I am planning to claim back my bank charges from Rbos and have my Subject Access Request ready to send in an envelope however...

I have a Graduate Royalties account and have recently been talking to the bank about paying back my student overdraft of £2000. They have offered to switch my overdraft to an interest free flexible loan over two years which I would be quite happy with.

Is it a slap in the face to the bank if they receive my SAR in the middle of sorting out my loan and could it make them likely to withdraw the offer? If so, I am thinking it may be a good idea to get the loan approved and set up before I begin the claim??

I've been reading loads of posts on here and though it doesnt sound like Rbos close peoples accounts after winning back charges, can they withdraw my lending services and terminate my loan?

Any advice would be much appreciated as I am desperate to send my letter and get the ball rolling

Thanks in advance

Kat

How long should it take to sort out the loan? If you're only talking about a few days then you might as well wait.

Having said that I don't know how 'joined up' the bank's different departments are so there might be no issues at all.

With regard to the loan termination that's a separate contract from your bank account and unless there's something in the small print tying the two together I can't see how one should affect the other.

seems to me that you are in a win win situation, if you take the interest fee loan they may try to withdraw the facility and so what?

If you don't take the loan you will pay interest on it anyway.

seems to me a no brainer take the interest free loan and then reclaim your charges.

FWIW i haven't heard of bank calling in loans other than OD.

JMHO

Glenn

Thanks for your advice guys. I've been to the bank and will be sorting the loan on Monday.

Sorry there is no such thing as a free lunch ...get the forms take them away and have a read at them . or post the details here .....sorry to be Mr.Negative But they do nothing for free

From memory, I believe the bank do offer an interest free loan. This is only for student or graduate overdrafts. I would take this as it won't take long to sort out and if you get enough in charges back to repay it, you probably won't have any early redemption charges as they will want this paid off asap.

From experience, branch level and head office communicatin isn't great so you should be ok.

John

I will stick by my posting .........Don't even consider it

i tend to agree with stivis, there is interest free overdraft and there is loan to cover the overdraft, would be nice to know more from kittykat

I used to work for RBS and therefore know that this was a service we offered. I don't know if anything has changed since then. Anyone, I hope you get what you want from them!

Despite being an employee, the took £3k off me in charges and I couldn't query them because if my account wasn't maintained properly, I could have got fired so I didn't even want my boss to know. The fact that he didn't shows the level of manual intervention - Almost NIL) Certainly not £35 per item. That was a bout 5 hours wages for a branch worker.

Anyway, I'm not with them anymore so there going to get it from me, £7k including interest at contractual rate)

Good luck

Johnny

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all your posts, sorry for the delay in replying I've been away on holiday.

I have been back to the bank and it is an interest free loan and I'm able to get this as it is part of my package as a Graduate.

As you advise, johnny4, I'm thinking that I may use what I get back in charges to pay off the loan anyway.

Stivis, why is it that you think I should stay clear of this?

Many thanks

Kat

Kittycat - I am more or less in the same position as yourself....... I have an overdraft and I have a really nasty feeling that if I claim they will start applying pressure to the account and an obvious way (as in only way) I am vulnerable to their pressure is if they were to order me to repay the overdraft on demand (or within 30 days)......

Has the interest free laon worked for you? All I'm really interested in is whether you managed to "get away" with going at them with them not being able to do anything to your loan... as opposed to it being an overdraft attached to one of the accounts your claiminig against....?

Hi Atlantic,

I'm a bit confused as to what you're asking me sorry! Are you asking whether its more secure to have a loan rather than an overdraft? If that's it, to be honest I haven't got far enough to answer your question!

I did have the same concerns as you, my charges will be over £1000 and I was worried that they could call in my loan and force me to pay it off with the amount I get back in charges which wouldnt be enough.

I have just sent off my SAR to Head Office today, and am maybe taking a chance that they'll see that I'm taking up a loan whilst simultaneously claiming my charges back and then use it as leverage to stop me claiming. However it's my branch that make the decision on the loan and they've been really helpful, even advising me to make a claim! So I'm hoping it wont be a problem. (I have a separate thread for my claim - Kat v RBOS )

A few people on here have said that they dont generally call in loans, but I dont know about overdrafts. I read somewhere on here that one of the major banks got in trouble for closing people's accounts and surely it's unfair practice to call in loans etc? I'm quite new to this so I'm only speculating, sorry I cant be of more help.

Maybe someone who knows more could shed more light on this please?

Hi Kitycat....

Yes - I'm doing some last minute research on this now (I'd rather be safe than sorry) before submitting a pretty huge claim.....

My claim is a lot bigger than yours and I know both 1. they are very likely to "fight" mine as it is big and 2. I have been hearing some nasty stories about banks closing accounts and recalling overdrafts in attempts to put pressure on people claiming back charges......

I guess my anxiety is over trying to cover every weakness before my claim will be under their scrutiny where there's real potential for them to exploit any vulnerability of it means saving themselves a few more thousand.....

I'm really interested to follow your claim though (because of what you did with the loan). I know of two other very similar threads on moneysavingexpert website (BoS and HSBC if I remember right) which are similar to yours.......

Take a look at this regards actions they can and can't take;

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/faqs-please-read-these/24031-frequently-asked-questions.html?garpg=5

You'll also find this very useful generally;

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/site-questions-suggestions/53182-cant-find-what-youre.html

Some nice easy to use spreadsheets;

http://www.zen122856.zen.co.uk/CompoundSheet_v1.9.xls

Dealing with loans taken out to repay borrowing ....that was partly due to charges anyway !!

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/general/49648-loans-pay-off-overdrafts.html

Good luck all !!

PS: It's not all serious here, have a look at this too:

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bear-garden/6340-adult-material-jokes-funny.html