Hi all, would very much appreciate your advice before I go to reclaim my bank charges. I have a normal Royalties account which I agreed to pay a monthly subscription fee of £5.00 and then it went up to £6.00 about a year ago. On my summary statements however, in more months than not it states that I am being charged a "Maintenance Fee" of £34.00 (this is normally where the royalties subscription is shown. Can I reclaim the excess of the money back when reclaiming the unfair charges, as far as I'm concerned these extra charges have not been agreed to by me and seems to appear as mentioned before on most months but not every month.

Please help I'd love to be able to put this on my letter asking for money back but want to be sure first!!

Well, thanks to T4FF, I think I've got this sorted, right now, to do the calculations and send off that Prelim letter!!! Will keep you up to date!!!

Lush

Good luck!

Well that's the initial letter off to the customer relations unit at the Gyle in Edinburgh, lets wait and see what the response is now.......

I received a letter today from guess who??? Yup, Sandi Watts from the Customer Relations Support Unit thanking me for my recent letter regarding charges applied to my account and that RBOS is currently considering my claim and will respond to me asap.

Do I need to wait until the 14th day before sending off the second letter? I believe that's called the LBA?

Lush

I would stick to the timescales that you set out in your prelim letter and send LBA then. I don't know how much your claim is for but if it's over £1500 then the best route in Scotland seems to be going to the FOS (Financial Ombudsman) if RBS don't deal with your complaint to your satisfaction. Taking them to court for more than £1500, in Scotland, seems to be a last resort - we don't have it as easy as our south of the border fellow claimants.

Hi, thanks for that Alpha, my claim is for £1900, yeah, I've been reading about some of the difficulties with the Small Claims courts up here, I'll stick to the timescale from my prelim letter which would be scheduled to be sent tomorrow and see what happens.....here goes nothing eh? You don't ask,you don't get!!!!

Lush

Best of luck, lush, we can but try!! I'm claiming for over 5.5k so keeping everything crossed that they pay out:o :o

Get stuck into 'em Alpha!!! I know I'm routing for you and the rest of us trying to get our fair dues back from the Royal Brutes of Scunner!!!!

Lush

I emailed my LBA to Sandy Watt yesterday as well as informing RBS that I'd be sending it via Royal Mail's Recorded Delivery facility. I received an email within an hour to state that my claim was being looked at and that RBS would be back to within the FSA guidelines.....I presume that this means that the RBS will take up to 8 weeks to respond to my claim??

Should I continue on with my schedule and in 14 days time submit a court action notice?

Please advise

Many thanks

Lush

Hi Lush

After reading various threads, my feelings are using the FOS is really the best and most risk free way for us scots to progress for larger claims. You can contact the FOS before the 8 week period is up but they will not advocate on your behalf until the bank has had the full time to respond or has issued a final letter on your claim. I sent the following letter this week (as my 14days from LBA is up), I actually "borrowed" it from the knowledgable Seahorse and it seems to have worked for him. Feel free to do the same if you wish. Just another thought, again reading through threads RBS seem to settling in the 7th week of claim, therfore avoiding FOS (as RBS get charged £400 if the complaint is upheld, which they all have been so far). So stay positive, we'll get there!!!!

Ms Sandy Watt

Royal Bank Of Scotland

Customer Relations Unit

Retail Support

The Forthstone

56 South Gyle Crescent

Edinburgh

EH12 9LE

Dear Sandy,

A/c no xxxx Sort code xxxxx

Further to my letter dated xxxx, I am disappointed that you have not yet seen fit to respond positively to my request that you refund the charges debited unlawfully from my account.

However, I am prepared to allow the bank a further period by which time I will expect a substantive response to my complaint. You therefore have until (enter 8 weeks from prelim) to either write to show me that your charging regime is lawful or, in the alternative, confirm for me your intention to refund my charges as per the schedule I have previously sent you.

Failure to comply by that date will leave me no alternative but to escalate my complaint without further notice to the Financial Ombudsman. If that course of action should fail to satisfy my complaint, I will as a last resort, seek to take action through the courts, again without further notice.

Yours sincerely

Morning Alpha

Once again, many thanks for coming to my rescue!! I will wait 8 weeks as from Sandy's letter date and see what happens!!

Will keep you posted.....also, let me know how you get on or send me your thread.

Once more many thanks Alpha,you're a star!!

Lush

Ooopss, I obviously haven't had enough caffine this morning, just re-read your message, I will use the letter you kindly forwarded to write to Sandy 8 weeks when my prelim date has expired.

Thanks again Alpha!!! Off to get some much needed coffee!!

Lush

Glad to help, Lush. I'm a bit of a newbie myself and it's great to have the support of the people in this website - it doesn't feel quite so daunting when you know there are other guys in the same boat!. My thread is entitled "Scot needs help" if you want to have a look through. Another thread you might want to look at is by Seahorse, he is a fellow scot and gave a lot of good advise.

Keep us posted on how things are going. I'm away to get ready for a much needed drinking sesion tonight - the stress of it all!!!! (any excuse!)

Go for it, it's thirsty work all of this researching!!!

Might have go for some refreshments late on myself!!!

Lush

I've been reading some other threads.......some people have mentioned about going further than the five years than we Scots can claim......which made me think...(always dangerous, I know!) Would it possible for me to claim for example a historical RBS Credit card an account which is now closed (thankfully)?

Forgive my naivety, I am pretty new at this and still exploring the forums and threads and not quite gettin the jist of what everyone is saying just yet.

Hope to hear from a dove from above or a wise owl!!

Cheers for now

Lush :o

Lush,

just wanted to update you that RBS settled my claim. You're only a couple of weeks behind me in timescale so take heart that you are going to have a positive outcome - hang in there it's worth it.

Well done Alpha, many congrats!! Hope you got the full wack of what you claimed!!! That's really heartening, I still haven't heard anything back from RBS but will keep playing the waiting game just now until it's time, I've timetabled reminders so hopefully I'll manage to get the same result.

Well done and congrats again Alpha

Still no response since the last communication from Sandy Watt. I will wait until next week after the14 days of the LBA are up and write to inform RBS that they have until mid June, (don't have the date to hand) before I contact the FOS. This will be 8 weeks after my prelim letter was sent to them. Hopefully this will perhaps jolt them into a response of some kind.

Also, as in one of my earlier notes, can someone please advise or point me in the right direction with regards to claiming historical charges more than 5 years ago?

Please help

Lush

Well

Still no word from the RBOS, typical......but they're still within their timescale, but unfortunately not mine...I'm getting ready to send that letter regarding the FOS next week as that will have been 8 weeks since my prelim letter...

Am feeling a little bit more confident after finding out that I had managed to negotiate £2k from BT on behalf of my employer (and that only took one year and one month....yes, you read it correctly!) so if they want to play the waiting game I'm more than patient.....what is it they say?? The female of the species and all that LOL....watch this space though!!

Lush

Hi Lush

Sorry to hear you are still waiting. Did you send the letter I quoted on an earlier post? I do have a telephone number which I used from my offer letter. You might want to phone for a progress update and advise that complaint form is going to FOS. Anyway, the number is 0845 3030 442 if you want to use it.

Us females can play the long game - we definetely get there eventually!!!!

I'm due to send it out next week....that will be the 8 weeks since progressing my claim this year, I let it all fall down last year due to circumstances.....but was never forgotten, I'm a patient woman and can wait as long as it takes......LOL What I may do is send the letter abit sooner to try and get a result...what do you think Alpha?

Lush

Lush

If you have given them 8 weeks since your prelim letter then I would progress on to filling out the FOS complaint form (you can download it from their website). I do, however, think it would be worthwhile giving them a phone call as they really don't want you going to FOS as it costs them money. The FOS WILL get your money back but I think they have a backlog and it might take longer. If it was me I would phone them and take it from there. Hope it helps. Keep me posted on how you are doing ;-)

Thanks for that Alpha,

I'll give them a bash by phone tomorrow!! Will keep ya posted!!

Lush

Unfortunately, I forgot I had meetings booked throughout the day today, so instead of calling I thought I'd send an email before nipping out to lunch.

So I sent the following:

Dear Sandy

>

> It is almost seven weeks since I sent you my initial letter to you

> requesting for you to compensate me on the charges the Royal Bank of

> Scotland have taken from my account.

>

> As with the requirements of the FOS, please note that if I have not

> received a satisfactory offer from you I will be complaining to the

FOS on

> 15 June 2007.

>

> I would also appreciate an update on the progress of my claim.

>

> Yours sincerely

To which I received a hasty reply from Sandy saying:

Thank you for your e-mail.

Having checked our database, we received your claim here on 3 May 2007,

with

an acknowledgement letter issued to you, on 7 May.

Against that background, we will issue our response within the 8 week

period

from the date of receipt of your claim.

Regards

Sandy watt

Presumably, this is the bog standard response that they give, but they are now aware that I'm willing to go to the FOS and complain about them, their 8 weeks is up on 15th June and hopefully I'll have a positive response before then.

Has anyone else experienced this? Would love to hear from you if you have and the what happened next stage!

Lush