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This is from Ulster Bank's official site regarding bank charges. IMHO they seem to have totally disregarded the OFT's case and rewritten what happened. Can someone tell me if I am wrong? quote:- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- On 27 July 2007 the Office of Fair Trading, seven UK banks (including RBSG, of which Ulster Bank Group is a part) and one building society (the "Banks") started a court case to decide the legality of unauthorised overdraft charges. On 24 April 2008, the Court issued its judgment on the first part of the test case process. The judgment is available via the Judiciary of England and Wales website (PDF). In summary: The court decided that the current charges are not penalties. The Judge also found that the banks' current terms are sufficiently clear to enable the typical consumer to have a proper understanding of them for sensible and practical purposes. The Judge found that the terms and conditions relating to unarranged borrowing charges are assessable for fairness under the Regulations. He was not asked to rule on whether the banks' terms were fair or not. A further court appointment is scheduled for 22 May to agree the next stages of the test case. As previously agreed with the Financial Ombudsman Service and the FSA, customer complaints relating to unauthorised overdraft charges will currently remain on hold. The Banks will continue to ask Courts to keep cases relating to unauthorised overdraft charges on hold until the test case process is concluded. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- In essence, it appears that Ulster Bank are trying to say that the courts agreed with them ('the' banks) on the 1st round. If this is so, how come the OFT "actually" had the agreement from the courts that the stated legislation was indeed applicable? Dazed and confused in Omagh Mori

Excellent ;-) Thanks for the update

Hi LTWFB, Great to hear you got your money back from the NB ;-) Did it end up in court or did they settle beforehand? thank moriman

Whilst I agree with BigAid on your need to appear approachable, I totally agree with you on your preferred method of... If you did meet with them and things go pear-shaped, you will obviously then revert to the court action. They, however, will have it to say that you broke of negotiations with them. FWIW, I think you should stick to the written avenue. Best wishes mori

I'll be working Monday I'll be thinking of ya though;) Keep us posted and good luck mori

No problem LTWFB

No, it wasn't made as a threat. The point was made that, IHHO, that is the action my local branch would take. This person is not connected to my local branch. The person in question actually agrees that we are all being ripped off and that 'taking them on' is a good idea, they merely pointed out the pitfalls with my present situation. As I stated previously though, this situation will only cause a delay, not the termination of this process

Here's what's gone on so far... In answer to my original Q. in this thread, I got chatting to a deputy manager of a NB branch. He told me that it was very likely that NB would withdraw my overdraft facility as soon as I would start this ball rolling. As I have absolutely no intention of giving them the chance to hammer me with even more charges, I am going to have to put my action on hold for the minute, until I get the overdraft cleared. This is now my No. 1 priority. Then I'll let them have it

OK, thx for the input guys, here's to hoping ;-) mori

LMAO, Thought y'ad been pulled over one too many times by the 'Can ya wind yer windy down pleez sir!' crew. Anyway, good luck with NB mori

Hi, I'm strongly considering starting the process of reclaiming charges from the Northern Bank. However, there are a couple of things I would like to try to have clarified before I begin :? i) At present I have an overdraft with the bank; are they legally entitled to remove this facility simply due to me starting this process? ii) I have moved to a different area in NI but the local branch, where I live now, refuses to let me transfer my account as, in their opinion, I have been 'illegally' overdrawn too often in the past (usually due to excessive charges like £25.00 for returning a £7.49 Direct Debit when there's £7.47 in my account). I am now in the position where my 'local' branch, isn't actually the branch where I have my account! Can I *slightly* reword the end of the DPA letter like this... "I would be happy to collect the Data from your XXXX branch if this is more convenient." and insert the branch where I now live? many thanks for any help mori