must have been your credit report that affected the rate". "But I have a very good credit rating", I said. "Not now you don't" said RBS.

I complained to the Ombudsman, then they froze my account. Then they said sorry we dont know why it was frozen. They then, after the Ombudsmans intervention, said sorry for causing the whole episode and offered to refund the charges and £250 compensation. But we knew that their freezing had damaged us even more and that it was only for the first part of the complaint that their response was addressing.

The ombudsman said that as they were offering to refund the charges and he had told them to remove the damage, he could do no more as he can not force them to pay us compensation. He did say though that it was a Data Protection issue and to report it to the Information Commissioners Office. it took the ico over one year to investigate as they have big backlog

They damaged us when they erroneously charged us.

They seriously disrupted the plans we had made for the first few years of marriage and our babies lives.

RBS did not remove the damage when the ombudsman told them to.

They damaged us further when they froze our account.

We suffered the effects by not being able to obtain a loan to get us out of the mess their stupid idea had got us into.

We remortgaged and could only obtain a "credit repair mortgage"

They basically caused us to go in to a spiral of decline financially and they took away the means to get out of it.

Then when the ico told them they broke the act the hire 4 solicitors to fight us so my legal costs are 4 fold instantly.

I am left without legal representation.

If this court action i am bringing fails, i will be going to jail for a bit because i will beat the shi%$%$^ out of all the RBS staff in the branch responsible at once, with a big piece of wood.

This phone call that started the ball of imcompetence rolling occured one month after we got married. Our married lives and the first 3 and 2 years of our babies lives have been blighted and depressed by these shi4564 heads.

Sorry, i am getting carried away.

CHeers again for the help mate.

i am also aware that RBS staff and its solicitors will trawl these pages. Hopefully they will see this and realise that they are screwed. They're nothing but a bunch of incompetent bullies who ruin people's lives every single day. But they think that's alright because the vast majority of customers don't officially complain.

Well im gonna expose that myth too. Im finding out how much time and money these idiots waste each year using our legal system to abuse people and cause distress. These banks are responsible for more damage in this world than people realise.

I am RBS Group staff(natwest staff). Am not sure what I can say before someone else points this out.

Name is on forums; Nattie, Natty, NatWestStaffMember and on here yourbank. PLEASE look in the natwest forum before you ask which side of the fence I am on.

I was smiling reading your post because I was about to tell you what I have already posted and thought better of it as it had a potential to become an issue for you. I hope it isn't.

Yeah, well you people are gonna be spending a hell of a lot of money on retraining all your idiots with upto date Data Protection laws, and also on all the new procedures, or rather old procedures, that you will no longer be able to carry out.

Why dont you email a link to this thread to your most senior bosses and see what those idiots think about the surge of claims it will be getting, and i mean bigger than the surge they have had in the lst two years or so. All people who claimed for bank charge refunds will also be complaining of credit damage soon.

But there is no question of guilt here. I assume you have read my main bit about the whole episode and the bit about Marc Gander and what he says about credit damage. Combined with the way RBS have acted since finding out they have broken the law, my case is purely about assessing the amount of damages we will get from them.

Anyway, can you tell me why you are on here? is it to help people?

I feel like i should shout loads of abuse at you but i am refraining, or restraining, my day is coming soon against RBS and they have no chance of getting out of it now. You may know the status of my case, im waiting for the court to tell me whether or not this case gets sorted in the High Court and given all the things RBS have done, which i have fully reported to the courts, i am quietly confident this will be accepted. Then RBS will get some good publicity.

I will post details of what the courts say here as a soon as i find out.

All my requests to the courts are backed up by plenty of Civil Procedure rules too

Can u post a link to this "Natwest" forum pls.

Anyway, can you tell me why you are on here? is it to help people?

Yourbank has been helping a lot of people on this site.

yes Kenny thx. i have just read a few of yourbank's replies to various people.

I read the response to mine where yourbank said "i was smiling to myself when i read your post" and then said they were going to tell me something but decided not to. I thought Yourbank was taking the mickey.

I should have noted the PLEASE in caps. Sorry yourbank, and again cheers for the help as you confirmed stuff for me.

Can i ask you tho Yourbank, assuming everything i have said is true, do you think i have a right to be peeed off?

Cheers

Daz

Daz, I was smiling because as I was about to write, I work for RBS Group you were mentioning RBS employees trawling sites. Sometimes, what I find funny does not maybe come across that well in the written form.

It is a difficult question to answer and is riddled with what has already happened and what would happen today. I think you have the right to be peed off because that is what you feel and the impact it has had on your family. Have you already sent RBS a SAR? That should uncover if it has not already the actual reason for the Freezing of the account.

Hey, thats good mate, i know things don't come across as good in text as in real life better than most. But once i start reading i often forget that.

No, i haven't asked for a S.A.R. but i will now thank you very much for that friend. Not sure exactly if the reason makes much difference as my case is pointing out that freezing must only be done for very, very good reasons and when it is done, a strict procedure must be followed which would include notifying the account holder that the account was frozen, for what reasons, and also to allow them to make arrangement for all their creditors that were being paid through the account. None of this was done.

When we the ATM took my card my wife was phoning the bank for days after. The staff only apologised for the freezing, did not know why it was froze and promised to get it unfrozen, taking over a week.10days.

There is another thing you may be able to help me with. I mentioned this started when they phoned us, basically touting for more business. I think that they would not be ringing up those with bad credit ratings to see if they want to extend their loans/overdrafts etc.

We had a royalties gold account, never had any problems with credit before and i wonder of they would have a record of our status, that the girl who phoned us must have seen before she phoned us, if you get what i mean.

Or would they only have record of our credit status once they received the application form, thus, after they had damaged us with the first barrage.

Maybe there was some kind of telepathy going on when i wrote about bank staff on this site and you were about to write it

Thanks alot

who knows what Karma goes on with CAG.

The other bit that is concerning me and may be something RBS potentially may argue is that the loan issue would not have been an issue if you simply said, thanks but no thanks regardless of the paperwork processed. Direct debits are cancelled if they are returned twice within a 3 month period(which is why I thought I could answer one part of the question until you mentioned RBS which lead us slightly towards a tangent not connected to the thread and away from the issue at hand).

Not sure I can go into the reason why they phoned because I think the crowd would stone me(see how many people are looking at the thread--for me 7 +2 guests).

The other issue is that bank charges today would not be refunded as we now have the OFT test case and therefore the follow up of the credit record would not have come into the equation.

HOWEVER, the bank DID refund and therefore they failed in their duty to remove the bad credit mark with the CRA's against your wife.

A subject access request should be a complete one though(not this idea of copy statements malarky that some people think is a SAR) and should reveal the reason WHY the account was frozen. From your posts so far, I have absolutely no idea of the reason why.

I am gonna sign off shortly but will catch up with any replies tomorrow if need be and hopefully get to the bottom of why that account was frozen.

Ok thx for that mate.

I'm not sure it matters that much now, and the way i have stated my claim leaves it up to them to prove that they had some kind of ligitimate reason. I have also stated to the courts that even if the reason was legit, it still resulted in me, an innocent party, being further damaged, and the freezing of accounts, in the way RBS froze mine, was definitly not in accordance with the Principles of the DPA. so the courts must really decide if banks should be allowed to do what RBS did to me and if they are, then they need to change the Principles of the DPA. Otherwise it is a never ending merry go round of wasting court time and damaging people. I can't see them changing the Act, i think it will be bank rules and procedures that change.

Unless the courts just allow it all to continue, who knows. Well, we should soon.

Cheers

Hello. Thanks very, very much for all the pm's and messages of encouragement and support. This site has so many fantastic people on.

calming down now.

Here are more words from the creators of this site. They are found on the "About us" tab but i suspect that is an area of the site that a lot of people miss.

The main thing here is that we are not just looking at a bank charge reclaim thing, this is a big data protection issue too. The charges by banks are unlawful crap and they damage people beyond belief when we don't pay them. That is not just.

Here is the CAG message

The Banks' Abuse of the Credit Register

The banks have traded on their reputation for integrity to foist their penalty charges onto an acquiescent public. Most people consider that "Yes, I did overspend, therefore I do deserve this slap on the wrist. I'll try harder not to get it wrong next time."

But the truth is that these penalty charges are unlawful

UK High Street Banks profit out of the ordinary British bank customers sense of decency and moral responsibility. The ordinary British Bank Customer believes that this sense of moral decency is characterised by mutuality.

How wrong we all are.

Retaliatory action by the banks includes peremptory account closure, immediate demand for repayment of overdraft and defaulting the customer on the credit register. This creates a credit 'Hell' for the customer for the next 6 years.

A default on the credit register means that your life becomes extremely difficult for at least 6 years - and yet very often the default is placed on the register precisely because the customer could not pay the banks own unlawful charges!

You might ask yourself if there isn't something fundamentally corrupt when a bank has the right to default a customer FOR ITS OWN PURPOSES without any court action and with no control.

If someone owed you money and didn't pay you, could you go and put a default entry in the credit register? No of course you couldn't. You would need a court judgment to do it.

The banks have a privileged access to the default register which they abuse. There is no scrutiny and there is no control.

When the scandal of the banks' abuse of their dominant and fiduciary position is brought to an end, watch out for the defamation actions - Lots of them.

I urge all people who ever read this to consider a complaint to the information commissioner, if you did not pay the banks illegal charges then you could be damaged, please check your experian files. The damage stays on a heck of a long time. You may also have experienced problems obtaining credit. Though this is more common now we are in a credit crunch, you should easily be able to tell if your credit problems are the result of the current climate or marks of defamation registered on your files by these bullying swines that we know as banks.

feel free to pm me for any advice on data protection (in the context of what has happened to me and my wife).

Bye.

:D:D:D:D:D

I've received your message.

Your explanation of your situation is a little unclear to me. I think that it would be a good idea if you took time to produce a brief and clear chonology.

I also don't understand how much money you are talking about here and also whether or not you are in the middle of a legal action or not.

What I can certainly say is that you must do an SAR to receive all information held about you by the bank. You will not be able to go forward until you have got your evidence sorted out properly so that your story is clear and provable.

Do an SAR straightaway.

Hi there D&M,

I have just been directed to your thread by Paul W. I can assure you you are not alone, my claim against Rbs is VERY similar to yours.My dispute has been going on for over 6 years and my thread is on the RBS forum ....Big Claim against Rbs ....My advice is go and see your MP. I can advise that there are 4 or more MP's mine included getting ready to bring the RBS and their bullying fraudulent activities to the floor of parliament in the very near future.

If you can get your MP involved it would be more joint forces involved.

my thread is some 103 pages long far too much for you to read I think but if you start at page 103 and work backwrds for a time you will see that you are not alone.

Go and see your MPand keep fighting!!!

sparkie

The other point I forgot is the Barristers chambers you were using in Manchester are the Chambers the RBS solicitors Cobbetts LLP use...... they are basically next door to each other......dubious move that one was IMO.

sparkie