I originally posted this in the RBS forum but someone asked me to put it in here to give an idea of what happens in the bank when you ask for charges back - I'd imagine it'll be similar sort of idea for other banks... Enjoy

How charges get refunded for personal (ie no business) RBS customers

In Branches:

Any member of staff can take your complaint / request for charges back (at the counter, by letter or phone)

We are trained to log this an official concern (complaint) on the sytem but be wary not everyone will take the time to do this as its time consuming. The staff member should at the very least refer the matter to the relevant person (branch manager / area manager / customer relations)

Branch managers only have authority to refund up to £50 in each case (i believe its the same limit nationwide) and they actually have a budget set aside for how much their branch can "spend" on personally refunding charges!

Area managers have authority to refund more charges, regional managers higher amounts still; though to be honest if you're wanting more than £50 back you should go direct to customer relations.

Customer Relations: (Freepost PO Box 1727 Edinburgh EH12 9JN / 0800 015 5035 / [email protected])

This is a department of the bank dedicated to sorting out complaints before they are taken further. They have a lot more authority to take action / refund charges than branches and this is probably your best port of call. It's in the banks best interests to settle with you within 8 weeks of making your complaint (has to be logged) otherwise you are free to complain to the Financial Ombudsman and this will cost the bank at least £370 (i read £370 on another part of the forum but we've always been told it's £500?). If the Ombudsman decides you were right the bank has to abide by their decision and do what it says. If they disagree with you and take the banks side the bank is still charged and you pay nothing.

I believe you can also take court action at any time regardless of who is dealing with your complaint.

Internet/Phone Banking:

I am not 100% sure but i believe they either send the home branch a message to investigate or use the same concerns system to log and try to resolve it as branches do.

New department (I don't think customers can contact this dept directly)

There's been a new department set up last few weeks (MCC i think?). Originally we were told it was a help centre to give advice on how best to handle complaints that we are trying to resolve. But now it looks like its part of a bigger plan...

Just a few days ago in our morning staff meeting we were told all about the growing consumer movement that "bank penalty charges are illegal" and the court case v Lloyds, and alsoshown a letter like the ones available on this site. We were advised that if we received a letter like these we were to send them immediately to this new department and that they would handle it from there as we didn't want to "get to the stage that there were baliffs coming into the branch". Interestingly enough my manager who is normally a right jobsworth didn't try to dispute the statement that bank charges are illegal.

I've heard of cases where customers are made to sign a letter saying that they "understand they will be refunded this one last time but they are not to ask for any more charges back and we will not refund anything else unless it is a proven bank error........."

......only for them to be refunded again the very next month!! So generally speaking always accept the charges we offer to refund at the time, but then ask for the rest back as well.

Remember if you want your entire lot of charges back the best chance of success seems to be using the "bank charges are illegal penalties" letter templates on this site. From the look of it they seem to meet with success everytime (as long as you follow through on everything)

And finally remember next time you come into the branch that, believe it or not, the majority of bank staff are on your side. We're just not allowed to tell you that we also think that charges are excessive and unjustified or anything other than the banks policy on charges or refund more than our department is allowed to otherwise we could end up being disciplined or even sacked. Its something we regularly talk about amongst ourselves and i am yet to meet a non-manager who doesn't think the charges are disgusting or obscene. So please be nice to us

I'll try and post something useful in the next few days...

In the meantime I'm off to send a letter to Barclaycard and one for a mate to RBS.

Great - whilst we don't like banks, it is inevitable that they will employ good eggs. Thanks a bunch, this will inspire people to action, and give them the confidence to pursue their claims.

See the steps I took to get my bank charges back.

Spiceskull v HSBC.

Thank you Consumer Action Group.

Read my blog.

Thanks for that, you're a sweetie!

interesting read Thank you!

Banks certainly do employ some good eggs - many moons ago (actually about 28 years!) they employed me! But that was when we REALLY did do manual intervention and you could come in a chat with your bank manager! Stayed with them 5 years, was running a sub-branch by the time I left to work in a typing pool for £40 a WEEK more!!! I think they are still crap payers from what I hear!

Thanks a lot. Call in whenever you feel like it.

get to the stage bailiffs are coming into the branches??? that seems like an admission there isnt a legal foot to stand on and you have a department set up specifically to conduct damage limitation with regards to unlawful contracts.

Banks ask people to sign away their legal right to reclaim charges?? Sounds like an unfair term to me - not to mention as a principal at alw you can not get someone to sign away their rights!

Love to get a judges opinion on such 'agreements'

Wow - were the letters shown to you the very ones in the library?

yeah its unlawful to sign your rights away like that. you cant do so and the bank in trying to get customers to do so is not only breaking the law but misleading its customers further in the process.

Banks ask people to sign away their legal right to reclaim charges?? Sounds like an unfair term to me - not to mention as a principal at alw you can not get someone to sign away their rights!

I'm not sure if this was/is a bankwide policy or if it was just that particular manager who did it.

It seemed reasonable enough to us at the time because they were

-constantly breaching the terms of the account

-hassling us about the associated charges

-promising that "this will be the last time"

-getting the charges back

-racking up yet more charges 2 weeks later

and so the cycle continued ad infinitum...

Now I've opened my eyes i can see things differently!!

Wow - were the letters shown to you the very ones in the library?

yeah think so. just saw them briefly didn't get a chance to read thru wish i had now.

Thanks for taking the time to post this

yeah think so. just saw them briefly didn't get a chance to read thru wish i had now.

Seems like another opportunity for the Mods to stake a copyright claim - if the bank is distributing copyrighted material to staff (to maintain a profit position) that sounds like breach of copyright to me...

Seems like another opportunity for the Mods to stake a copyright claim - if the bank is distributing copyrighted material to staff (to maintain a profit position) that sounds like breach of copyright to me...

Could be one of the letters sent in by a customer rather than one straight from the library. Difficult to prove

Myabe that's why I only got one of my charges refunded instead of the two I asked for: if they can only authorise up to £50 of charges.

Thanks for the info

Thank you for your "inside information", which I have just read.

I have been umming and arhing, as to whether it's worth the aggro to put in a "claim", as we have been charged referal fees, over limit fees, (which the bank quite happily let us run up). etc; for quite a number of years. I have now made the descision to "Go for it". Thank you.

Bon chance.

See the steps I took to get my bank charges back.

Spiceskull v HSBC.

Thank you Consumer Action Group.

Read my blog.

Thank you for your "inside information", which I have just read.

I have been umming and arhing, as to whether it's worth the aggro to put in a "claim", as we have been charged referal fees, over limit fees, (which the bank quite happily let us run up). etc; for quite a number of years. I have now made the descision to "Go for it". Thank you.

Good for you.

Please make sure you start your own thread in the relevant section.

Bon chance.

Bonne chance (chance is feminine, don't you know the song "luck be my lady tonight:D ?)

Ooops...now let me just check which forums/fora Bookworm inhabits...and make sure I have all the relevant thesauri to hand...

See the steps I took to get my bank charges back.

Spiceskull v HSBC.

Thank you Consumer Action Group.

Read my blog.

Ooops...now let me just check which forums/fora Bookworm inhabits...and make sure I have all the relevant thesauri to hand...

In this instance, it would have to be a French dictionary, not a thesaurus.

A bon entendeur, salut.

thanks 4 the info very interesting.

At Capital One-

All DPA request are sent to katherine Blunt in legal department. However, you don't need to send a DPA request to see the last six years of statements. At the moment copy statements are free, we used to charge £10 but the powers that be are currently rethinking that based on how many requests we recieve.

But then you don't even need to do that really because when your letter comes in asking for refunds we have to check all the statements again anyway.

The letters will then be passed to the Executive Office department (manager Robert Udy) who'll reply to you.

We were offering £40 to begin with, then it went to 40% (might explain some of the offers with odd pence added to it)

Now to hopefully stop the other letters coming in, we're reducing the charges you've received in the last six years down to £12. Depending on the amount that then needs to be refunded you may get a settlement form asking you to sign that you agree the refund is in full and final settlement of your complaint.

We've received quite a bit of positive feedback about changing to doing this. A lot of people have accepted reducing previous charges down to £12 based on the fact the OFT said this amount was fair.

Dont get me wrong, I'm sure there'll be people who wont be happy with this. I've not seen any yet, but that doesn't mean I won't. At the moment I think they'll be taking the stance that we've offered to reduce previous charges down to £12 and if you're not happy you need to go FOS, but I'm not 100% as I said I've not seen them.

Going forward Capital One is reducing the charges to £12 but not till August at the earliest.

Hope this helps:)

We've received quite a bit of positive feedback about changing to doing this. A lot of people have accepted reducing previous charges down to £12 based on the fact the OFT said this amount was fair.

Nononono! At no point did the OFT say £12 was fair. What they actually said was that over £12 was unfair, which is not the same thing. What they actually implied was that it would be a good start.

So Capital one have decided to pay the balance on all charges over £12? But how far are they prepared to go when they are challenged for the full amount whistleblowingfairy??

Do they cave in fairly quickly or do they drag everything out to the last minute??