This topic was closed on 03/05/19. If you have a problem which is similar to the issues raised in this topic, then please start a new thread and you will get help and support their. If you would like to post up some information which is relevant to this particular topic then please flag the issue up to the site team and the thread will be reopened. - Consumer Action Group

I agree - No mystery. Thanks, Bank Fodder.

I received the following response (by letter) from the Halifax today: "Dear Mr Marlow I refer to my letter dated 13th February 2006 and your further correspondence dated 22nd February and 23rd February 2006. I write to advise you that I am unable to comply with your request for a refund of your bank charges over the past six years. As requested, I confirm that I have made a request to our Customer Service Centre to forward details of all charges incurred on your above numbered account during the last 6 years, which you should receive within the next 7 days. Your cheque for £10 is returned as you have not been charged for this service. You recently received a Personal Customer Complaints leaflet explaining our procedures and a further copy is enclosed for your information. Should any of your concerns remain unresolved please let me know what you would like me to do to put matters right. We are keen to resolve your concerns, if we are unable to do so we will provide you with details of how you can contact the Financial Ombudsman Service for help. If I do not hear from you in the next eight weeks I will assume you are happy. Yours sincerely Branch Manager" I personally thought that the last sentence was hopelessly optimistic. I now have TWO very small leaflets about how the Halifax deal with customer complaints. I also have my returned cheque. Thoughts, anyone? Recommendations for action? At this moment I am going to wait for the bank statements (which should be in a parcel). Should make fun reading, but theres nothing on TV anymore (with the possible exception of My Nane Is Earl and The Real Dads Army). Then we will see...

I wrote the second, amended, follow-up letter and sent it to the Halifax by Next Day Special Delivery: "Paul Marlow, MY ADDRESS 21FEB2005 Halifax Plc 87/89 Wandsworth High Street London SW18 4LG WITHOUT PREDJUDICE Dear Branch Manager, ACCOUNT NUMBER: Account No As you are aware I wrote to you 07FEB2006, which you kindly replied to on 13FEB2006. As promised in our subsequent discussion today, I am writing to inform you that you have 7 days to refund the money in full or I will start legal proceedings against you for full recovery as outlined in the last paragraph below. I have held the above mentioned current account with your bank for the past 6 years. During this time I have incurred charges for exceeding my overdraft limit due to cheques being cleared at unfortunate times, unauthorized overdraft fees, direct debits and standing orders being dishonored (and in some cases honored) due to insufficient funds. It is my opinion, and that of the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), that these charges are punitive in nature, not a genuine pre-estimate of cost and not intended to re-imburse your losses for a breach of contract occurring. Further to the 1999 Consumer Credit Regulations quoted by the OFT, there are numerous cases in law that prove that punitive charges in contracts are unenforceable at English law.  Murray v Leasureplay (2004)  Dunlop Tyre Company v New Garage and Motor Co. (1915)  Bridge v. Campbell Discount Co. Ltd. (1962) There are many more cases of this type - far more than I have room to list here. Further to these cases, I also believe these charges to be a direct breach of the 1977 Unfair Terms (contracts) Act which require that contract terms be reasonable. I do not believe these charges are reasonable as outlined in the aforementioned act. With this in mind, I respectfully request that you return to me ALL charges made on this account in the last 6 years within 7 days of receipt of this letter by way of personal cheque. If you choose not to do so, I will start proceedings for recovery in the County Courts, as I believe that legally I am entitled to this money back. By doing so, you will be eligible for my court costs and for an extra 8% APR as allowed by the County Courts Act (1984). This money would be used in some way to clear my overdraft on this account. Yours faithfully, Paul Marlow." When sufficient time went past, I then sent the following to the Halifax using their online helpdesk. They would have received it on the 24th of February and passed it on to the Branch Manager accordingly: "FAO Branch Manager, Halifax Plc, 87/89 Wandsworth High Street, London, SW18 4LG. Dear Branch Manager, I understand that you have received my second letter, dated 21FEB2006 (which I sent via Guaranteed Next Day Delivery), regarding the recovery of bank charges. I would like to check with you the progress of my claim, your investigation, and the production of the requested statements. You have been in receipt of my cheque for the standard DPA fee since 08FEB2006. Regretfully, I have not received the statements I requested. I look forward to receiving your response. Many Thanks, Paul Marlow." So far, so good.

Is there any reason TO tell them. They never told me that their charges were illegal, so I see no reason to tell them about the Bank Action Group. Maybe if some of them saw this site, they might act to change the law, make everyone accept new terms & conditions, or some other thing. Besides, they might actually improve their responses, and if they can see all this and we can't be at their meetings, then the advantage would swing back to them once more. Besides, I've always been taught that volunteering information unnecessarily is the quickest way to get into trouble. I'm not being paranoid but I am being cautious, mostly from long experience.

Maybe its a standard line to illicit information. I just said that I had put it off because I had never gotten round to it until now. I wasn't drawn on where I had gotten the information. This is a question for Dave: I've said I will send the Reminder Letter. Should I wait until that 7-day period expires before launching into the Court Proceedings. I think its fair and best, but is it wise?

Dear All, I phoned my branch of the Halifax to find out what their response or progress was. The letter or response they had sent me (A Type 1 - "Sorry you're not happy, we'll get back to you sometime in the next decade"), as copied in the original post on this thread, had given me the Branch Managers telephone number. The conversation revealed that they had started a 4 week period of investigation, and the manager has requested further information and print-outs from the Business Centre. The Bank Manager did not know about the technicalities of this matter, but assured me that she had responded within 5 days as required. She offered me a leaflet explaining bank charges, but I declined. She also felt that I knew an awful lot about the matter and asked me why I had left it so long. I advised her that I would be sending the second (reminder) letter as we had now gone beyond the original seven day period.

Dear gothicf0rm, It keeps all of us going until we win the Lottery.

Oh, I wouldn't worry about it. I actually liked the letter and I think the overall strategy was sound. I expect that the Halifax will bluster and prevaricate as much as they can. I could easily see an exchange of annoying and time-consuming letters as they wriggle on the hook, seeking a way out. I believe that this letter will help cut out a lot of that nonsense. Bank Fodder, you are undoubtedly correct, but I have always found with institutions that if you don't lay out everything at the start then they will complain that its unfair and seek to overturn it that way. That is, unless you are trying to get them to do something for you that they don't have to, such as a loan. That is why I liked this particular letter. And if it all turns out wrong I will just chalk it up to experience and begin at the beginning once more. Dave, this is a learning curve for all of us, the Banks included. With time, we will get better and they will get better. The situation might change, especially if this snowballs and the Banks feel the pinch. Its the results that matter and we haven't reached that point, yet. I would just like to thank you for the obvious time, effort and expertise you put into it, not to mention the kindness you showed in sharing it with us. I will keep you all informed of developments as they occur.

Sorry. I wrote: "MY ADDRESS 07FEB2005 THEIR ADDRESS WITHOUT PREDJUDICE Dear Sir, ACCOUNT NUMBER: XXXXXXXX I have held the above mentioned current account with your bank for the past 6 years. During this time I have incurred charges for exceeding my overdraft limit due to cheques being cleared at unfortunate times, unauthorized overdraft fees, direct debits and standing orders being dishonored (and in some cases honored) due to insufficient funds. It is my opinion, and that of the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), that these charges are punitive in nature, not a genuine pre-estimate of cost and not intended to re-imburse your losses for a breach of contract occurring. Further to the 1999 Consumer Credit Regulations quoted by the OFT, there are numerous cases in law that prove that punitive charges in contracts are unenforceable at English law.  Murray v Leasureplay (2004)  Dunlop Tyre Company v New Garage and Motor Co. (1915)  Bridge v. Campbell Discount Co. Ltd. (1962) There are many more cases of this type - far more than I have room to list here. Further to these cases, I also believe these charges to be a direct breach of the 1977 Unfair Terms (contracts) Act which require that contract terms be reasonable. I do not believe these charges are reasonable as outlined in the aforementioned act. With this in mind, I respectfully request that you return to me ALL charges made on this account in the last 6 years within 7 days of receipt of this letter by way of personal cheque. If you choose not to do so, I will start proceedings for recovery in the County Courts, as I believe that legally I am entitled to this money back. By doing so, you will be eligible for my court costs and for an extra 8% APR as allowed by the County Courts Act (1984). This money would be used in some way to clear my overdraft on this account. Further to this, if you decide NOT to accept my offer of settlement of this issue, I would like to make a formal request under the Data Protection Act (1998) for a complete and exhaustive list of all charges made on this account over the last 6 years. As you are no doubt aware, you are afforded 40 days to comply with this request or you must request an extension from the Information Commissioner. If you are of any doubt that this information is covered by the act, may I respectfully draw your attention to the case of Durant v FSA 2003 where the judge ruled that bank statement information is indeed personal information and thus covered. In any event, this information is requested with a view to prospective legal action on my part and therefore would be covered under the same act. Yours faithfully, Paul Marlow" They would have received it last Thursday. I also enclosed a cheque for the £10 Data Protection cost, with a little post-it note to that effect.

Hi All, I have been pursuing my bank and it has been seven days since I wrote to them. 8) They received my letter last Thursday. I had sent it to them by Next Day Special Delivery. I had used the letter from this forum. I got a reply dated 13FEB2006: "Dear Mr Marlow Re: Roll No. Dah-De-Dah Thank you for your letter dated 7th February 2006, together with a cheque for £10.00. The contents of your letter have been, duly noted, and you will find a copy of our leaflet which tells you how we will handle your complaint. Your concerns will be dealt with as quickly as possible, but if you need to speak with me in the meantime, please telephone me on TELNO." The leaflet is a funny blue thing entitled Personal Customer Complaints - Here's What We'll Do. Its actually quite small. :o I have to do some research tomorrow, but here's what I'm wondering: Should I call and let them discuss this with me or wait for their reply or should I go straight to Court Proceedings. The initial seven days period, as indicated in the letter I used, is up today. I was hoping that they would just cave, but I'm perfectly ok with going to court. 8) Any advice, anyone? Personally, I would find it very funny if it went the distance to bailiffs. I think I might go and watch that. Imagine the bailiffs turning up at my bank and asking "How much money have you got in the place?" :twisted: