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Depending on what your job is within the Hospital you should be under the Agenda For Change framework like almost all NHS employees. If this is the case then your employers can do pretty much whatever they feel like as long as it is within the working time directives. Personally I wouldn't expect Unison to be much help, they don't seem to be too keen on helping out their members IMO.

I've got a Dell PC on finance and I had a Direct Debit returned last month. Dell put a £15 charge on the amount then tried to claim the DD again two days later. As I hadn't been paid, it was returned again with another charge on it. Is it possible to reclaim these charges? Has anyone had similar problems with Dell and tried to claim?

Congratulations. I was starting to think that Smile may have toughened up to all the claims but it seems not!

So maybe Smile aren't as easy as we thought they were. Good luck Thunderpuss.

Oh, in that case I'll have to keep a close eye on your thread to see what happens. Good luck!

Finally got an acknowledgement of service from Smile today....with one day left! I've searched through the posts but can't seem to find anyone who has gone through the Moneyclaim stage yet. Is anyone aware of anyone who has been taken the whole way by Smile, or are they the same as most of the other banks where they acknowledge service, then pay out?

Well spotted quincy:D:D

They're probably not sure what to do with it...Yours must be about the first they've received :o

It sound like your claim is going down exactly the same route as mine did! A full set of duplicate statements, and no response to any prelim. or LBA. At this rate you should have your money back within a month or so:D

After deciding to play nice with Smile and sending them a second LBA just to hurry them along...it never worked! The MCOL claim was submitted today for a total of £395 including the costs. Let's hope they pay up soon:)

I had a similar problem with my HSBC claim. I'd contact Smile and tell them that your address has changed an that they need to update your records to show this. When I did it with HSBC, they replied to my LBA at my old address, then I just sent all following letters showing my new address and informing them that as I had already told them about the address change, I assumed that they had changed it! It didn't hinder the process at all!

I just recieved another standard email reply from Smile today....But I've no idea what they are replying to as they've already replied to all my other letters :idea: The 14 days is up tomorrow for the LBA, so I'm thinking about sending a letter to them telling them that I understand they are very busy at the moment, but if they don't refund the charges by the end of the week I will have no other option than to file a claim with MCOL which will result in them having to pay interest. I'm hoping they won't decide to close my account if I go to the MCOL stage with them, because apart from the charges I think they're the best of a bad bunch as far as banks are concerned:eek: (hopefully the fact that I've paid the settlement cheque from my HSBC claim into my account will deter them from closing it!)

Thanks for that, I'll get the other half to make the call tomorrow.

I'm currently starting to set about claimimg back charges for my girlfriend on a Barclays account that she closed down about 6 months ago. I've sent out the DPA request on 01/07/06 and a follow up letter on 30/07/06. I still haven't heard a thing from them yet. Is this normal for Barclays? Should I give them a few more days before I move on to the next stage? Any help would be appreciated

It looks like you're getting the same kind of response as I'm getting from Smile. I just noticed today though that they say they will go by the timeframe set out by the banking ombudsman as set out on their website. This means that from the first complaint they only have 4 weeks to sort out your complaint, or you can escalate matters. This means that by the time your LBA 14 days are up, they should have resolved the problem. I'm going to E-mail them on Tuesday saying this in the hope they'll settle before I have to go through the MCOL!

After sucessfully taking on HSBC and recovering all my charges, I now feel I'm on a roll.......So next up is the Capital One Credit Card. I don't think there's a huge amount of charges on the account, probably only £100 or so, but it's better in my pocket than theirs! So the DPA request was sent out yesterday via Recorded Delivery, I'll keep you all informed as to what happens:)

I'm going to do the survey now...A donation will be made as soon as the cheque has cleared:)

I gave DG a call on Thursday and explained the problem with the account. They never mentioned anything about me crossing out the confidentiality clause. This morning I checked the post and I'd received a cheque from HSBC for the full amount :D I also called Royal Mail about the missing letter...They said they'll compensate me for the loss...I'll get a book of 12 first class stamps:lol: SO that's the HSBC current account out of the way, now for the HSBC credit card, the Capital One credit card and the Smile current account:o

I recieved a secure message from someone called MANAGER today, they are basically saying that they recieved my LBA and my previous letter regarding this and should have recieved a standard type acknowledgement...it goes on to say that the complaint is being dealt with within the timescales set out by the FSA. Has anyone else had a similar reply???

Hmmmmm I seem to have struck upon another problem, I recieved a letter today from DG solicitors thanking me for returning the settlement letter. It then goes on to say that the settlement amount will be credited to my account within the next day or so.....the problem is that I closed the account about a year ago:eek: What should I do now, Should I call DG first thing in the morning and tell them to either send a cheque or credit it to my new current account, or get in touch with HSBC and see if it's been credited and if I can withdraw it:???:

I'd just stick with sending all letters to your local branch manager. I found that I only got replies from HSBC when I sent stuff to the local branch. When I tried to reply to the addresses on their letters, I never heard anything back from them

Now the letter's gone back to DG Solicitors with the confidentiality section crossed out I can put you all out of your misery and reveal that my imaginary 'friend' was none other than myself ............I'm sure the suspense has been killing you all! On a brighter note, I just remembered yesterday that I used to have a Credit Card account with HSBC a couple of years ago and I'm sure there'll be a couple of charges on that so another DPA is on its way to them asking for Credit Card statements. I don't know thw full account number for the card, so I've told them the bit that I do and the current account number that I had at the same time. I'm sure they'll find the details from that. So it's a case of off we go again :o

It seems that smile aren't being as helpful with me as they are with most other people! I've sent the Prelim and the LBA and have only recieved 2 standard replies. I didn't do a DPA request as I got all the statements off the online banking annd asked about manual intervention in the Prelim. Should I think about starting again from the DPA request so everything is in place before trying to get the money back, or should I just go ahead as planned within my timescale I've set?

I couldn't possibly tell you his name.....If I did I'd have to shoot you :o Oh well, I suppose I'll just tell him to cross out the confidentiality section and sign the letter. Does anyone have any suggestions about sending a covering letter giving a timeframe for payment ie. 14 days, or will they just ignore it and post the cheque when they're ready?