I wonder if the CRA's have these on their files, banks' credit scoring must be worse than anyone else's! Perhaps we should ask our employers to credit check any organisation before risking putting our money into it..

I can't remember the last time we had a milkman!

Has there ever been an e-petition that has achieved anything?

In sincerely hope not. If any economic factors play a part (which I doubt to be honest), I would hope that with the economy going into slow down & possibly recession, a few £billion put back into circulation might be the better thing to have. Failing that, I would simply hope that the judge gives a ruling based on common sense and what is blindingly obvious.

Sure.. The case has been heard and we're waiting for judgement which is expected around July, after which, the losing side is expected to appeal. What happens after that & how long the whole thing will drag on further is anybody's guess. On a side note, someone today received a letter from the court stating that her claim will remain stayed until the outcome of judgement & subsequent appeals so I guess we can expect cases to be stayed for a long time yet..

LOL. I do have faith in the court system, it served everyone quite well until this test case started. I personally just don't have faith in the OFT. We didn't need them & their test case and the courts could possibly have forced a real test case (or perhaps even a few) by now, which would surely have tested the legalities of the original T&Cs and examined banks' costs, something the OFT failed to do despite claiming that it was these cases that prompted them to act..

Thanks butty. I'm actually talking more along the lines of complaining about the OFT. The FSA, like the FOS, are a waste of letters to be honest. We should also be complaining about them for not enforcing the conditions of the waiver on banks.. So blatantly one-sided! Appreciate you spending the time to help.

Absolutely not. If claims were allowed to continue, someone, perhaps even lots of people could end up opposite a bank in court fighting a case on the "to cover our costs" principle for a claim made before all the T&Cs were fiddled to present charges as fees for a service. It would be quite a straightforward case to fight & as long as the claimant doesn't use Kevin Berwick's POCs it should be a walkover. What would the OFT look like (and the high court for that matter) if ordinary people started trouncing banks in a courtroom over bank charges & getting judgment in their favour using help received from the internet, whilst their all important high court test case drags on & on? You wouldn't be able to see their faces again for the all mountains of egg.. It is in the OFT's best interest that no claimant gets to have their day in court, whether they have any power to say so or not.

Is it just me or does anyone else feel like the OFT have not represented them properly? Who could we complain to about it or at least make them listen to us? Are we really to just sit & wait for a ruling to set something in stone when we haven't even been listened to?

Yeh I would go for the hard copy version & take it to your local court. You will have much more room for a nice detailed POC. http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/courtfinder/forms/n1_0102.pdf

Not sure how far you'd get with that but it is certainly misleading. What should also be looked at as misleading is banks who offer "free banking". Their current arguments in the OFT case in which they say that charges are part of the price of the overall package of services for a current account completely contradict such a statement.. Of course, the "regulators" continue to allow them to have it both ways..

I wouldn't read anything at all into that I'm afraid Michael. That just sounds like the typical "we'll look into" it response you get which means "here's a carrot, now go away". The cracks were there before the case even started. The OFTs actions have been pretty much like this.. Due to the huge avalanche of claims against banks for the return of charges that consumers claim to be penalties, we're going to do a "test case". We won't actually test any of the cases in question, what we'll do is give all the banks a month or so to come up with something creative for their T&Cs and we'll test them on that. If consumers are not happy with that, sod them we're not interested & we won't listen to them. Sounds ridiculous doesn't it? But that is what we have..

I can't see stays being lifted before Judge Smith passes judgment. Could you imagine a few claims being heard in court where the defence was "to cover our costs"? There are plenty of these still in the system and a well prepared claimant would win hands down, the bank would not be able to claim that they are a fee for a service because these "services" did not exist at the time of the claim. How easy & how quick would it be to get a judgment in court, in favour of the claimant for one of these cases? What if lots of these cases were heard & these principles were properly examined? I can't see that being allowed to happen, it would show a bunch of ordinary people making much lighter work, using far stronger arguments than the "best effort" from the OFT..

Agreed entirely Josh. I posted about this also here.. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/oft-test-case-updates/133821-official-voice.html Why did the OFT ignore pleas to get involved 3 years ago? Why have not a single one of the cases and the principles of those cases that supposedly brought about this "test case" been examined? Why are we, the public being shut out of the whole thing? The main focus of the campaign IMO should now be to somehow try to get our voice heard & our questions answered before we have to accept a final judgment on a case that was a complete farce. Just my opinion again, but I for one do not feel that I (being one of those represented by the OFT) have been represented properly, but what can anyone do about it?

We're just waiting for judgment now. Quite a lot of hearings shortly prior to the start of the test case were mass hearings like this. Banks would send their representatives & just pay out when they got there. All banks changed their T&Cs from "charges to cover our costs" to "fees for a service" for the purpose of this test case. It was their only hope of putting up any kind of defence, even if it is laughable a crystal clear attempt to circumnavigate the law (to us anyway). Unfortunately though, as expected, the OFT hasn't even bothered to have them examined & compared with their previous T&Cs let alone investigate how all banks managed to come up with exactly the same structures in such a short space of time. Just my opinion, but the OFT haven't even done half a job with this test case & it looks like we're just sitting here waiting for judgment on a case that was not argued anywhere near strongly enough..

Something that makes their cartel like behavior yet more obvious is, exactly when & how almost every high street bank altered their T&Cs. All of them introducing these new "services" that operate in exactly the same way, at exactly the same time. Either that is a cartel at work or an example of phenomenal freak coincidence.. Yes, of course it is the latter. It is not at all an attempt to get around the law either, the OFT & the courts would see right through that in an instant right? It looks like a dog & it doesn't stop barking like a dog, but who would even question them about it, the OFT? FOS? FSA?

The first line says: Unfortunately, there is another side that needed to be heard, OUR SIDE, but that was not allowed.

We have been that for quite some time now, its only as time passes that we see more & more of our "freedoms" eroded, usually in the name of national security. Wait for those all controlling identity cards..

I doubt I could do much with the protest with my current workload, but I would be happy to install a forum like this if you need help with that.

I posted this somewhere else on another thread but it got a little lost. I wonder, is there any legislation in place that will allow a group of consumers to publicly question regulators or even take them to task? I mean the OFT started this case & are running it how they see fit, which is not necessarily how those who were directly affected see fit. Is there anything that can be done, any consumer law or legislation that can force them to listen to us? or allow consumers or a consumer group to make them answer to us? This might be pie in the sky, but I do believe that collectively, a group of representatives from here & perhaps 1 or 2 other sites would have done a far better & more thorough job than the OFT in this case. Is there nothing that can be done to say hey how are these guys allowed t o represent us when they won't even listen to what we have to say? There are already some discussions on other threads about representatives, but my question is, is there any law/legislation/rights that will allow such a group to actually do something?

LOL ah well get rid of this one then. I just got a bit carried away with joy.

HSBC says UK bank refunds could cost $600 mln more | Reuters This story was run on the USA Reuters site. This is what HSBC expect to pay should they lose the test case. This figure is after the refunds they have already had to pay out. What can we make of this in terms of how much all banks make from charges? I would expect Nat West & Lloyds figures would be even higher.. It is good news to hear that these calculations & some kind of preparations seem to be in motion for this eventuality, although I'll try not to read too much into that because I still have absolutely no faith whatsoever in the OFT & their motives.

IMO, the test case is nothing more than a PR stunt. I don't think that the banks will win, but I doubt they will lose. They weren't even tested on the cases that the OFT say brought the case about!

The thing is, the judge can only make a decision based on the arguments put before him and the OFT really haven't been aggressive enough IMO. They even gave their opposition a head start by allowing them time to come up with an alternative argument before starting the case. The OFT case pretty much has nothing to do with the vast majority of claims made to date, in that the principles in question are not the same. If they really were serious, they could have rigorously compared the two in court. Surely the first thing to have done would be to address the legalities of all the thousands of cases over the last 3-5 years first. After all, it is those cases that supposedly "prompted" this test case. Once that was settled, then get on to the arguments over the new T&Cs and examine how or if the two are any different.. It still baffles me how services that were introduced only weeks ago can be part of the core terms of an account that was opened 10 years ago. I'd love to see how the RBS lawyer would explain how these charges can subsidise free banking for those in credit, when only a couple of months ago the same charges were equal only to their admin costs. It is the failure to address and fully include the original principles and the flat refusal of the OFT to even listen to the concerns of those they are are supposed to be representing that still makes me suspicious of what the actual intention of this case is.

I have always been of the opinion that all overdraft interest should be reclaimable after the very first charge, if it is charges that kept you overdrawn. The reason being that the overdraft wouldn't have been needed & this interest would not have been incurred if the unlawful penalties had not been levied on the account beforehand. All subsequent interest becomes part of the penalty. That's quite reasonable, but then since when did that come into it..