Hello,

I was looking for some help as I think I may be able to claim back some charges.

I had a storecard with River Island many years ago.

I beleive it was with GE Money and then changed to Santander.

The limit was for £250.

For some reason I was sure that I had paid it off and closed the account many years ago

however around 2012 I received a letter from a DCA requesting payment of around £270.

It seems that I may have wrongly assumed this was PIF and closed which was fine,

however I wanted to query the amount as I thought it was strange

that it was higher than the original but not high enough to have been dormant with interest charges etc for several years.

When I requested a SAR from Santander

(which took a long time and a lot of back and forth between dca and santander)

and received a statement showing payments etc

it seems that almost every month I was charged a late payment fee of £12 the day before I made a payment.

don't remember ever being written to in relation to this however it was several years ago.

Am I still able to claim these charges back and request the account is closed

and settled completely with these,

I dont' really care about getting any money from them

I'd just like not to have to pay all of these charges if possible as the account

would have been paid off several times over already.]

I understand that GE money had put a statement out several years ago

advising they think £12 is a reasonable charge. (I don't)

Also, as an explanation (not an excuse)

I was an naive 18 year old student living in Manchester at the time,

excited about storecard and didn't bother checking statements

which were sent to my mother's home address in Glasgow

which is the reason it has taken so long to realise these charges were on the account.

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks

Hi Springsteen

The OFT set a limit for charges of £12, but they stated that only a court could decide if £12 was fair. It clearly isn't fair for many reasons. Especially as the debt has been built up mainly through penalty charges.

They have a responsibilty to treat you fairly.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/284445/oft842.pdf

how long ago were they

and has this marked your credit file too?

dx

Hello, Yes it has marked my credit file. I believe the charges are between 2004 and 2010, I'll double check when I am home. I had a few credit/storecards around that time and thought I had paid them all off years ago but it seems I've missed off this one. I hadn't heard anything for years until around 2012 when the DCA contacted me about it. Thanks