Well i got all the paperwork in for the court date done and sent, read through it all a couple of times to be sure that I understood it, and now I am feeling a heck of a lot more confident. Thank you to the poor bugger who put the court pack together, it took me a while to get my head around but having gone through it I know that I can win. Court date is on Monday, I kind of hope that they settle before then as I will be missing a Chemistry Tutorial otherwise. I am going to visit the court friday to get the hang of things. If they don't settle, and that would be a mistake, I am a little excited about having my day in court. I am still prepared to be reasonable if they want to sort this out before then, if they contact me by sat, I will accept £635 fees plus £80 court costs = £715. If they wait for court then hello interest!

I have my court date, and I'm bricking it. Still much as I feel intimidated by the bank, I also feel cross that they would intimidate me in this way and treat me the way that they have so I look forward to seeing them in court.

I just sent in the cheque, and I will try to claim it back, although they could argue back that there was a service involved in going through the microfiche. In the end with the statement I already have,I only needed 12. I know I only had problems for a year with this card, and only defaulted during this time, which I now understand took me over my limit. For £36 when I know there were at least 12 late payments, it's worth it to me even if I can't claim it back. (but I will try)

Scrap that, I did have one statement and I was over my limit, and comparing that to my credit record, charges will have taken me over the limit, so I am going to pay the £3 a file, as I only need 13 months worth and I am sure that I have way more than £39 to come back. I shall of course apply to have this refunded?

As memory serves, my charges with Barclaycard were never for anything other than late payments, and having hit the microfiche brick wall that others on here will have hit, I was trying to think of an alternative. I have a copy of my credit file which shows the number of months where payment was in arrears. Could I use this information to claim back the charges? I can show that I have made an effort to gain the accurate information, as they have written to me with details outside the period I specified (ie after). When I put in the claim they will have to dispute the amount I am claiming back off them. I apologise if this has already been posted about, but I would appreciate the feedback.

Settled!!!! My account was credited with £1975 yesterday! They sent me a letter of confirmation today. I'm really pleased that they decided to deal with this is a sensible manner. They dragged their feet getting all the statements to me, but they did deal with me efficiently enough once it all started going through. Yey!!

Hmm, I think that maybe they are dragging their feet as they know that I am moving in just over a week. Let them, drag away, I can wait!

I gave myself time to give this due consideration, it was a very tempting offer however it's a lot of money to me which they should never have taken. I have how ever offered to accept £1975.00 as full and final settlement which does not include the £130.72 that they charged me in interest on the sum, I believe that this is fair. They have 7 working days from Tuesday to fund my account.

They have written and offered me £1775.

I held off on posting, as my Barclays claim was on the verge of being won by default. I intend to get initial letters out to HSBC before moving, and take them to court once I have moved. Knowing how much they like to drag their feet, I am sure that it will be easily enough done. No body needs the hassle, but with over £2000 to come, I am sure it will be worth while.

Well I just filled in the allocation questionaire, and just before posting, I called the bank on the number given in the defence and spoke to Jamses MacDonald the guy who signed the defence. I asked if he really wanted to go through all this and he said that the bank would wait until it recieved the allocation questionaire to decide how to proceed. I understood this to mean that they really weren't interested in dealing with the case unless it got to this stage, which I find silly, but understand that it will put a lot of people off claiming. Surely the bank would do better to just act in a fair and honest way from the outset, then no-one would be out to reclaim anything from them! I'm sure once all this is done, it will have cost them far more than they have made by dragging it all out.

wow, they literally left it till the final day to issue their defence, it does seem like an awful lot of effort just to drag it all out! Recieved my allocation questionaire this morning, I don't have to pay the £100 as my claim is below £1500, but now i may have to ask that the case is moved to one nearer kings lynn as I move there in September, and the deadline for this letter is 26th August, that said I can fill it in today and get together all my relavent documents. I haven't PM'd a moderator yet, as I apprecate how very busy they must all be, and believe that the answers are usually on the FAQs or libraries section. How silly this whole thing is! I would have settled for just the £635 but they insisted on hauling this through the system. Now Barclays I am still a reasonable person just as keen as you are to not go to court, and I know that you don't want to do that, but this small girl is ready and willing to fight for whats hers!

Well, they didn't send any more statements after that, so I called the post office to be sure it was the HSBC, and asked that they check that I am getting everything sent to me. I then called HSBC, chatted to a nice guy who said that he'd get them re-sent because computer said I had been sent them. Next thing another guy calls me, saying that my problem is with the post office, so i explain that i called them before caling the bank, then he suggests that I go into the branch to which i replied that I only asked for them to be posted as I wasn't sure that they would appreciate me going into branch and asking for 3 years of statements but if he wanted to give me his name i would tell them that he told me to. Next he said that there would be a charge and I questioned why they had sent the cheque back if they wanted to charge me, but it's alright, I'll go into the branch and get them from there if thats easiest, all I want is my statements. Again he starts about the post office, so i repeat that all i want is my statements, and he says that he will send them out. (what did they other guy do then?) After all the delaying tactics and messing around, they finally arrive this morning, and blow me! £1950 in charges alone!!!! No wonder they didn't want to send them to me! I am now looking for a really nice letter to start the ball rolling with, but I move in a month, so if I could at least get the preliminary stuff out the way first that would be useful. Sorry for the delay in posting, all will be revealed soon.

T and C's still not arrived, what do I do, have I got any recourse? I had hoped that when I read through them I would see what I was actually tackling. Please has anyone got some sound advice for me?

I did everything wrong here, I didn't read the contract properly, and now I am a bit stuck. I decided to join the gym in January, as a lot of people do, and they had an offer on that I thought was right for me at that time. I asked before joining what would happen if I moved away, as I had applied to 2 colleges outside of the area but at that time did not know about the potential success of these applications. I was cheerfully informed that should I move and there be no gym within a certain radius of my new address then I would be free to cancel. When I went to register, I started reading through but was made to feel i was just being awkward so I just skimmed and signed. Since then, I got into college (yey!) but I also hurt my knee. This knee injury has been treated by the doctor and I have undergone physiotherapy. I didn't cancel at first as I had hoped to recover enough in time to once again use the membership, however a couple of months later during which time I have been on crutches, unable to leave my flat at times and off work I realised that wouldn't be possible. I rang the club and at first got the standard response, that I signed a 12 month contract blah blah blah, I then explained that I was unfit to use the gym and that I would be moving before I would be able to again. On hearing this I was given the number for memberships, who have told me a different story. This time, I can pay half the membership to the end of the term when I move away, and must provide a doctors note for my gym membership to be cancelled. I see my doctor if I'm poorly, not because the gym wants to play silly buggers so I wrote them a letter, again stating that I was unfit to use the facilities, including the diagnosis and stating that the direct debit would be cancelled. No reply to my initial letter, they still tried to take the direct debit and then I got a standard lettter requesting immediate payment of fees. I rang them up, tried to explain the situation and now the story is that they want proof that I am moving, they still want a doctors letter and they are only willing to freeze the nmembership until I am once again fit to use the club. I asked for a copy of the terms and conditions and was curtly told i would either have to go to the club to pick them up or pay £20! I curtly repield that I would then request a £20 fee for my doctors note and did he want me to hop to the club!?! On ringing the club I am being sent a copy of T and C's but I'm a little at a loss as to what I should do next. I think I have grounds for being mis sold the product, although no proof that I was told I could cancel when moving. I also wondered if there was any advice on the injury. Is it bad that I should worry that I can now walk a short way and have tried to start working again?!? Personnaly given the choice between crippling myself (if i mess it up again I could cause major long term damage, I'm 25, I dont want to do that) and getting a default on my credit file for 6 years, I know what I would do. Also might be worth mentioning, that I called the club when my injury occured and asked if they had a physio who I could use at the gym, they said that they would look into it and didn't get back to me, an nhs appointment came up so I didn't bother trying again. Advice greatly appreciated.

Since the process with Barclays is well under way, I thought i would dedicate some time to HSBC, knowing that this would be the bigger claim. They certainly do like to delay as much as possible, but thats alright as it gives me time to fully check FAQs on here and check other peoples experiences before the next step. I am starting to put £20 a week aside for mcol fees so I can issue the claim as soon as the deadline arrives (plan for the worst and hope for the best), as my statements are already coming. So far I with the use of the spreadsheet I have calculated that up to 12/12/02, they have charged me £560 and £72.88 interest on those charges, and the worse patch of my finances has yet to come! I thought I would start this thread so other forum users could read through my experiences, start to finish, as some of the threads on here tend to give you half the picture. I personally found it reassuring to read through the steps that other people had taken and watch their progress during my claim with Barclays, so now I hope to do the same for others with my claim against HSBC. I hope that you may benefit from my ongoing experience.

Thank you for this, would have been useful when I started out, clearly barclays are getting a lot of requests!

Recieved my notice of issue today, claim number 6QZ43451. Just waiting for what appears to be the standard questionairre, so I'll save £100 ready. Just a note for claiments, as I am not asking as much as some other people my issue fee was only £80, as I read it, this fee is relative to the amount being claimed up to a maximum of £120 for claims under £5000, so if you are going for a large sum I would advise that you start saving £20 a week in your back up bank account to pay for the costs until the claim is settled. I just know it worked for me as I ordinarily wouldn't be able to afford this outgoing.

Dude from barclays called me, perfectly nice guy. He was appologetic that this couldn't be resolved without court proceedings and acknowledged that I had attempted to settle this. I don't take it personally that a sensible solution couldn't be reached, I guess I just have to ride the red tape!

I still rang them, who needs to be £80 (court costs) out of pocket because their playing a losing game? Didn't get through to anyone willing to really talk to me about this so I have just filed the mcol claim. It does seem a little silly to me that barclays are playing it this way, surely they must realise that as I sent letters from the templates library of this site, I am not just doing this without the back up of successful prior claiments. What could have cost £635, is now £820.79 all in, and increasing by the day. At least I tried to be reasonable. Thank you Mrgreengenes for the link regarding charges, I had seen it before but left it as I had misread it and not realised that it could be used before adding the 8%. I shall keep you updated

Well, so far I have followed all the advice and used the templates from this site, been offered £300 from Barclays to go away quietly, wrote back and said I was willing to negotiate and just claim back the actual charges and not the additional interest, as a gesture of goodwill. Told them that they had 14 days to put the money in my account or I would have to issue them with a CCJ and I would add on the 8% interest etc. Within 2 days I got this response: 'I am sorry you have decided not to accept our offer which was made as a gesture of goodwill. I am unable to refund you the full amount and it is with great regret that you will now be proceeding to the County Court. I appreciate this is not the response you were hoping for, but I hope I have clarified the Bankis position. Yours sincerely Rose Frimet Senior Customer Relations Manager 0207 116 4037' Started the money claim form but I am considering calling her on Monday to try and resolve the issue, as I struggle to work out how much of the interest that they charged is due to the charges and therefore mine. Clearly I won't be telling her that (although she might be looking at this, you never know). I don't want to get all worked up and cause a big fuss, my initial financial difficulties were my fault, however the bank made a bad situation a hell of a lot worse. I would like to sort all this out as amicably as possible, but I believe that it is time I made a stand, for far too long people/organisations have believed that they can rip me off as I tend to shy away from confrontation. I may be passive, but please don't confuse that with stupid or unwilling to make a stand against what I believe is fundamentally wrong. I will keep you updated