With regard to accepting £12.00 as a reasonable amount for a financial institution to pay for credit card late payment: Did not the 'Tonight' programme interview an expert witness who estimaated that the banks incurred a generous £4.50 administration charge for credit card late payment notification?

As there are many more people who have seen the ITV programme than who read this Board, would it not be appropriate for the CAG to make a complaint the the Tonight programme and ask them to issue a clarification?

I too was disturbed by what the programme said about the OFT : The OFT is expected to report shortly (March/April ?) and to state that £12 is a fair amount. I was therefore relieved to read Bookworm's post . I would still worry that this "news" would encourage banks to slow down on resettlements, to delay, where they can, till this report is out and then to refuse to refund the £12 charges citing the OFT report.

Thanks for your post happyolddog. While it is not directly concerned with bankcharges, I do object to the practice of banks sending money to cyberspace for three/four days before redirecting it to an account where it should be credited in micro seconds. This practice can cause people to incur charges as happened in my case recently.

Hello fellow posters. Just a few words on why I am here. I am found out about your site from the Motley Fool website, (Best credit cards, cheap mortgages, personal loans, savings accounts, house & car insurance - The Motley Fool UK) who are themselves running a campaign on unfair bank and credit card charges. I logged on to the Motley Fool site after incurring a charge of £12.00 in my February credit card statement from Alliance & Leicester. Time taken on electronic transfer of money: I thought that I had paid off the balance owing on my credit card well before the due-by date in January.(I used internet banking). Checking my statement in both my current account (also Alliance & Leicester) and credit card account statements, I found that, on 26th January, I had made a payment for the total amount due, by internet. The due-by date was 28th January but the payment was not credited until 30th January. Around the same time, I had made internet payments to an IT company which was credited to the company on the same day and to an airline which was credited on the following day. I had, in the past, also encountered this problem when transferring money from a current account to a savings account by monthly standing order. There was a delay of up to five days between the time of withdrawal and the time when the money was credited to the savings account! As the transfer is done electronically surely it only takes microseconds to execute. Is it not reasonable to conclude that there is direct intervention by the banks to slow down this transfer process? As the money does not disappear in cyberspace for days, is it not also reasonable to conclude that the banks are taking advantage of this situation?! Is this legal? Has this topic been discussed previously on the boards? I am now pleasantly surprised to learn that Alliance & Leicester should not have deducted the £12, even if the payment was late. I will, in the coming days, be taking steps to recover this and previous fines of £12, £25 and before that, £20! On the subject of Alliance & Leicester I have two other queries. 1) I read with interest on this site that Alliance and Leicester Bank were fined for retaliatory account closure. Did this judgement prevent them closing down the person's account? Have there been instances since of other people having their accounts closed? 2) As has also been pointed out on this board, MBNA run the credit card scheme for Alliance & Leicester. If one has a grievance about credit card charges then is one's dispute not with MBNA and has Alliance and Leicester not got any business threatening to close down accounts. Sorry for the long Hello !! Beaginis