i am currently preparing a claim against rbs, most of my charges are for unpaid items and referal charge, can these be claimed i am unclear if referal charges come under the unfair penalty charges. As this is a business acc claim on following instructions in your step by step instructions i have used the spreadsheet that says that this will calculate the interest at 8% apr as allowed by s.64 the county courts act ( 1984 ) . as my account goes back to 2000/2001 this adds up to a lot of money, I wanted to know is this to be included in the initial claim letter as advocated in your step by step instructions.

8% is not included in the initial calim. You add that when you get to court.

Don't know what referral charge is. Ask the bank what it refers to. Another name for penalty I expect

its when somethings referred to them to decide wether to pay it or not. I've paid £80 to £100 each time in referal charges!!! They have expensive thought processes!!! So in my first letter I just ask for the total of the charges, without any interest? Thanks.

If the referral has involved some special process such as manual intervention, then it may not be a disproportionate penalty.

Do they charge for an unpaid item plue a referral charge for the same iteM

Do they charge a referral fee for every unpaid item or only for some?

I was told I had a £2000 overdaft facility, but when my business was failing and my accountant had a meeting with the business manager to sort things out he asked why there were so many massive charges on the account which were crippling the business. We were then told that he hadn't actually put an overdraft on the account, just what he explained as an unofficial overdraft, where every transaction was referred to him to authorise and he charged an extra £20 a time for the privelege, as well as the charge for going overdrawn. My accountant did ask him if he could do anything about these charges as it was not our fault he didn't put an official od on the account but he refused and said there was nothing he could do to help us. He did not actually do anything manually, just make a decision yea or nay.

Is your accountant prepared to make a statement and give evidence?

Do the T&Cs refer at all to unofficial overdrafts or any similar facility?

i ended up selling the business over 4 years ago so i have not got a copy of the t+c, i just wandered if anyone on the site has had any experience of referal charges as they are quite common.thank you

Would you like to respond to the questions which I asked you

i do not know as i have not asked him it was a long time ago he may not even remember. i do not know about the t+c as i have not got a copy of them

If the referral has involved some special process such as manual intervention, then it may not be a disproportionate penalty.

 

Do they charge for an unpaid item plue a referral charge for the same iteM

 

Do they charge a referral fee for every unpaid item or only for some?

And these questions?

the referral was just a decission as to pay an item or not

they only charged either an unpaid fee or if it was paid, a referral fee

i think its business equivalent of unautherised overdraft charge, they autherise it then charge you. the alternative is reject it then they charge you?

You really need to understand more about the referral.

I think that you will need to start accumulating information to build a case. It will mean a DPA request, I'm afraid but you will have to modify it to obtain all information relating to the conduct of your account since it stated and in partcular any deatils of any manual intervention which was applied to your accoutn when deciding whether or not to pay a bill.

Also you need to contact the accountant and ask him about the meeting.

He will have charged you for his time so he will have a note of it and may well remember when you talk to him about it.

Also, where is the manager who gave you this unofficial overdraft? Is he still there? you need his name and at some point you may beed to try and interview him - tricky but he would have to be able to explain in court why he was approving all of these payments when you didn't have an overdraft facility.

It would be very interesting to know if at some level bank staff are paid commission on the charges.

If the accountant remembers then you don't need to worry so much about the manager.

rbs have already given me my statements for this account at a cost of 5 pounds, is it worth writing to the bank asking them to clarify excactly what a referral charge is for, what it entails, and how it is implemented.

Yes, why not. They won't give you a reply but at least you are on record as having attempted dialogue with them.

Hello john,

i don't know if this is any help but i've had stacks of referal charges applied to my accounts which are just normal current accounts so these don't seem to be exclusive to business accounts. when i asked what they were for they said it was purely the fact that someone has to make a decision at branch level whether or not to pay it. i assume they would refer to this as manual intervention.

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