Hi,

Not posted before but thought i'd let you know.

I had a claim for £850. A&L didnt even offer to settle, dragged me all the way to court. I went in on the morning after the OFT case was announced. I was sure there was gonna be a problem. Barclays had some a solicitor there asking for a stay on all their cases that day. Thankfully noone from A&L.

I went in and the judge said he was ruling in my favour even before i had sat down! Full amount even though I had made some errors in my calculations. Then he said i woul get my £80 court fees too, and even asked if i had any expenses due to the court date, and awarded me £50 for days work, which is the maximum he is allowed.

So £980 all together, I think he is a bit bored of the whole thing!!

A&L have not yet paid up but its only been a week. Maybe thats another battle??

Keep it up guys!!

The Oxford CC have thrown out the A & L defence and awarded me the judgement!! A & L failed to submit their skeleton defence in time.

Wragge & Co have today tried to settle for a lower amount after being given 3 opportunities to do so earlier! Why would I want to settle now when I have won!

I will now resubmit a full claim including all the updated interest charges, court fees etc (£3300) and also try to get some money back for the time I have spent dealing with this. I understand that the judge may award this to me but they don't have to.

Has anyone else managed to get anything back for personal time?

Thanks for all the advice

I finally won after threatening court etc. After July it became nearly impossible, until I sent A&L copies of my debt management plan, income & expenditure, etc and asked them to reconsider my claim on an individual basis. They repaid me immediately - £557!!

thanks for the info banofi, I think I'll try sending something like that before going to court . motley fool website recommended I do this despite current bank charges situation with the oft etc, congratulations anyway on your win!!

£590 received - without signing anything! So my claim is still open.

I take it that's not the total you claimed.

I claimed a and La few months ago under the hardship rules. Initially rejected but I phoned and appealed. Subsequently they repaid all my charges direct to my account. Unfortunately I still managed to accrue more charges. Last week I asked if my account could be transerred to their Choice Account. No problems and on riday I unexecpectedly got all my latest chares repaid into my account. Result!!!!!

HI I won my claim - I was refunded all £522. I attach the letter I sent them below which might be helpful for people in a similar situation. Good luck!

Dear Sir/ Madam

I write in reference to the account above and the unfair charges that have been applied, currently at £422.57 (and due to have another £100 fee applied on 29th April) –

• This account was opened in parallel with a savings account that matured after 12 months
  
• After the savings account matured and closed, the current account remained open.
  
• I have not used this account for a significant amount of time and hence the balance was zero before the charges were applied
  
• Letters informing me of these under funding charges and unauthorized overdraft charges (caused by the under funding charges) were sent to my parent’s address of XXXX where I no longer live and consequently I only received them when I went to visit on the 3rd April. After opening the letters I visited the Alliance and Leicester XXX branch on the same day and spoke to a sales advisor who passed on the complaint to your Complaints Team for further investigation and changed my contact address to the one at the top of this letter.
  
• I have since been refunded £25
  

I am thoroughly unsatisfied with the outcome. I feel that I have been taken advantage of given that it was obvious from the activity on my account that I had not used the account in months and therefore was not aware of the funding requirement.

To settle this, I am willing to pay a fee of £100, which I believe is entirely reasonable.

If my offer is not accepted and I do not hear back from you in writing at the following address (XXX), within 2 weeks, I will be refering the matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service.