They sent you an I&E form to complete and that is about assessing you for financial hardship. I would send arrears notices if you have any with the form if you complete it. If you do not have priority debt arrears or no longer use the account anymore I would doubt you would be classed as being in financial hardship.

wrong person quoted :o

If you don't send them back you still sit and wait in the queue or do as this site suggests and file a case in county court that will be stayed anyway.

But that is only once the "substantive issues" have been decided by a court so it won't be after the Supreme Court decision which is the final part of the "preliminary issues". Politicians say many things when a general election is less than a year away

Hells, you know that you should have the Archive notes which should confirm the exact date of when it was put on your account....if only I had 2 minutes in a branch again, I could get the date

See the above. If you do not have priority debt arrears(mortgage or rent, council tax, utilities) I very much doubt they will look at financial hardship positively ie offer any form of refund. Do you have credit cards, store cards or catalogue accounts with charges that you can reclaim as well including any £12 ones?

The FSA have got it within the FSA waiver on bank Charges itself. Whilst I would agree with you that it is not a court ordered or supervised you have to look at the reason why it was brought in. The history gives you the details. The courts were overrun with claims and MCOL was in meltdown. So the FSA waiver states this: "(15) to the extent that sums are ultimately to be paid to complainants in respect of relevant charges complaints that have been stayed, the firm must include in these sums an element of compensation in respect of interest charged to or lost by the customer as a result of being out of money during the stay period;" Since the Court system will decide the fairness issue on the secondary part of the OFT test case it would be ridiculous of someone to suggest that by not putting a court claim in that you are somehow being prejudiced because of not doing so. That is why I have said that going to the courts is a waste of time to be honest. The settlement of any claim will be across the board and I would envisage an end date, ie a date where the clock stops, specifically on the settlement of existing claims. However, that perhaps is speculating too much on the Secondary part of the case that has yet to be commenced and certainly would be presuming that next weeks decision is going to go against the banks. We could be surprised still.

I think you need to simplify it. You need to mention that you have had fraudulent transactions on your account in 2003 and in 2008 and that you are careful with checking your account. Unfortunately there was a transaction of £110.00 which you are fully aware was not done by yourself and that two other cheques have subsequently been returned unpaid which you have not written. Explain the suspected swine flu and that you have been laid up in bed for a number of days(a few people I know have had very bad flu so I know that sleep is all you do). Simplify it and ask them to investigate it properly and refund the money taken and the charges that have been made as this is obviously a distressing time for you, etc,etc. I wouldn't mention the charges reclaim because it is irrelevant to the fraud claim itself.

When did the FSA say that the FSA Waiver will be renewed until 2011? The FSA Waiver on Bank Charges states: "Duration 9. (1) This direction takes effect on 27 July 2009. (2) This direction ends on the earlier of: (a) 26 January 2010; or (b) resolution of the test case. For this purpose, resolution occurs when judgment has been entered in relation to all issues in dispute in the test case (including, for the avoidance of doubt, any issues which the Court agrees should in future be introduced into the case by way of amendment or otherwise) and the resulting orders either cannot be the subject of appeal or have not been the subject of appeal in circumstances where the time for doing so has expired, or when proceedings are otherwise discontinued. However, provisions of this direction that are expressed to continue beyond its termination continue in force in accordance with their terms"

It should be updated with Nationwide if new charges have come since 2007.

http://www.mylostaccount.org.uk If the account is dormant then this link should help you get the money that was left in it back. POST EDITED cos I missed out the .uk bit from the post

I would never go into a local branch when the account is closed since no bank would refund charges on a closed account. Keep us updated on this though

My gut feeling is that Halifax are not actually investigating the fraud properly. Two points really, (a) Why should you pay for a copy of a cheque YOU KNOW is not one you have written. They can get a copy of the cheque and look at your signature on their records if they want a specimen signature. and (b) They should be checking the signature on the cheques being returned. They HAVE to refund the charges of £70.00 plus £5.00 and I think they are being very difficult indeed. I think you need to put it in writing and state that you expect refunds of charges on fraudulently written cheques plus refund of the £5.00 copy cheque fee. Ridiculous way to investigate a fraud case.

To be honest with you, you need to get rid of the Personal Reserve from your account. At the moment, Barclays themselves have decided that if complaints are about fairness of the charges that they will stay any claim pending the Supreme Court decision which is when they will review that view. Personally, I wouldn't take it to the FOS since you will not really get any further forward than you would if you didn't.

Currently the Supreme Court is considering if the law of Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations 1999 are applicable to bank charge terms rather than if they are fair or unfair. A judgement is expected(according to the Supreme Court Press Office) before 17th December 2009 but it is not about refunds at the moment.

If any agreement is reached(I highly doubt this) between the banks and the OFT then the Court would have to legitimate it. However, it still leaves the issues of historic charges which would have to go through the Court. When the OFT wrote their report on Credit Cards OFT842 they specifically stated in point 1.14 that ultimately ONLY a court can decide a fair charge. "1.14 It must be stressed that this is a statement of our position and reflects the exercise of our discretion as an enforcement agency. Only a court can decide finally whether a term is unfair, or at what level default charges should be set to meet the requirements of the UTCCRs. It should be kept in mind that other enforcers may apply for injunctions under the UTCCRs and that the UTCCRs may be relied upon by consumers in private claims." Furthermore, the litigation agreement agreed in 2007 does state that issues of limitations, restitution is part of the secondary litigation so that is why I would say that if the banks' appeal fails then we have more litigation and this bit is the stuff we have waited for because ultimately it will lead to the end of the stays, waivers and a fair system of charging. Ultimately, if a court does not decide on a fair charge then the OFT test case can truly be classed as a failure to be honest because they would have spent over 2 years to come to the same decision as they did in OFT842.

And they are paying for it big time with break up of the banks. In fact, I'm quite enjoying watching the show with my popcorn in hand

Ask your friend to contact his bank and ask if they can cancel the transfer. If both bank accounts are not on faster payments system he might be able to cancel but do it ASAP

28 days starts from the date of acknowledgement of the claim. I am going to ask for site team to take a look because I am sure they will have some good advice on this specific issue.

your losing me there, thai

Again, pointless putting a claim in court as the court will automatically stay the claim and the FSA Waiver clearly has provisions for the resolution of the case and compensation. One day I hope you will take the time to read my informative posts on reclaiming and financial hardship claims on the net.

There is no firm date for the judgement. The reason why January 2010 is also being said is that it is the date the FSA Waiver is due for renewal which I firmly believe will happen since the likelihood of a final resolution of the OFT Test case issues is highly unlikely. At the moment there is no firm date for the judgement in the case so we are ALL waiting for confirmation of a specific judgement date on the preliminary issues.

Part of the article states this: "We would not usually expect a firm to warn customers before it exercises its right of ‘set off’. A warning might prompt customers to move their money to an account with a different firm. But we think that it is usually good practice for a firm to tell a customer as soon as possible after it has made a transfer." However it also says "We would not generally expect a firm to use ‘set off’ before giving the customer a reasonable opportunity to pay the debt. However, what is ‘reasonable’ might depend on the customer and the history of the account."

NatWest Stockbrokers One off branch service They have totally misquoted you. If you see the table given can you double check if that is how you were charged. I think they will have to refund you some money for the misinformation that was given.

What grounds are there for lifting the stay since the OFT test case issues remain unresolved? Is it a credit card claim?