Thanks Tilly - i'm soooo pleased!!!

Hi, BOS have agreed to pay me just over £10,000 in total. They wrote offering this on the last day of their 28 days before filing a defence to my MCOL claim. They credited my account yesterday. I would be grateful if someone could change my thread title to Helpme43 vs Bank of Scotland - WON!!! This payout includes just over £1,600 of interest both at the 8% contractual rate and also interest they charged me on my overdraft. thank you, thank you, thank you CAG - the Martin Lewis site also helped. I have three other BOS accounts to go, but, in total I have now had over £13,000 back!

Hi Colin, my understanding of the tactics is that they reject you at 8 weeks and if you ring them, number on your rejection letter, they then put you into a pile for 'manager review' - the 8 week rejection is just cos they can't reply within the 8 weeks allotted, given the volume of claims they are getting. And, of course, a lot of people give up on the rejection, so it works in their favour. I would ring them and follow it up with a letter, saying you do not accept this as a final outcome and that way it keeps going. However, if you've patiently waited the 8 weeks, have you considered the next step - that is either court or the FOS? hope this helps good luck

Hi Lorraine, I filed at MCOL on 18/5 - deemed served 23/5. Acknowledged 31/5. They paid me half my claim as a pay out after manager review of my claim, not realising i had gone to court and would not take it back! I wrote and told them I would only accept as partial payment and would continue with my cliam. Have not heard anything more!! Hope I get a leter soon too! Good Luck

Hi, do you mind if I ask?: 1. how much was your claim for? 2. Did you claim the 8% interest and any contractual interest? I'm at the sameish stage as you and I would be interested to know! many thanks

Hi, the charges amount to just over £7,200. 8% interest calculated from the date the charge was made to the date MCOL was issued amounts to just over £1,420 (bear in mind that I have hardly been charged for the past three years and most of these charges are from 03/04). Then taking the monthly interest charged by the bank itself - and working out what I have been charged if I was overdrawn when the charges were made, in respect of these charges - amounts to interest of just over £970. 8% interest on this interest is then another £164. Add in the £250 court fee and voila £10,016. The interest they charged me on my charges was worked out using the complex interest spreadheet on this site - and only calculates interest if I was overdrawn when the charges were levied - this was again, only the case for part of the time. Does this make sense?

On my second, larger, claim with BOS I finally issued my court claim on 18/5/07. Today (25/5/07) I finally received a written offer from BOS - given I originally wrote on 2/3/07 this has taken some time! They have offered just over £4,100 against my claim for £7,100 of charges (which rises to £10,016 with both overdraft interest on the charges (as per the spreadshet from CAG - i.e. where you input the interest charges for a month and the amount of o/d you had that month, if any) and the 8% court interest). I have been given a number to ring re my claim, however, as I have now issued Court action I am not sure this will help me, as I now require interest and court fees as well as the basic charges to settle the claim. I will ring on Tuesday (when they are back at work) to reject the offer - by the way they have said it will go into my account within 14 days if I say nothing. And, if, as I suspect, all they are prepared to offer will be £7,100 of the charges +the £250 court fee, I fully intend to hang fire and wait to see how this takes it course. After the phone call on Tuesday I will then put the outcome of that call in writing to them, so ther is no doubt - addressing it both to customer relations and their legal department. Is that reasonable? Does anyone have any advice for this next stage? many thanks as always for all your help

OOPS! But I am feeling mighty pleased - six court battles won and one to go..... All down to help from here and also MSE. I am so pleased as my financial situation now looks a whole lot rosier!

Hi, I'd be very grateful if a moderator could move my thread and rename it as helpme43 v GE Capital - Won!!! Received payment in full for my claim - no offers before I went to MCOL - in fact no reply at all - but now offered full amount of claim, +8% interst and court fee - totalling over £300 many many thanks to everyone for all thieir help and inspiration. This money will be sued to pay bills and I am very grateful.

Hi, I'd be grateful if a moderator could move my thread as this is now helpme43 v MBNA - WON!! Received a cheque today, out of the blue, for over £400 - only fly in the ointment is that they claim to have already sent me a cheque for the rest of my claim, which I've never received. Have phoned them and they are to cancel that cheque and send me the rest this week. I won't end the court action till the cheque is received and cashed. They originally offered me just over £300 and, after filing MCOL in early May, I will now be paid in full, including 8% interest and court fee - over £745. This is a closed account with a zero balance, so this will be very welcome - I am going to use the money to pay bills. Thank you so much everyone!

Hi, could someone change the name of my thread to Helpme43 v Capital One - WON!!! Received letter today informing me that although they did not accept any liability blah, blah, blah.... but they had credited my account with the full amount of my claim, including court costs of £1,030. I have checked online, and it is there. Despite the fact that I could have asked for a cheque, as I want my debts to be reduced, I don't mind as this wipes off half my Capital One balance and it makes the removal of the rest of the balance a reality! They had until 28/5/07 to defend and I notice that they had filed a defence at MCOL today. For anyone dealing with Capital One, please note they had offerd me £312 three times before this - and had told me they would not increase their offer on each occasion. thank you to everyone for your help and support

Received letter offering full amount +court costs and 8% interest. Will post more later when have time...

When I logged on to MCOL this evening they have filed a defence and therefore the case is being transferred to my local court - As they have not written to me AT ALL - since this all started, how worried should I be? I have never had any acknowledgement of my prelim or LBA letters and no letters have been sent to me since I filed at court.

Hi Monty - re First Direct - they offered me £75 short of my full claim on my first letter - I wrote back and said no, I wanted it all and when I rang them two weeks later they paid up in full, straight away - I ahd the cheque by the end of the following week. They seem pretty easy to deal with, so, it depends on how keen you are to get your hands on the dosh - but if you want to wait just a litle bit longer you could get the whole lot back

thanks hagenuk!! This is the claim I tried to claim remission on, but the court knocked me back - have applied for remission on my big BOS cliam instead now - but been waiting over a week and still not heard from the court!!

Good news - won re my smaller claim with BOS re my preference account: Bank: Bank of Scotland Amount claimed: £375 + 8% interest of £31.86 +court fee of £50 Amount paid: £375 + court fee of £50 Story - prelim letter 17/3/07 LBA - 5/4/07 Filed MCOL 4/5/07 - not yet acknowledged Received 2 letters: 26/5/07 - holding letter - will reply by 10/5 Today letter dated 10/5 offering £345 as a good will gesture - this was the amount of my original claim - but I have incurred another charge of £30 in the meantime and so I added this on to the figure claimed at court. They offered the £375 + refund of the court fee - I did not stick out for the interest, as, on this one it is so small (£31.86) adn I was happy with what I had been offered. Amount will be credited to my account - but I could have had a cheque if I had wanted. I am happy to credit this to the account as this has an overdrawn balance on it, which I am gradually clearing and this amount will help me with that. Will keep court claim going till the money credited - £50 to be credited today and the other £375 on receipt of my acceptance form. They also allowed me to amend the acceptance form, as it said I accepted the payment for all my HBOS accounts - and I pointed out that I had another claim ongoing for another account. £820 refunded on 3 claims now - another 5 at court and 1 about to go there and SARs out on other accounts...... Thanks you to everyone on this site and also to the Money saving expert site too. Still have the boig BOS claim ongoing though

Hi Andy, good luck with your claim. I am sorry for hijacking - but I was really upset with some of the things said on your thread today. I think I should point out that the argument about free banking is rather circular - the argument seems to be, that if 'delinquent customers' are not charged, then everyone will have to pay for their bank accounts'. Put another way, that means, that 'delinquent customers' are paying for everyone else's free banking. Now, if you remove the word 'delinquent' and substitute it with the phrase 'customers who have hit hard financial circumstances - often through no fault of their own and who have no money' - that means that the single parent on benefits is essentially subsidising the free banking of the millionaire. I also think that this argument about bank charges shows that the banks must be making charges disproportionate to the cost of the contractual breach, as the charges paid by the minority are enough to provide free banking for the in-credit majority. I know that my own charges were caused by my ex husband leaving me, jobless, in the lurch, with two young children and then 5 years of custody hearings over the children - all to be paid for. If anyone had told me what would have happened I would never have believed them. I don't judge - nor should anyone else. BTW I think car parking fees, parking fines etc are all rip-offs of the poor hard bitten consumer too!!! Andy, I'll subscribe to your thread and please ask if you need ANY help - I may not know the answer, but all CAG members are here to help each other

Hi Angela congratulations!!! If you remember we issued MCOL at around the same time - mine was issued on 25/4 - against cap one - i'm only claiming charges plus the 8% int - what a wimp I am!? I'm hoping I will hear from them soon - all I've had so far is another letter offering me the difference between the charges and the OFT's £12!! Well done!!

Hi podgydad - sorry here i go hijacking your thread again!! - i may have got the names mixed up what I meant was: I am claiming the specific overdraft interest caused by my charges back and also claiming the normal 8% interest from the court on the charges and the overdraft interst caused by the charges - as per the complex charges spreadsheet. Does that make sense? Just an update - BOS rang me today to say that becasue I had rung them on receipt of their letter I was now in a pile of cases awaiting manager review and i would be hearing in a matter of days not weeks and they would be making an offer - I'm not sure if this is just tactics to delay my court claim (if so it won't work) but I thought it might be of interest. That is, i'm not sure if HBOS have changed their tactics, or just got so behind that they send out any old letter when the 8 weeks are up - and as result some people difit away, not prepared for a fight... What do you think?

Hi guys, after waiting the eight weeks I got exactly the same letter on Saturday. I also rang and they confirmed today i had been put back nto the pile for another review - absolutely no chance they would tell me how long this would ytake. i am about to file at Court - just msiing the £250 to get going! Have either of you any idea how long the FOS takes to review cases at the mo? As I'm going to go the court route this may be academic, but I'd be interested to know so I can do a reasonable comparison of the timescales.

Hi, I've used both sets of spreadheets - the Martin lewis ones - which, once you've done them, you can't save, so to file on MCOL you have to do them again, to update the interest to the current date. However, to do these requires no knowledge of excel. I prefer the excel spreadhseets in the instructions here on CAG, but I suspect they can be a bit daunting if you have never used excel before. If you hit a specific problem, please post and I'm sure loads of people will help, as everyone is so helpful and kind on this site

hi lolypop, my claim, including interest is for £10,001!! Not successful yet, but, I'm going for it! The actual charges are now £7,201 - the rest is interest! i ahve my own thread - helpme43 v bank of scotland and if you search under that, I'll keep the thread updated with any progress i make.

sorry podgydad, seem to have hijacked your thread! danniabond and mackem67 - good luck to both of you - my claim with BOS is for £7,084 - which with contractual and stat interest rises to over 10k! I really will be issuing N1 today or tomorrow - but its this pesky remission that't the problem - if I pay the £250 when I get paid next week, I'll end up not being able to pay bills, incurring more charges etc, but will the Court Manager listen? It's so difficulat - the other six cliams have had to be paid for by credit card - and it really irks to pay interest on these amounts,as I can't afford to pay them off, unless I get some money back of course......!

Hi, whilst twiddling my thumbs waiting for my other 8 claims to move along (six at court, one settled, one waiting to get to court). I sent a letter to GE Money asking for £30 back on a monsoon account card - hardly anything, I know, but as it was two £15 charges on a purchase of £90 - it made this quite an expensive buy! I wrote on 25/4 and got a letter back today saying they would refund me the full £30, as a goodwill gesture - two weeks, one letter and £30 back! What I can't understand is why GE Capital - for my Laura Ashley account, never responded to my prelim or LBA letters at all and I have now had to issue at MCOL against them? I hope this is of help to someone in their fight for charges to be refunded.

Hi, I think that's fine,- good luck with the court case - hope they don't defend!! Wish I was already on the Court track with you on this one - on my other claims I am at about the same stage - I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!