After sending the initial letter on 19th September I have received the usual refusal to refund letter from Tommy McLean. Am now sending LBA based on the standard material with this added at the top:

"I write in response to your standard letter refusing my request for a refund of bank charges. Given the serious nature of the matter I had hoped you would be able to address my situation personally, but I understand that currently you must be inundated with claims of a similar nature. Surely then the best policy would be to settle the matter promptly, but if you are not prepared to do this I shall be happy to go through the steps of the ritual dance with you.

Contrary to your assertion, I have every confidence that you will be refunding all the charges I refer to in my previous letter. You may be interested to know that you have become quite a star in the Consumer Action Group forum on the Internet, where it appears that you and your colleagues have repeatedly settled hundreds of claims in full rather than allow them to reach any court where a precedent might be set. If you are so sure of your position then with all the power of your lawyers we could have reasonably expected to see a test case by now, but for some reason this has not happened. Instead you prefer to engage in delaying tactics while refusing to let the matter be settled once and for all. I can only assume that this is because you have as much contempt for the UK courts and the law governing your business as you do for your customers, who you clearly hope will give up before you are forced to repay them the charges illegally deducted from their accounts. I sincerely hope that when a test case does finally get through the court will take your attitude into account in determining how best your customers should be compensated for their losses.

I would like to assure you that I shall not be giving up on my claim against the bank and would be delighted to have the opportunity of facing your lawyers in court, where we would surely have a considerable audience. However, I am duty bound to try and resolve this matter before it reaches court, and I wish to give you every opportunity to do this. To that end I am prepared to give you a further 14 days from the date of this letter to reflect on your position, after which I shall be raising a claim against the bank in my local court."

Let's see what he makes of that.

after speaking to mr mclean on the phone today he is really a nice person and you have to remember that he personally hasnt got your money. dont wish to seem rude but a more forceful aproach may not help your claim with him. after speaking to him today he has thanked me for ringing and assured me that every effort will be made by him to resove my claim by the deadline on friday. watch my thread to see the result.he also told me that they have taken on more recrutes as the demand from people claiming has been too much for them to cope with, but now with the additional staff they are dealing with matters more quickly. but good luck with your claim. and hope i havent spoken out of turn...

Not at all - thanks for the advice. I have no intention of being rude, but I do believe the banks need to get the message that they cannot carry on treating customers the way they have. Their initial approach of trying to fob us off with a standard letter is an insult. I'm sure Mr McLean is only doing his job and probably acting under instructions from above. In that case I hope he will carry back the sentiments behind our letters to those that matter.

I have to say, I do tend to agree with Susanne and it might be wise to make sure when you say 'you' in your letter you maybe say 'RBS Group' or something, so then it won't sound so personal to the Man himself! Don't forget we are sending and replying with standard letters as well as them Its just a shame that the 'ritual dance' is such a long one and RBS are using delaying tactics as much as possible - in the end they're only costing themselves more.

Best of luck with your claim... lets hope they hang up their dancing shoes soon:)

Well, after my LBA things have moved quickly. On 9th October RBoS offered to settle for around 50%, which I promptly rejected, telling them that I would be starting court action today, 18th October. This morning I received a letter from Tommy McLean offering "exceptionally" to settle in full as they prefer to do this directly (i.e keep the matter out of the courts) - I bet they do!

Now I shall send them a carefully worded acceptance letter and concentrate my efforts on Barclaycard and the others.

Congratulations!!! It does seem as though RBS are settling more often at LBA stage now. That has to be a good thing, although I wouldnt mind getting the interest as well;)

Dont spend it all in one bank - sorry - shop!

Thanks - checked account this morning and the money has arrived. Now I'll go after them for the RBoS Mastercard charges. . .