I've now received my defence from Barclays, could someone have a look through and tell me if i have anything to worry about? 1. It is admitted that the claimant has an account, number xxxxx, sort code xxxxx. To the extent it is alleged that the Claimant incurred bank charges on his account for unauthorised borrowings (whether unpaid fees for retgurned cheques, paid referral fees, or any other such fees), it is admitted that such charges were debited from the Claimants account, however, the defendant puts the claimant to strict proof of each charge and the date thereof. 2. The defendant is entitled to charge the claimant for unauthorised borrowings by reason of its standard terms and conditions. The claimant accepted the same when the account was opened, including (inparticular but without limitation) the following terms and conditions (which are summarised): Wooolwich accounts a. The defendant's right to charge administrative costs if any cheque, standing order or direct debit cannot be paid because of lack of cleared funds in the account - £30 per item (previously £27.50) b. The defendant's right to charge administrative costs if the Defendant was compelled to pay any items which caused the account to be overdrawn - £30 per item (previously £27.50) c. The defendants right to charge unauthorised overdraft fees - £3 per day d. The defendant's entitlement to refuse any debit transaction or debit card transaction where there were insufficient cleared funds in the account and to debit from the claimants account any charges, interest or other money which became payable by the claimant to the defendant in relation to the account. e. The defendants entitlement, if the claimant went overdrawn without an overdraft limit or exceeded his overdraft limit, to charge interest at the unatuthorised borrowing rate on the excess balance. f. The defendants entitlement, if a cheque or other item paid to the account was returned unpaid, to debit the account with the amount of that item together with any interest paid by the defendant on it. 3. The Defendant's standard terms and conditions give the claimant a fair and transparent view of those terms and the charges applicable for unauthorised borrowings (including where the account is overdrawn without an overdraft limit). 4. If and to the extent it is the Claimants case that the failure to make necessary payments and/or failure to arrange an authorised overdraft consitituted a breach of the terms applying to the account and that the contractual entitlement to debit charges from the claimants account consitutes a liquidated damages clause, the same is denied. The charges constitute payments the claimant agreed to make by reason of the terms and conditions of his account and were consideration for the defendant advancing credit to the claimant, which the defnedant was under no obligation to advance. The defendant was entitled to impose such charges and interest when the claimant incurred the overdraft. 5. Accordingly, it is denied that the legal principles relating to liquidated damages clauses and penalty charges are relevant or applicable to the facts set out above. Further or alternatively it is denied that any such charges consitute unlawful penalty charges or are in breach of the Unfair Terms in consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 (particularly but without limitation to, paragragh 1(e) of Schedule 2, or are in breach of s.4 of the Unfair (contracts) terms act 1977, or are unreasonable within the meaning of s.15 of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 (or indeed any other provision). 6. Therefore, it is denied that the charges were unlawfully debited from the account. 7. If and to the extent the claimant incurred charges on his account, this was caused by the claimant have gone into overdraft without having agreed with the defendant an authorised overdraft facility and/or his failure to make payments to bring the balance of the account back into credit. 8. It is averred that the said charges and interest are and remain lawful and enforceable and that the defendant was entitled to debit the same. 9. The defendant denies that it is liable to the cliamant for the sums claimed and interest as pleaded by the claimant or at all. It all looks pretty long winded, but standard to me .... but I might be missing something important. Thanks guys

Hi gerarddobbin It's awful how people are treated by the banks isn't it? Sadly your story is all too familiar. I have some good starting points for you to read up on and point you in the right direction. Please read as much as you can, the Mods/admin on this site say that to everyone for good reason. Knowledge is power! The more you read and understand, the better it is for you. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/faqs-please-read-these/243-step-step-instructions.html - step by step instructions and http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/faqs-please-read-these/1-frequently-asked-questions.html - FAQ's Then go to your bank section eg barclays or Natwest and read some of the threads from people who have already started their claim. Once you have a grasp of the procedure and what to expect, start your own thread in your relevant bank section and post all your questions and actions regarding your claim on there. The library section contains lots of helpful advice and info; http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/libraries-bank-charges-materials/ Hope that helps and good luck! Moonie

Hi danmarton Welcome to the forum, some good starting points are these; http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/faqs-please-read-these/243-step-step-instructions.html - step by step instructions and http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/faqs-please-read-these/1-frequently-asked-questions.html - FAQ's Then go to your bank section eg barclays or Natwest and read some of the threads from people who have already started their claim. Once you have a grasp of the procedure and what to expect, start your own thread in your relevant bank section. The library section can be found here, it's packed with lots of helpful info, plus you will find the templates for the letters you need to send to your bank. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/libraries-bank-charges-materials/ Hope that helps and good luck!

One of the things you tend to learn whilst using this site, is not to panic. Normally someone can give you a bit of advice, as a member has probably already been through the same thing. If you have any doubts though, you can always contact moneyclaim and confirm with them the situation. I believe they have a contact number/email address on their site.

Did you get this reply because the 14 or 28 days were up and you tried to get a judgement by default? It may be that the bank have now filed their defence with the court, if so, you should receive a copy very soon.

Quick update......I wrote to the DCA and informed them again, that this matter was in dispute, I included references to; Code 13 ss 6 of the Banking Code, amounts cannot be claimed whilst in dispute. and Equally, may I refer you to the OFT’s Debt Collection Guidance, Physical/psychological Harassment Section 2.6 - Examples of unfair practices are as follows: Ss h - ignoring and/or disregarding claims that debts have been settled or are disputed and continuing to make unjustified demands for payment. Deceptive or Unfair Methods, Section 2.8 Examples of unfair practices are as follows; Ss i - failing to investigate and/or provide details as appropriate, when debt is queried or disputed, possibly resulting in debtors being wrongly pursued. Ss K - not ceasing collection activity whilst investigating a reasonably queried or disputed debt. In view of the above, and that you have already breached these guidelines please note that any further correspondence regarding this matter, other than confirming you have ceased in pursuing this matter whilst a dispute is in place, will result in a complaint to the appropriate regulating body. Equally, any court action taken regarding this amount, or the filing of a default on my credit rating will be vigorously contested, with evidence to show that this matter is currently in dispute and that this has been communicated to you on 2 separate occasions. Please pass this letter to your solicitor/legal department. IT WORKED ! They wrote back confirming they will holdfire until they have more information. If anyone else is in this same situation, Bookworm is right, push harder and you will get the results.

Oh the swines .... they really push it to the limit don't they. The deadline for mine is next Wednesday and I'm in no doubt they will do the same to me and issue it at the very last moment. I was reading on someone else's thread, that after they received their defence from Mr Jeremiah, they contacted him and he agreed to settle in full, are you going to give it a go and contact him?

Hi Yasmin, any news on your claim? I see that Barclays had until yesterday to file their defence, did they do it?

I predicted after Mike Brophy, you'll get a letter from Laurence White

As someone who's reached the stage of filing action against the Woolwich, i have to say it's been a really hard slog. Every step of the way they have thrown up excuses and employed delaying tactics. First you have to deal with the Woolwich, then they pass you up to Barclays ... they have so many different departments .. it really is a maze and they play on this fact. My advice to anyone dealing with the Woolwich (learnt from experince now) do not get drawn in by their game, DO NOT DEFER from your deadlines .. stick to them and see it through. There are a few of us at the closing stages, so hopefully we will see some big increases in payouts from the Woolwich very soon.

Thanks Bookworm .. ... much appreciated.

ok help/advice needed. The woolwich passed my dept onto a dca and even though I've written to both the Woolwich and the DCA and told them it's in dispute etc, the DCA have now passed this matter onto their solicitor who has written to me threatening to take me to court. My court action against the Woolwich has been filed and they've acknowledged it (Keith Jeremiah defending in full). What should I write back to the solicitor, any ideas anyone?

Hi Yasmin, it looks like we filed our court action at almost the same time. Barclays have acknowledged mine, Keith Jeremiah defending. Let's see how long it takes till we get back our money.

Barclays have acknowledged and Keith Jeremiah intends to defend.

I filed my moneyclaim online today ... it's been a long time coming due to work/home/life/money commitments.

I realise this post was well meaning and informative, but may I add some comments as to how I interpreted this advice. I think we are all aware of how serious litigation is, I doubt any of us would be here trying to reclaim our money if we weren't serious about it. I'm sure that those of us prepared to take our claim to court, are equally prepared to avoid it if at all possible and will exhaust every avenue in doing so, as the courts themselves have recently requested. It appears noone at Barclays has ever heard of any of us until we are passed onto them from another department. He is no exception, just another in a long line of people. After being passed from person to person, department to department he appears to be the only person working for Barclays capable of making any sort of decision. Senior managers seem unable, or do not have the authority to make a decision for a full settlement. Mr Jeremiah has offered full settlelment BEFORE cases have gone to court, therefore it seems highly likely he could 'recommend' settlement to senior managers before litigation takes place. Well that's no surprise, up until now no one from the Barclays has ever given me a direct contact number. If the litigation department suddenly receive requests from people who haven't filed their action yet they may just start to speed up some of the claims. Personally, a & b) I think people should be encouraged to pursue any action which helps a bank focus it's decision to avoid court action and settle disputes before they reach that point c) as we've been told so often on these forums ... going to court doesn't guarantee any success either.

That letter you received from Mike Brophy with the offer of £800, I received word for word the exact same letter from Laurence White - Head of Customer Relations at Barclays. Seems they can't even be bothered to read anyone's letters, they just spin out the same drivel to everyone even at the 'offer' stage. Absolutely disgusting and this is the 'service' they are so proud of telling everyone about. Like you, I've accepted it as an interim payment, quoted the piece about the default notice and given them 7 days to respond.

I've tucked that little piece of info in with all the wealth of information i've gleaned from this site over the past couple of months

Hi and welcome to the Woolwich gang

Received an offer today of about 1/5th of our total claim.

thanks rogerebaker, it looks like my next step is to send another letter to them, and go ahead with the court action.

thanks for the good advice sportbeth, it's much appreciated

The Woolwich notified us a while ago they were terminating the account due to unpaid overdraft (made up entirely of bank charges as per norm) Sent a letter disputing it, asking them to refund all charges going back 6 years etc., also asked them to hold off until this matter is sorted. Well, I've sent all the letters, today is the day for my moneyclaim and apart from standard acknowledgement letters from the woolwich and barclays (who have now taken over) i've now recieved a letter from the woolwich telling me the account has been passed to a debt collection agency and I need to contact them. can they do this when I'm disputing it? Can they do this when the matter is now being dealt with by Barclays? Do I go ahead with my moneyclaim? Has this happened to anyone else? I'm confused and VERY frustrated so any advice would be appreciated.

After writing to the Woolwich and the matter being passed up to Barclays to deal with, the Woolwich have now passed this account onto a debt collection agency. I am totally at a loss. Having contacted the Woolwich Collections Centre and explained (once again) the situation, they advised that this matter should be retrieved from the debt collection agency, but gave no explanation of who or how this should be done. We should be registering our moneyclaim today, but not quite sure how to deal with this. Does it make a difference if the Woolwich have passed the account over to a debt collector? Any suggestions/ advice ??

I've been querying a decision made by my local council regarding benefits and council tax etc. I've recently sent a DPA request to them asking for all information held on my file, plus many other 'bits and pieces'. When I get it I'll post on here.