Something tells me that the bank will be settling quickly if the judge wants them to properly argue the charges if you turn up there again.....

My bank used to withdraw money out of my account without consent to pay my credit card also held with them. The card was in dispute because of penalty charges and they would take the minimum payment out of my account. It would show on my account as a cash withdrawal. I kicked off a complaint as there was money leaving my account (showed as cash) but yet I hadnt withdrawn it. They said it must have been me taking it out of the cashpoint, but it clearly wasn't as you can't take £23.58 or whatever in pence out of a ATM. I wrote to them and threatened FOS unless they investigated. They reversed the items and reimbursed me for the withdrawals as they could not prove I had made them (which of course I hadnt). Even though the reimbursed me for the withdrawals without my consent they never deducted the payments back off my credit card. They never realised it was actually their own staff withdrawing the money and paying off the credit card with it. Goes to show how good these banks systems and reconciliation processes are. Their paperwork is not up to scratch and that is why they make these errors. Surprising what you can get away with by challenging them. If the bank reimbursed me twice for bank charges I would sweep it to my savings account to at least earn the interest until they asked for it back

Hi puzz1ed1 Did you say that Abbey filed their defence and applied to go to court in Hull?? That would obviously because they heard of the judge up at Hull CC was threatening to throw all the bank charge cases out. Glad you managed to get it moved. The cheeky b'stards, it never ceases to amaze me how far the banks will go!!

Hi, I work in the finance area at my work and our payroll department has got a habit of messing up peoples wages when they leave the company. At least 3 or 4 employees that have left have been double paid on their last month. We have only managed to get one lot back and that was by asking nicely. Apparently someone receives the money in their bank and spent it in good faith (i.e. didnt actually know that they had overpaid you and spent it without looking or realising) then legally we didn't have a leg to stand on trying to get it back. And were advised that if we took anyone to court to try and recover the money we would almost certainly lose. Dont know what other laws are in place here, but it seems to be quite similar if they put the money in your account. Especially as it usually shows as a cash receipt in your account. You could say that your mate owed you some money and you thought he'd finally paid you back......... Please dont take this as advice in any way, just a comment!

When you replied and accepted their offer, did they send you a form to sign? If so you should check the wording as they usually stipulate that it will be paid into your account or offset against any outstanding balances. Some people have replied to accept on the condition that they receive the cheque. But if you didnt stipulate this and signed their form then I don't think theres a lot you can do. If you havent signed anything you could write and say that you accept this as a part payment and will continue to pursue the rest, or even that you will only accept a cheque.

When was the account closed? They would only send mine for the last 6 years, claiming that 'they legally only have to keep them for 6 years' They claim to destroy them automatically after 6 years.......and they probably do burn they after 6 years and 1 day because of people starting to try and claim beyond 6 years. I think your pretty stuffed unless you already have copies of anything older than that. My account was closed in 2003 so they sent Mar-01 to Jun-03 when the account closed. They are legally obliged to send the last 6 years if you sent them the Subject access request (SAR) and included the £10 fee. Send a photocopy of your drivers licence or something and a list of previous addresses if you have moved in case they cannot locate the account.

I rang the customer relations office at Barclaysham to follow up on why they couldn't locate my account. After a couple of minutes on hold, they found my account and it was still being handled by collections. They said they couldn't find it as it was sold to a debt collector. Now the account was actually sold in error to the debt collector AFTER it was closed and I had paid off the balance. Its a long story..... Anyway barclaycard said that although they can see that they had made an error and had not even thought to check with the collections area for the account, I would still have to send them the SAR request again, because they returned the cheque when they replied last time saying they had no record of an account. Surely the original 40 day timescale is still in operation? Them not finding the account was purely a delaying tactic. They located it no problem when I rang them.

There was no summary of charges but I found a key explaining the different codes they used 174G were admin fees They total £190 odd, so prelim sent and also removal of default which was only for £35!! I even wrote in the letter that I was willing to forget the money as long as they moved all traces of the default from my records. that was the only reason I began the reclaim. I never knew I had a default from them until I read my credit report when I got declined for a loan. Thats worth much more than the £190 in the long run.

Hi, I sent off for my littlewoods statements for 2 accounts around the same time as you. I got a letter back in Mid may saying the same "due to high demand we can get these out in mid-June" I rang and told them to get a grip and reminded them of their legal responsibility to comply with the SAR request within 40 days. I spoke to a nice lady called Pat Nadeen who promised to push things along. The statements arrived about a week later (think it was 28th May). There was no credit agreement though and I specifically asked for that in the letter and on the phone. Still at least there was £180 worth of late payment and bounced cheque charges etc so I sent the prelim off to reclaim them and remove the default. I wouldn't have bothered with Littlewoods but after reviewing my credit report and seeing a default from them for an amount of £35 I sent off this SAR. try giving Pat a call on 0844 8118515 and ask her if she can speed things up.

Over £400 out of the default balance of £507 was made up of penalty charges The balance only went out of control because there was some fraudulent activity on the card which took it overlimit. Even though Cap One eventually reversed the transactions, they didn't reverse the penalties incurred by the account being overlimit. From then on I was incurring £36 a month in charges and could only afford to pay £20 a month towards the balance so it was still increasing and increasing. Do you think they will agree to remove it. I'd even say forget the money and just wipe the slate with the CRA to cut a quick deal. Sorry to hijack the thread Neil101!!

Hi, I added the compounded contractual interest on to my Cap One claim. The charges only came to about £400 but with compounded contractual interest the total was running close to 2 grand. I only used 29.9% as that was the rate when the aco**** was open (The account was closed in 2003 and all the charges were from 2001/2). I know their going to kick off a lot before paying these sorts of claims. The credit limit was only ever £200!! Sent the Prelim off a couple of weeks ago and sent the LBA last Thursday (signed for friday). Still waiting for any response or acknowledgement. I don't even care about the money, I just want them to remove the default so I can clear up my record. Thats worth more money in the long run.

Hi, HSBC came up with this same story when I sent them my SAR and CCA requests. They said they couldn't verify my identity without my signature that they could check against their records. I was very dubious about it because I knew there was no CCA and thought they might try to forge one if they had my signature. Anyway before I had a chance to respond they sent me the statements etc anyway but no credit agreement. Since then they have sent another 2 copies of my statements but still no CCA stuff

I re-read the letter that Barclaycard sent to me and noticed that it actually said that they could not locate my account and because it had been closed since 2003/4 they would no longer keep any details on it! I thought they legally had to keep information for 6 years?

SAR request sent on 11th May to Barclaycard Northampton address. included a photocopy of my drivers licence, plus a full list of all my previous addresses. Unfortunately the account was closed in 2003 and I do not have the card number. Received a letter back yesterday saying they had no record of an account held by me at any of my addresses. Obviously that's rat$hit as I have actually had two cards with them in the past although the first one was closed in about 1999, the second one was closed in 2003. I even had a debt collection company contact me out of the blue about a year ago asking for payment of an outstanding balance of about £800 and place a default on my credit file. After complaining to Barclaycard and the DCA they eventually agreed that there had been an admin problem when I made the final settlement payment, they hadnt closed the account properly and the annual fee or whatever had been charged and had been spiralling for 3 years. They agreed it was a mistake and wiped all the adverse data etc straight away and apologised. So how can they now say that I never had an account with them? muppets!

And today received the THIRD set of statements, this time sent to the correct address and sent via Heatons. Still no sign of a credit agreement or copy of the default notice Interesting how the statements showing the loan balance go right back to 1999 but the statements for the current account only goes back to May 2001 - "Because we only keep statements for 6 years" Obviously all the penalty charges were charged to the current account for both loan charges and account charges.......how convenient

Hi, Got the statements for one littlewoods catalogue at last. Its a load of mumbo jumbo though, all screen prints that don't make a lot of sense. Theres a load of items with description DBR that vary between 5 and 30 each so think they may be the charges? They have been increasing the balance even with the paments that are being made. Ive never bought anything since so it cant be anything else, so can anybody confirm what a DBR is plz?

Been away, so slight delay to sending LBA. No response or acknowledgement/pi$$ off reply from Cap One yet I sent the LBA today so start ticking down the 14 days to MCOL.....

Today I received a second copy of my bank statements from HSBC, again they were sent to the wrong address (my mums) and again they only sent statements and NOT any of the other information I requested specifically in the letter (i.e. copy of CCA, default notice etc and details of the outstanding balance and clarification of who was officially chasing this alleged debt). When I got the first set of statements I sent them the standard prelim letter to request the reclaim of all the charges, and also added a paragraph in bold requesting the missing data. The 14 days is up on the prelim so shall I now send the LBA and include the missing data in my request or shall I handle that side of things seperately and write seperate letters to chase? I have already paid well over the original amount but neither HSBC or Heatons will send me a statement of account or balance to substantiate the amount they claim to be outstanding.

pretty please with cherries on top!

It doesn't make a difference if the account has been closed. You can still claim. The standard 6 year period I believe goes from the date they receive your SAR request at least thats what I've been led to believe from here. A lot of people now are claiming back beyond 6 years (if they have the data) and the argument is that the bank has known that the charges are unfair (i.e. because they havent proved otherwise) for a long time now since before the CAG was formed in early 2006 and so the limitation act should not apply. And it was that act that limits the period to 6 years. Many people have successfully claimed back more than 6 years, but the banks will only send you details for the last 6 years and claim to have destroyed any data older than this. Thats always when you wish you didnt throw away all your old statements!!

Its easy enough for us to say here 'Well if you don't agree with the charges then dont pay them, get another phone' but unfortunately its not as easy as that. I had a contract dispute with Vodafone over a similar issue of a massive reconnection fee which I refudsed to pay. I kept refusing to pay as there were other problems with the contract which are a little too long winded to go into here (check my thread). The result of me using my consumer power to "ignore the charges and get another phone" was that they gave me a default meaning no credit, no mortgage, not even a mobile phone contract for 6 years and still had to pay the money, plus other fees and charges to a debt collection agency threatening court. For all the money its cost me since, the original fee seems completely irrelevant now and I wiash I'd just paid Therefore I would say number 2 was your best approach, pay the charges grudgingly and campaign to get them back. Unfortunately becasue they are not regulated by Consumer credit act or anything like that they can give you a default for next to nothing and you'd probably find it much more difficult to remove. Just my tuppence worth!

Hi, I had a joint account with an ex girlfriend with Halifax. The account was closed when we split up but I still managed to reclaim the charges no problem. All their letters came addressed to both of us but came to me. When they paid out they paid the money into my personal halifax account and didin't mention the other account holder at all. I was worried before that I would have problems as some people seem to have been fobbed off by them asking both people to sign agreements or saying that you could only reclaim half the charges or something stupid like that. Be persistent don't let them get away with any delaying tactics and you should be fine. If it gets to the MCOL stage as most of them do now then you will be the sole claimant so they will have to settle with you.

Anyone??

Hi, Can anybody help with this? I specified in my SAR request to HSBC that I wanted it to include everything, including credit agreement and a statement showing the balance on the account etc. All they have sent is the bank statements? Shoouldnt the Credit agreement etc be included in the SAR ior do I need to send a CCA request as well?

Hi, As Natwest have made a full offer including statutory court interest at 8%, then essentially if you reject their offer, you are going to court purely to argue for contractual interest. If you are going to do that, then you should make sure that you are 100% clear of the legal arguments behind your case and be prepared to argue them. Might be worth running them past the moderators before you go. Previously I have heard of people going to court, then the bank doesn't turn up so the judge awards the claim as per the paper and as long as he can understand your workings. I have also heard of the judge awarding the claim but adjusting the figure to either a lower level or right down to the statutory 8%. After recent events with the judge in the berwick Vs Lloyds case, they have proved to be unpredictable and to have little grip on reality anyway so at the end of the day anything could happen (including them throwing out the case and you losing out on getting anything - even the money the bank already offered will be likely to be withdrawn by them). You can always contact the bank, accept the money as a 'part settlement' and continue if you so wish (don't know if they'll allow this though). Either way you need to decide whether the contractual interest is worth the risk. How much more is the total of your claim including contractual than the amount they have offered?