Can someone please post a link that works to Australian Default charges report, Nicole Rich .. the link from the Statement of Evidence page seems to point to a domain registration site and I cannot find it through Google.

Hi,

I am unsure of the australian document but i googled it using this Nicole Rich, “Unfair fees: a report into penalty fees charged by Australian Banks”). There was quite a bit that came up.

Hope it helps

claire

try this one

http://www.consumeraction.org.au/downloads/DL56.pdf

Thanks Claire... it is a mighty bundle - 90 pages!! Oh well it is noted as needed for the statement of evidence.

What relevance does this report have on the performance of British Banks? Surely there is no connection? Can anyone tell me? I'm filing against RBOS on Wednesday, and if this is likely to be important perhaps I should be reading/including it.....really would like some input....Ta

Like you I didn't feel this was particularly relevant and went with the Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre thing plus BBC News Report on Yorkshire Bank employee and Andrew George's statement plus BBC Documentary "The Money Programme and 2004 interview with Lloyds TSB former head of personal banking Peter McNamara in which he states the charges are used to fund free banking for all personal customers as a whole. Hope this helps

My understanding is that Australian law is very similar to UK law, so a UK court might be persuaded to follow it.

Which Statement of Evidence are you using? The ones listed here all include this as part of the pack. To my mind it does no harm, except it is large. We submit our claim tomorrow so have a little time to review the situation.

I did list my full pack plus the statement of evidence that I used ...it is under "Last Question"...

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/royal-bank-scotland/93417-last-question.html

OK, let's go back a bit. I reviewed the alternative statements of evidence and chose the Peter Rabbit version as most fitting RBoS. This one has the statement...

- In a recent study undertaken in Australia, (Nicole Rich, “Unfair fees: a report into penalty fees charged by Australian Banks”) it was estimated that the cost to an Australian Bank of a customers direct debit refusal was estimated to be in the region of 54 cents. By reviewing the banks’ charges against the above figure, the study estimated that banks could be charging between 64 to 92 times what it costs them to process a direct debit refusal. The study’s key findings stated that in its opinion the Australian Bank’s cheque and direct debit return charges were likely to be penalties at law.

I didn't want to include this statement without backing it up.

Scentinel, I saw somewhere that you were using the online calculator. Have you checked out the spreadsheet at the following address??? It allows you to change the date to calculate the interest to... saved me a lot of effort!!

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bank-templates-library/182-6-interest-calculation-spreadsheets.html

I've just seen the Australian Banking report on charges - this *is* brilliant - especially for when it comes round to bundle preparation.

I know from the transcript of the now famous Berwick case (who lost to Lloyds recently) that Judge Cook in handing down his conclusion said that Mr Berwick's evidence for bank charges being much more than they actually cost the bank was based on speculative and media reports - with no "hard factual reports".

needmorehelp is right - Australian, US and Canadian law is almost identical to English (and Welsh) common law. We all share the same common law underlying legal system - and because this report is an "industry/ regulator" report I'm going to use it in my bundle - as there's nothing like this report that has been produced here in UK.

Atlantic,

My question is which source are people using for their statement of evidence??? I asked the question on another thread but got no reply.

I used Peter Rabbit. It seems to be the best one where RBoS defence is whooly and relies on T&Cs. But if you use it it needs the Australian info....

This is recopied from my "Last Question"...hope it helps someone a bit...

The Court Bundle goes out on Tuesday, but I want to finish it tonight!! Can someone advise which Statement of Evidence they used for RBoS???

I have used Gary H's one as supplied for Re: Peter Rabbit V Barclays...

http://www.consumeractiongroup.c o.uk/forum/

barclays-bcard-woolwich-successes/36692-peter-rabbit-

barclays-success-2.html#post492578

Is this what everyone else is using? I ask as it is one heck of a size after you include the 90 odd pages for the Australian Default Charges Report (Nicole Rich).

Should have added these are the attachments (excluding statements, letters etc)

RBoS Charge Tariffs – March 1993 to January 2007

Student Royalties Terms & Conditions

Miscellaneous Letters from RBoS

Balance of Accounts

Overdraft Limit (includes Terms & Conditions)

Example Referral Charge Letter

Example Referral Charge Letter

Examples of Claims Settled by RBoS

Relevant Case Law Summary

Early Day Motion from the Houses of Parliament

Dunlop versus New Garage

UTCCR 1999

UCTA 1977

SOGA 1982

OFT Statement Summary

BBC Commission Conclusion

Transcript of radio interview with Peter McNamara

Australian Default Charges Report (Nicole Rich)

from what I have read on bundle preparation - the size factor is the logic behind the request to get you to have an Index, which "coordinates" the bundle structure (including all the adjacent reports etc), and puts some sort of order to it.......

The trouble is that the industry reports that we rely on for hard "factual" evidence usually are massive. So 80 or 90 odd pages per industry report is probably about right....... which of course is going to make the bundle a bit of a monster size-wise.

I haven't even started seriously thinking about bundle preparation - beyond wanting to buy Patricia Pearls book and the £10.99 bundle CD thats advertised through this site.

I was focussing more on where people have "gone wrong"...... i.e. to figure out all the places where I would likely slip up - and Judge Cook did mention a lot about Mr Berwick replying on speculative and media evidence as regards bank charges being misrepresentative of costs incurred. I have been surfing through google and couldn't find *any* industry nor regulator reports about charges (nor academic journal articles, as all this stuff is ironically in my field of research now!!)......so I was a little anxious until I saw your Australian report. I think it'll depend on how flexible the judge will be to receiving ideas from a parallel legal system...... but as you say the legal system is same as ours, and the banking industry structure is very similar.... so they're virtually identical.

Good luck Atlantic. I'm done now..all copied, indexed and filed ready for delivery. This is the second of 7 claims so I learn by my mistakes!!

I know how you feel - it took me a couple of "takes" to resolve my N1. It has been my first time to have any dealings with the legal system and I think my lacking in confidence had as much to do with my having made "silly", minor mistakes in basic things like calculations or wording....

I think until the OFT has made their final ruling, actually being serious and prepared to go to court is the *only* way to get every penny back....... otherwise you just have to take whatever scraps they give you in terms of "settlement"........

Good luck........

Stick with it Atlantic and good luck.

Went to deliver the first bundle today - Mag. Court closed - Queen's b'day!! Doh!

Will deliver it tomorrow. Also filed the next lot of MCOL claims - that's another 3 claims on their merry way! Trouble with having too many kids!

Noticed a couple of questions re the calaculator. Here's a set of spreadsheets on this site that may help.

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bank-templates-library/182-6-interest-calculation-spreadsheets.html

thanks a lot needmorehelp..... these could well prove useful...so will wade through at later stage.

I was doing a bit of delving around on internet, mostly through just googling... and have posted a few industry reports in the last entries of my thread (Atlantic vs. RBoS) which is fast becoming a blogspot as am gathering information while sharing it with everyone at same time...

I am thinking along the lines of demonstrating banks "market power" of monopoly position with customers....... and then build my story outwards from there (as in they have economies of scale due to increased technology which have lowered costs internally to the extent that the charges (which happen to have increased anyway over the last couple of years or so) really represent "excess profits". I agree with you - the standard defense of RBS and most of banks being their Terms and Conditions is "wooley". My thinking is once you've proved they've got market power over the consumer, *and* the charges represent excess profit way in excess of costs - then it's fairly simple to slide into the argument a couple of legal cases (I'm not absolutely sure, but something like the Dunlop vs Pneumatic Tyes case) which says a charge must not be a penalty.

I picked up a whole bunch of leaflets from the central london county court - and in there it said something about the differences between Civil Courts (i.e. for all the corporate litigation stuff like we are doing) and Criminal Courts rests with the Criminal Courts relying heavily on ideal of "...proof beyond reasonable doubt" (which means convincing judge over say a decision threshold of say 70%) and the concept of "..sufficient proof" in the Civil Courts (which means *we* just have to "convince" him/her over 50%) in order for the case to be won. I'm thinking along lines of if it is "easier" to convince in the Civil Courts than in the Criminal Courts then if we all start using trade reports and industry/ regulator reports or academic journals in our bundles it should make it easier to clinch a victory, where the only defense the bank has is to fall back on it's Terms and Conditions........ I'm also weary of using media reports - purely because Judge Cook mentioned them a few times in the Berwick transcripts....

I guess the queen should be back at "work" tommorow...... so with their "boss" back in action the courts'll be open again....!!

Don't know about "proof beyond a reasonable doubt". My daughter is a criminal defence solicitor - some of her stories make you wonder.

One interesting issue is where this all started. Does anyone have any idea which bank started this, when it was introduced and what was stated at time to justify the charges?

I still have a lot of reading to do.........

but that said I have a feeling it might have been a law student in Plymouth in his final year having two £30 charges coming off his account with Abbey. If I read it right he got one back and when they refused the other he threatened court action, took them to small claims court and won over £800 back (6 years limitation act). He went on to become a lawyer and set up his own website, on similar theme to CAG. I read about it on BBC news, business section. I think he only started his legal action as recently as 2005, and then things snowballed from then....

a daughter working in legal profession could be really useful for you, if for nothing other than a massive confidence boost and invaluable advice.

Sorry Atlantic. I was not clear (a fairly frequent accusation from her indoors). What I meant was - which bank started the charges system? I worked for a large systems integrator and ran into an ex colleague a few months ago. He said that the charges were started by one bank and adopted by the others soon after. He gave me the banks name - but I wont post it until I have checked that I have the right bank. If true, it would be interesting to research that bank and what they stated publicly when they first introduced the charges system.

I see your point ..... and what your getting at. It might be a tricky search though - as when I was just doing a simple google search I came accross a 1968 article detailing bank charges in Scotland.

By complete coincidence all this stuff falls within the broad theoretical area I am researching at the moment (i'm a phd researcher now) and I have a really really good article, if a little long winded, from the world bank. I think I may have pinned down both the immediate theoretical background used in writing the civil law that is used and got a fairly waterproof argument in terms of voiding the banks stadard fallback position on their Terms and Conditions. It is very heavy duty reading and theory orientated but would be happy to pm it to you.

Hi Atlantic. Sent you a private mail re World Bank info. Delivered court bundle today. Felt good! I will co-ordinate the "argument" for court over the next week and will post it here when ready. There's quite a lot of advice on the web now - particularly how to frame your claim to the Judge.

I sent the paper through to you, as well as a link to an internet source of plenty more academic and world bank type papers, so you can browse for yourself, for free....

Now we're all in the legal system together (dozens of threads) and given my relevant area of research anyway - I'm going to keep my eyes peeled for anything else of immediate relevance, and post it up or offer to send it out.

Thanks Atlantic. Beginning to feel a bit more in control now.

I've just been going through the online JSTOR catalogue (all major law schools like mine (I'm not doing law though!!) have acess to this) ...and already have a few more decent quality US law journal articles specifically looking at Bank Charges. I emptied my email account - so please do pm me again if you want these. Apparantly the US state of California had our problem back in the eighties....... so there's some good quality stuff with interesting conclusions and from law journals too.....