Hi,

I've just happened upon this website while I've been mulling over what to do next regarding my bank charges claim. I sent off a claim to the Bank of Scotland on the 23rd of September using them template from the Money Saving Expert website claiming for all my bank charges and interest due to being overdrawn (I had all my statements so i didn't need to ask them to send them out);

"Dear Sir/Madam,

I understand that the charges applied to my account in relation to the following table, are unlawful.

 

 

 

When I opened my account I entered into a contract with you, at which time you agreed to act lawfully. The fees you have been applying to my account in relation to the above are unlawful under Common Law, Statute and consumer regulations.

 

 

You have taken £796.00 from me, plus the following in £125.73 overdraft interest and I would like to request repayment of this £921.73 total sum. I also ask you to ensure any default notices entered against my credit record are removed entirely.

 

 

 

Please repay this money in full and remove any default notices within 14 days. If this is not done, I will begin a claim against you for the full amount, plus interest and my costs.

 

 

Yours sincerely,"

 

 

 

After this I received a letter dated the 2nd October acknowledging my request and advising I will have a response within 4 weeks.

 

 

 

I also put a claim for charges in for a joint account I have with my girlfriend at the same time. I never bothered chasing them up on the deadline I had mentioned on the letter, however about 4 weeks letter i get a phone call advising they will be refunding all the charges on the joint account (all charges, I think were in the last 6 months and the account had only been open less than a year) but still did not hear anything about my other account.

I went to my local branch and they advised the claim was still being processed, so i left it for a few weeks until finally calling last week and being advised there was action to be followed out on the claim on the 21st November.

 

So, I called them back up on the 21st and they advised that the action was just a letter informing me of my rights regarding my rights regarding taking things to the ombudsman as their time to respond to my claim was almost up.

The girl at customer relations said i would definitely get a response before the 24th as then their 40 days would be up, so I call them this morning after still not receiving a response today (apart from the letter they had advised me I would receive when I spoke to them on the 21st)

The customer relations employee advises that they have issued a settlement letter for a figure of £276.00 which is my charges for the last 6 months.

Later, I called them back to advise them I would be taking things further to see if they would offer anything else and they confirmed that this was their final offer and that they would not refund the total amount they had worked out to be £1091. I had initially advised them in the letter of a total claim amount of £921.73 but it looks like I made a mistake in excel when totaling up all my charges and interest. This still doesn't tally with my figures but I've asked for a letter detailing the charges they are willing to refund and those they are not.

 

This is when I hit the web and find this site and after going through and finding out about only able to claim 5 yrs in Scotland instead of the 6 (luckily not may charges in that year) in the rest of the UK, working out statutory interest for each charge, and removing my claim for the interest while overdrawn (which simplifies things a bit and keeps it down to one case with the court) I'm left with a figure of £1039.74 (£879.30 + interest of £160.44).

 

Should i now accept the £276 with the condition I will be now commencing with court proceedings for the rest (I'll round the remainder £763.74 to the £750 I can claim through small claims court, but are the fees for filing with the court supposed to be included with this or are they separate?) and as I advised them that they had 14 days to sort it out in my first letter which was not met by them but I did not chase up (they also did not respond within the 4 weeks they had advised), can I now file with the court without sending some kind of LBA first as they knew I was planning on filing a claim from my initial letter if their response was anything less than what I had asked for?

 

 

Thanks

 

 

 

(sorry about the length was just trying to make sure I gave all the background info)