This is an idea from the Theft Act thread on the legalities section. I thought I'd post it here to increase chances of someone more legally minded and intelligent reading it and giving their thoughts. Mods please move or delete if this counts as a double post. For reference a link to the Fraud Act 2006 is here - http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/ukpga_20060035_en.pdf Reading section 2 of the Fraud Act - 2 Fraud by False Representation (1) A person is in breach of this section if he - (a) dishonestly makes a false representation and (b) intends by making the representation - (i) to make a gain for himself or another or (ii) to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss (2) A representation is false if - (a) it is untrue or misleading and (b) the person making it knows that it is, or might be, untrue or misleading (3) "Representation" means any representation as to fact or law, including a respresentation as to the state of mind of - (a) the person making the representation or (b) any other person (4) A representation may be express or implied (5) for the purposes of this section a representation may be regarded as made if it (or anythign implying it) is submitted in any form to any system or device designed to receive, convey or respond to communications (with or without human intervention) So the basic idea is to notify your bank that you believe (as do a lot of other people) that penalty charges are unlawful under various laws whether as a direct penalty or as charges for a service and now that you have informed them of this any attempts at further charges will contravene the Fraud Act and be a criminal offence which will be reported to the authorities. This differs from s15 of the Theft Act (I think) in the phrase 'might be' in subsection 2b. The only matter I'm not so sure about is how charges are a 'representation'. However, as it can be implied, putting them in the T&Cs implies they are legal. Also I think section 5 would relate to them telling their system to take the fee out of your account. As soon as an investigation was started for an offence we would find out the bank's costs unless they find a way round disclosing them, as this would be needed to determine whether they were unlawful (to prove subsection 2a). However they couldn't worm their way out of court with a settlement and it's a criminal offence which means the directors face a prison sentence. Thoughts on this?

I think an interesting angle would be this. It's an embellishment on steven4064's post, by officially informing the bank the charges are unlawful and futher charges will mean they risk prosecution under the Theft Act - 1) Write to your bank informing them that you believe charges are unlawful under (insert relevant laws here). Tell them that in addition to claiming back all previous charges any attempt to take further charges will be pursued under (I think this is the right part) s24A(1) of the 1996 Amendment - "A person is guilty of an offence if- (a) a wrongful credit has been made to an account kept by him or in respect of which he has any right or interest; (b) he knows or believes that the credit is wrongful; and © he dishonestly fails to take such steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to secure that the credit is cancelled." Especially point (b), as now you have informed them the charges are unlawful they have to prove they neither know or believe the credit is wrongful. Otherwsie they are clearly committing an offense. I wouldn't hurt to make sure they're aware of the maximum penalty for this offense either. I'm thinking about adding something like this to my prelim letter, but I need to check out the Act properly and the Fraud Act 2006. EDIT: Reading the first part of the Fraud Act- 2. Fraud by false representation - (2) A representation is false if - (a)It is untrue or misleading and (b)the person making it knows that it is, Or might be, untrue or misleading. From this it seems that it is an offence if you know it might be untrue (i.e. bank charges on T&Cs). There is also an offence of failing to disclose information which is quite interesting. Some reading planned for tonight I think.

Ok, Quick answer as I'm sure someone else can elaborate. 1) The basis of our claims is that failing to keep enough money in your account and therefore direct debits failing and going over your limit breaches the terms of your contract with your bank (based on their terms and conditions) 2) In UK contract law for breach of contract you can only cliam back 'liquidated losses', i.e. what it costs the bank when this happens. 3) This is widely agreed to be the cost of automated computer processing, likely to be pence rather than pounds. In fact and investigation on a recent programme worked out the MAXIMUM cost would be £2.50 for a failed DD, and £4.50 for a bounced cheque. 4) The banks are legally entitled of course to recover these costs but they won't give away their costs (hence no court cases) and instead charge us ridiculous amounts of money. Unlawfully. 5) If manual intervention was involved in failing direct debits the cost of human workers time would be claimable by the banks, increasing the cost. However this is unlikley, at the very least because they would probably need thousands of staff to handle each one manually. Some occassional manual intervention no doubt does occur from time to time but they can't prove this. Hope this makes sense, sorry for any typos - I'm busy doing somehting else at the moment. Reply any quesitons and I'll be happy to answer. However you should read the FAQs properly to understand the full process and you will get more info on the exact legal terminology and laws involved.

I'd check that - I don't think a clause in a contract allowing them to claim the whole amount back if you miss a payment is lawful. I think if it went to court under that clause the courts would try and get a payment arrangement agreed. If you don't want to accept their terms this clause is a good enough reason to turn down the offer and continue, I don't think the court would see this as unfair - they have attached terms to their settlement which you don't want to agree to. EDIT: I see this as them trying to get out of going to court. I think a refusal of this Tomlin order may result in a full settlement but don't take my word for it - that's just my opinion. If they were confident in their defence/counterclaim they'd be happy to go to court. They're offering a full settlement plus trying to make themselves look generous by 'waiving the £120 costs of our counterclaim'. Out of interest, would the settlement come anywhere close to clearing your balance, or owuld there still be a lot to pay off?

Yes manual intervention would increase the loss of the breach of contract. However, they either - 1) Keep records of manual intervention and therefore have provide them to you. If this happened I doubt they would be very happy about their decision making methods being made public - I'm sure they are not very fair or reasonable and would probably constitute breaches of banking standards and possibly human rights laws. 2) They don't have records of intervention and therefore CANNOT CLAIM IT BACK EVEN IF IT DID HAPPEN AS THERE IS NO EVIDENCE. They would have to prove the costs (plus any others) to the courts in order to prove their charges recover only incurred costs. So it doesn't matter whether it happens or not, what matters is that they can't prove it ever happens anyway.

Looking at BF's original post on this, I believe the term you may want is 'implied term' (in the contract with your bank) based on the principle of mutuality or reciprocity. I think this is actually a legal term relating to ' where a contract makes provision for a rate of interest to be paid on outstanding money'. I haven't got time now but I'll see what I can find as afr as specific legal rules are concerned. It is probably part of UK contract law.

Would this be a separate court action following on from an initial court case? I'll check out your threads when I get a moment. They sound very interesting.

I'm not sure whether you need to mention a specific incident, as we don't do that with the manual intervention, we just ask for any evidence of manual intervention on the account. So maybe the following would suffice: At any point during the time I have held an account with yourselves, whenever the processing by automatic means of my personal data held by yourselves where I have been the data subject, for the purposes of evaluating my creditworhtiness, reliabilty or conduct, has constituted the sole basis for decisions significantly affecting myself (for example but not limited to: Returning of direct debits or removal, addition or amendment of credit facilities such as overdrafts) I require you to provide me with information as to the logic involved in that decision taking. I don't think they could argue about this, as long as it's clear which information you want (the logic involved) and which incidents you are referring to (using data they hold on you for the purpose of evaluating bla bla...). I'm just about to send my DPA to Natwest, I might try putting this in and see what happens.

Reading through some notes I made a while ago I came across the following in the Unfair Terms Legislation - Effect of unfair term 8. - (1) An unfair term in a contract concluded with a consumer by a seller or supplier shall not be binding on the consumer. (2) The contract shall continue to bind the parties if it is capable of continuing in existence without the unfair term. Now obviously this won't matter too much if they close the account anyway, but it could be a way to try and force them into court, as just a full settlement wouldn't be enough if you were aiming to have the terms (i.e. penalty charges) removed from the contract. I believe this may be the same lines as Stephen Hone's attempts at obtaining an injunction? Has anyone else tried this?

A quick update on this - The Trading Standards office in whatever town Mint are based are now launching a full investigation into this complaint.

I am now having to do my claim for Natwest due to the horrific state of my account. This is the big one. I'm estimating at least 8-10k in charges (that's not including over £800 so far this month) plus a loan they forced me to take out in a classic example of irresponsible lending breaking pretty much every rule in the book. I plan to claim contractual interest as well of course. Based on some of their behaviour I'm also investigating whether any criminal offenses have been comitted. As this is Natwest I am more than willing to test any speculated legal points that haven't been used a lot yet, as I intend to throw everything I can at them. I'm not fussed about the small claims limit - I'm hapy to go to court whether it be small claims or fast track. In fact I want to push them as far as I can towards court to see how far they will go. Yes I do have a parachute account before you ask - I'm fully expecting them to close the account after I'm through with them. I'll also read the other Natwest threads to get a good idea of what to expect. DPA request will go off in the next few days when the cheque from my MBNA claim clears. I'm working on my prelim letter which will be based on the one here so I'll post it for comments when it's done.

I sent them a very simple letter stating I was accepting the payment only as a partial settlement and I am giving them another 14 days (got to allow for christmas really) before I start court action. The account ha snow been cleared and I should get a cheque for the remainder within 10 days. At which point I will close the account anyway.

Received reply today, the day I was going to do the MCOL thing as well. Bla bla bla charges are fair, etc. £350 payment in final and full settlement and a threat to close the account if I go to court (it's only at £260 anyway so I'm not bothered about that). Wondering what to do now. Might call them today to try and get the rest out of them, otherwise it's claim time.

No reply to my prelim letter, so LBA goes off today. Considering calling them up next week after it's arrived as other people seem to have had success doing this.

Hi, thanks for replying. I'm pretty sure it was before May last year. I don't entirely understand the bit above about 'an ERC would be classed contracting out of the Regulations to the detriment of the consumer'. I thought they charged the total amoutn of interest that would have been paid minus the rebate as calculated in the document you linked to. Or does this mean the entire ERC is unlawful? Sorry I'm having trouble getting my head around things today!

£16k is the FEE ALONE. I know as it's under 25k it's regulated by the CCA but I need to know the differences in the argument for not paying/claiming it back. We've only had the loan for about a year which is why it's so high - halfway through the term it would reduce to 9k (oooh wow how cheap.... NOT) I've Pm'd zootscoot anyway but in the meantime any more advice would be great.

I 've looked at a few threads on redemption fees but I'm in a rush to instruct solicitors today as we accepted an offer on our flat yesterday and they want a quick sale. I got hold of all the numbers and account numbers last night to get all the redemption charges today and I noticed on my Black Horse secured loan agreement that the early redemption penalty is the amount outstanding plus any interest left. Basically from the examples they give I'll be paying a £16,000 fee (yes that is the right number of 0's) on a 17k loan. I need to know what the exact grounds are for these being unfair before I speak to them on the phone and I really need to call them today so any posts to useful threads or quick advice would be fantastic. I will look into reclaiming from the others later but basically I can't afford this - with the mortage and other secured laons it goes over what we're getting for the flat and if I do have to pay it we're going to have to pull out of the sale.

MBNA seem to be paying back with contractual interest quite readily. They're even calculating it for some people. Check out this thread.

Ok, so a very quick version of events - Beginning of month, DD fails. Next day get message to call them. I cal back and they say "You missed a payment" and I say "Yes I know" and they say "You can just add it to December's payment if you like". I confirmed with them this was fine and have several more times. Which is great. However, then the calls started. So I get a message on my mobile - "This is Mint please call us on 0870... immediately." Note here that 0870 numbers are expensive. However there is an 0800 number for people who can't pay so I use that one and then get put through to the right dept eventually:D . I said "I got a message bla bla" and they say "yesy it's still fine to pay in December but you will still get calls until it's paid." Which I have. Every day. And my wife gets them at home. So I called them and aske dthem to stop the calls but they said they were within their rights to keep calling. I've contacted Trading standards and lodged a complaint which they are now investigating. Also I edited the template letter from this forum and here is my version - Any comments (I know there are spelling mistakes!) before I send it off?

Considering the following from the article on the This Is Money website - and even better I am thinking about trying to get hold of a more direct and useable quote to this effect that could possibly be added on to the prelim letters. Plus we then continuously hound him/them asking why he hasn't carried through with his threat even the banks are still holding out till the last minute on every single claim. Not to mention the abuse of the court system. I know it's an empty threat but our complaints would have more of a solid backing if the banks are directly conflicting with what the FO says and if it got a little publicity on this angle it would do no harm.

Surely he then agrees that they are unfair and should be doing something about it anyway? If a more definite quote could be obtained from the chief ombudsman it could be added to the preliminary letters and might result in claims being paid a lot quicker.

Sorry - I was linking to the specific page that listed their terms and conditions and details of their fees etc. I will bear it in mind. Angry Cat - I totally agree with you, and yes I should have made it clearer that you do not need a solicitor's help in any way to claim back charges. However, i wa sputting across the other side of things, in that i read posts on other forums every day (this is money being one) from people saying 'Oooh I'm scared abou tgoing to ourt so I just took a really low offer'. At the end of the dya if someone is only going to claim their charges using someone else's services, they are aware that they could do it themselves if they wanted, and they know the interest will go to the company in fees then it's one more claim against the banks. I would also be interested to see how claims via solicitors get dealt with by the banks compared to normal claims by as laypeople. Personally, I don't have the cash to follow up some of my claims because of the court fees I would have to lay out when they got to that point. My current MBNA claim will just about pay off the balance. I now estimate my Natwest claim to be in excess of £15,000. Giben the choice between not being able to claim and sacrificing the additional interest to have someone do it for me without having to pay anything up front (sorry sounding like an advert again) I'd have to seriously consider it. I'm having trouble even feeding my family at the moment let alone finding the odd £10 for DPA fees. You can appreciate how much difference a few grand would make to my life. My end point because I do want to make sure it is clear is that anyone has the abillity with the great resources and support here without any legal help necessary. End of unecessarily long post.

Short version of this - My wife broke an ddislocate dher ankle about 3 months ago and wasn't abel to work. She works Saturdays in a shop and doesn't earn the minimum £85/week to claim incapacity benefit. Also she hasn't paid NI in the last three years so can't claim the lower level incapacity benefit. She also doesn't qualify for Statutory Sick Pay. We thought she just wouldn't get paid but now she's back at work, on her payslips they have started deducting around £80 each time under the heading 'Incapacity benefit'. This sounds very wrong to me, I assume the employer has made a mistake. The benefits office just said to speak to her employer, but she's having trouble getting in during the week when the person she needs to speak to is there. Can anyone shed any more light on how this normally works?

As some additional information fillings are guaranteed for a minimum of one year. I didn'tknow this until my wife went back to our dentist with a broken filling 11 months after it had been done and he repaired it all free of charge because of the guarantee. Hopefully this should make it easier for you to claim.

I can see instances where it might be good to do this. It's up to you whether you want to lose a bit of money of your claim in order to have someone do it all for you (and cover all the fees etc until the charges are claimed back, which for a large claim from someone in a lot of debt are quite a lot). I'm trying to work out how much they charge - It looks like they take the interest on the charges (presumably the statutory 8%?) as their fee - [link removed] If they will take claims of over £5,000 then also you're removing the (admittedly tiny) chance of having to pay the bank's legal costs of it goes to court and they win (which wouldn't happen, but it does put some people off). I'm sounding like an advert for them now, and I don't mean to, but for some people who are not comfortable with doign it all themselves it's an option. And the more people claiming against the banks the better.