If you have a half decent MP it shouldn't need 30 to 50 people. One voter should be enough. As I said before, find out who your local LibDem candidate is and ask them to contact Vince Cable on your behalf - we all know how much he loves the banks!

dipply75 as expected there's a condition to cover this - 6.5.2 If we have a valid reason for doing so, we may give you personal notice withdrawing your right to overdraw your account, or demanding repayment of your overdraft, or both. Our notice will normally take effect after a period of not less than 30 days, but it may take effect immediately if: (a) you have broken any term of the contract between you and us; or (b) we have reasonable grounds to suspect fraudulent activity; or © as a result of the way you operate your account or of your financial circumstances, we have reasonable grounds to believe that you may have difficulty in meeting your commitments. If we demand repayment of your overdraft, you must immediately stop making withdrawals or payments of any kind on your account and must repay the full amount of your overdraft as soon as our notice takes effect. They could reasonably argue that they've transferred your accounts to recoveries to pevent you making withdrawals and that they are not closed, merely moved to another department. The loan could be shown to have been created to improve your situation by reducing costs so they wouldn't need your agreement to do this. Its like "we lent you money at XX% but as you can't afford that we've moved it to another account at X% which is a lower rate". Your obligation towards the debt hasn't changed, its just the format the lending now takes. Under the CCA there is a requirement to follow a formal arrears process which can't happen with an overdraft per se as they don't have defined repayments, only expiry dates. One they have expired,they cease to exist therefore they cannot be in arrears. The main "get out of jail free" card they have is that you have not conformed to the Terms and Conditions of the original account, therefore those rules don't apply. I know is sucks, but you don't get to be one of the biggest banks in the world by not having these things covered.

I agree with yourbank, from what I understand there would need to be an increase in lending to accrue points, otherwise everyone would be on a bonus just by recycling loans. I'm also pretty confident that once accounts leave branch control there are no rewards available for future sales. I do know that debt recovery teams get bonuses on the amount they recover above a pre-dermined level which seems entirely logical. Most of the guys I know tell me that the daysof quick points have long gone and RBS for certain now uses "clawback" where points are deducted for sales that don't stick. It was the same at Eagle Star when I worked there years ago. Far better to stay inside the rules and sell a small policy than force a bigger sale and risk losing the lot. If you had been paid a bonus earned over several months and the related policies were cancelled, all the bonus was taken back in one go!

I agree and will keep looking. If they have this many conditions about ordinary accounts, I reckon there must be more somewhere about what happens in default cases. The 20% APR figure is alarming but it has to be said it is actually less than their published unauthorised overdraft rate at 29.84% As the loan would not get regular "maintenance charges" (£28/month) added so they could argue that they were helping (sic)

Re Mackenzie - do you think he's got £21 million hidden away anywhere? I have friends who work in RBS in Edinburgh who feel unanimously that he's a scapegoat for more senior managers who needed things "tidied up". I think there's probably some truth in this otherwise he would have been found out far sooner. As they have internal audits at least twice year, somebody must have been covering things up higher in the food chain.

This is an extract from the general terms and conditionas applying to accounts at RBS. I've highlighted the bits that may be relevant here but there may be more under specific conditions. 6.6.3 You will also be responsible for paying any costs reasonably incurred by us in connection with your overdraft. These will include (but will not be limited to) costs of: (a) communicating with you; and (b) preserving, taking, enforcing and/or realising any security; and © taking steps, including court action, to obtain payment. 6.6.4 We may debit your account with any interest, fees, charges or other costs, even if this results in or increases an unarranged overdraft. If an unarranged overdraft arises in this way, we will not charge a Paid Referral Fee under General Condition 6.3.2 but we may apply charges and interest under General Condition 6.3.5. 6.6.5 We will not charge interest under General Condition 6.3.5(b) or 6.6.2 on any part of an overdrawn balance which represents: (a) a Default Notice Fee or other sum (apart from interest) which is payable by you in connection with a breach of your obligations under your agreement with us; or (b) a Maintenance Charge, Paid Referral Fee, Guaranteed Card Payment Fee or Unpaid Item Fee. 6.6.6 If your account is overdrawn, any money credited to it will be applied in the following order: (a) in repaying or reducing any part of the overdraft which represents a sum mentioned in General Condition 6.6.5; (b) in repaying or reducing the rest of the overdraft. 6.7 Conditions for your overdraft 6.7.1 The Conditions of an overdraft will not be affected in any way by the account on which we have made the overdraft available being: (a) allocated another account number by us; or (b) transferred to another of our branches, offices or departments. 7 CLOSING OR CONVERTING YOUR ACCOUNT 7.1 Closure by us 7.1.1 We can close your account immediately if: (a) we reasonably suspect that you have given us false information; or (b) we reasonably suspect that your account is being used for an illegal purpose; or © you behave in a threatening or violent manner towards our staff; or (d) you were not entitled to open your account. 7.1.2 We can also close your account on giving you not less than: (a) 30 days’ prior notice; or (b) such period of notice as you would have to give us in order to close your account (or to close it without paying a charge or suffering a loss of interest), whichever is longer. 7.1.3 If you have an account of fixed duration (such as a bond), we can only close your account under General Condition 7.1.1. 7.2 Closure by you 7.2.1 You can close your account at any time for any reason without charge, and we will forward any existing credit balance on your account to you, provided that: (a) you inform us in writing that you wish to close your account; and (b) you return all (unused) cheques and cards issued on your account with any cards cut once through the magnetic strip and once through the chip; and © you repay any money you owe to us, including the amount of any cheques, card transactions or other payment instructions you have made and any charges or interest incurred which we have not taken out of your account; and (d) the Account Specific Conditions for your account permit you to do so; and (e) you inform all third parties with whom you have arranged Direct Debits and Standing Orders of the closure of your account. 7.3 Conversion by us 7.3.1 If your account is a current account, you agree that we may convert it to another current account in our range of accounts. We will only do this if: (a) we have a valid reason for converting your account; and (b) we notify you personally not less than 30 days before we convert it. We will convert your account after the expiry of our notice unless in the meantime you have informed us in writing that you wish to close your existing account under General Condition 7.2.1. For a period of 30 days from the date on which we convert your account, you may close the account (or switch to any other account which we are willing to provide to you) without loss of interest or any additional charges. 8 LIABILITY 8.1 Your liability 8.1.1 You are responsible for payment of any debt that arises on your account. 8.1.2 If you have a joint account, you will each be responsible for any money owing on your account, both individually and jointly. This means that if one of you is unable to repay the money owing, the other account holder(s) can be required to pay the amount due in full, even if your relationship has changed or ended. I get the sense that there is room for interpretation in here, but so far i haven't been able to locate the conditions pertaining to accounts under the control of CMS or Recovery, where I am certan we'll find that they are perfectly within their rights to open routers or other accounts as part of their internal recovery procedures. The key point seems to be where someone has broken the agreement and thereafter, the normal rules cease to apply. Mr Hemsley's comment about branch staff knowing nothing about routers is correct in exactly the same way that branch staff no little or nothing about contracts for difference and spread betting - they have nothing to do with them. You can be certain that Deloitte and Touche LLP will know about them though. As the bank's auditors they will need to know precisely how much wealth is tied up in debtors accounts, they are not secret a/cs they are internal accounts and as such have no visible branch prescence, just like Fred Goodwin's entertainment expenses account.

the deliquent bank manager was called Donald Mackenzie from Edinburgh who got 10 years in Saughton prison around June last year. Some of the loans were totally ficticious, others were made on soft terms to help new businesses out. Part of his [problem] was to turn overdrafts into loans thereby inflating his sales results without actually lending any more money. The bank maintain he made several million out of his deals but there were no visible signs of his increased wealth and this lead many to believe that the money hadn't been stolen at all, but that he was a scapegoat and a convenient way to shift dodgy numbers of someone else's desk. Bedlington83/sparkie1723 if you feel there is real evidence of fraud and you're worried that the FSA won't act why not take it to the press? Given recent events there must be plenty of journalists prepared to give the banks a kicking, how about the boys at the Telegraph who waded into the MP expenses row - they seem pretty fearless? Or Robert Peston - he hasn't had a good word about RBS/Lloyds all year and Vince Cable would certainly raise it the commons? I worry that you may be taking on the big boys in their own back yard here and whilst it's laudable and valiant to fight for your rights, you are dealing with multi billion pound businesses here with government backing - its not the same as Erin Brockovich V Pacific Gas and Electric

there is a recent and very high profile case involving RBS in Edinburgh where the creator of the phantom loans was paid huge bonuses and received pay rises on the strength of his sales figures. He was also taken to the banks conferences each year as a reward and genrally made out to be a hero but when the external auditor discovered the truth he went to jail for 10 years and his immediate superior was fined and sacked and his boss got a massive fine. Creating phantom loans is the quickest way out of a job I can think of and on;y a fool would consider it, no matter what pressure was coming from head office. The other thing to consider is that banks make far more from overdraft interest than they do from loans so income drops each time an o/draft is repaid by a loan.

this is priceless isn't it? We send off a form but if they don't respond within 4 weeks somehow we are at fault if we don't call them? unbelieveable! Not only do we have to do our bit, they would have us believe that we now have to tell them they've failed in doing their bit and its a legally binding obligation that we have to check on them... This sounds like something out of monty Python! Odd then that the DVLA website says this:- What happens next Once you have informed DVLA, you will receive an automatic acknowledgement letter, within four weeks, confirming the discharge of liability for your vehicle. Please allow four weeks to receive the letter before contacting the DVLA. As there's absolutely nothing about contacting DVLA if nothing has been received after 4 weeks anywhere on the website it seems clear that there can't be any legal obligation either. Hoist by their own petard you might say!

it seems we don't know enough about the refinancing to pass valid comments here. I realise that the loan has got bigger over the years but surely the decision to proceeed was darney1's or did they lock him/her in the room until he/she signed? From my experience the loan payments will have been weighed against affordability criteria at the time of the application then checked and signed off by a manager before the loan was drawn. If the increased lending was for overdrafts, the money had obviously already been spent and in most cases the loan's interest rate would be below the overdraft rate. It seems the real problem came along with unemployment which would affect most of I guess. The thing is that life must now go on and no matter how much the collectors want to take, you still have to pay for food, heating, rent etc. Its one of the joys of unsecured lending. The bank knew the risks and happily took them. I agree that £200 is way too much from £600 income so no matter how much they scream and shout, they'll just have to wait, or take the case to court which they won't do as they know you can't get blood out of a stone.

you're missing the point buzby, coming back to the point about transferring the vahicle and not chasing up the non-arrival of the acknowledgement letter. How could an 88 years old be expected to know thi when most of use (hopefully younger) contributors don't know. i can't see too many courts taking a hard line about this. BTW I attended a county court last year with my dad over the matter of an unpaid gas bill. The judge couldn't have been nicer and finding no case to answer, gave the gas officials aright telling off for dragging an "elderly gentleman" to court instead of just speaking to him. He argued that not having a gas supply meant he could not be liable for a gas bill, (honestly - it's true) but they refused to believe him and sent over ten threatening letters before sending a debt collector. Even after he had showed the guy his flat was all-electric they continued hassling him culminating in a trip to Chesterfield County Court. When the judge asked why we hadn't pointed out that he had no gas, we advised that we had told them until blue in the face and only then did we invite the court hearing. We were given refreshments in an annexe by the court usher and the court arranged for a taxi to take dad home afterwards, charged to the gas company. That's why I have a positive attitude towards these things.

my most immediate thought when I read your entry was if you can overpay, make sure you give GMAC the money. With regard to Barclays, I would start by askin them to explain the changes in loan interest rates to you as most of these things tend to be base rate related and that's fallen quite a bit since last year. You need to know whether or not its some kind of penalty or whether the loan has a stepped repayment plan, you know 12 months at £x, followed by 12 months at £x+ etc. Most second charge secured loans cost more to reflect the fact that the lenders have less clout in the money queue and many have onerous conditions (if you repay before .... a charge of X% will become payable). I'm also sure that the £60 charge is buried somewhere intheir T&Cs too. The PPI premium isn't included in the LTV calculation as they are not giving you the money, just deferring repayment over te life of the loan. I wouldn't worry about the breach of conditions as there isn't one, and in any case it was at their end not yours. The need for the original LTV to be maintained is a really cynical way of keeping you in the old agreement. It may be worth going through that in fine detail to see if it fails a reasonableness test which may make it an unfair contract, but Barclays are usually pretty sharp on these things. What you should do is request a legible copy of your agrrement so you can at least read the content. I would be confident that there will be a way out of this within 17 years, most of these are loaded with conditions at the front, which ease off after a while. Hope this helps?

Hi I have some experience of mortgage underwriting and can offer this advice which I hope you'll find useful. There is no legal reason why your ex can't be removed from a mortgage loan so long as you can maintain the repayments. Most lenders will make a charge for this to cover the extra work involved and the change to the security records. If the second party died they wouldn't remain on the mortgage would they! All it takes is the agreement of the party to be removed, a credit check and financial assessment of the remaining mortgage borrower to establish tha the loan is affordable and a change to the security record. With regard to the no-selling argument, its clearly not in the lender's interest to allow borrowers to dispose of the tangible asset as this weakens their position dramatically. I am struggling to find a reason for their decision not to allow you to switch to a better mortgage though as this seems to fall foul of the recent "Treating Customers Fairly" legislation? There's also the outside chance that you could get enough money to repay the mortgage, surely they wouldn't object to that? You are probably correct in your guess that underwriters wouldn't be queueing for your autograph for a move to another lender, especially in negative equity, but what about lengthening the term of your loan to reduce the monthly payments? I think you need to take a trip to one of their offices/branches for a sit down chat with a manager to show that you are trying to resolve this but need their help. If its any consolation, you're not the only one in this position and the big lenders have finally realised that reposession isn't the answer especially when there are fewer buyers around. Keep your chin up!

I agree with Crem on this. As an added bit of "ahhh" factor, you could mention that your father is 88 and finds all this very stressful. If they insist on dragging a frail, elderly man to court, you will happily go with him, but remind them of how it will look to the judge!

Liz you are incorrect in your belief that PPI is an integral part of the agreement, this would be illegal. It is offered as an "additional benefit" and as such can be turned on and off as a seperately. In practice you can call at any time and cancel ppi, but may be charged for the current month untli cover ceases, although most companies charge in advance so the issue shouldn't arise.

I didn't see that as a rant, you're clearly p*ss*d off by them and have every right to be. To cover your comment about Nat West, that's a very definite "NO" they can't, same group but entirely different company and although the T&Cs are growing every more close, they want to keep them seperate for a multitude of reasons. The main point I was trying to make was that they can easily ruin your life, totally legally, and then drag their heels if they are told to correct their errors to such an extent that you'll wonder why you ever started down this path. Its a bit like arguing with a traffic warden that the time on the meter is wrong after the tow truck has taken your car away. You may be correct but the point has changed, is all I'm saying. Positive steps I would take: 1 open your parachute account(s) 2 Write to the boss of RBS (Stephen Hester) as this makes it an executive complaint and ensures that a grown up will read it. 3 be polite and to the point - tell them you're willing to settle the debt but first you need ...... 4 Mention politely that you're very suprised at the actions of CMS and others as they seem to be breaking the law 5 add that you're going to take this to your MP and possibly the press if things can't be settled amicably. Given Mr Hester's reputation as a "good guy" who's been drafted in to sort out Fred's mess, and the fact that Gov is knee deep in debt over the banks, the last thing anyone will want is more bad press, especially as RBS is heading for positive cashflow right now.

Hi Dipply75, from what I know of these things, its not the account or loan that is going to CMS, its your entire connection. If you look at this from their point of view, the branch staff don't have the time or resources to phone/write to people over missed payments. Its a completely natural thing to do. Where it gets tricky for you, is if this debt gets sold or written off as this will be noted on your credit file and RBS wouldn't offer you change for a phone after that. The really big issue for you, and I have no idea about the size of your disputed debt here, is that this could have serious knock-on repercussions in future. All the big lenders now share data through the "beaureau" system and if the words "high value facilities at beaureau" or "adverse credit" appear on a lending application, you're screwed, and for a very long time. Your only option after that would be imapired credit lenders and that's for credit cards, loans and mortgages. I'm glad you're enjoying your moment just now but they don't need to recover the funds to spoil your party here, in fact writing the debt off will do the most damage (to your future financial well being). I speak from personal experience of watching a very well paid exec have his account closed, be refused a follow-on mortgage deal, lose his digital banking and switch facilities and have his Royalties Gold account downgraded to a "key" account because he argued that he had been overcharged interest on his credit card at the end of a 0% deal. He did entirely the wrong thing by flatly refusing to pay anything until they had sent him an explanation of the charges and a written apology. After 6 months and several threatening letters his file went to CMS. They ultimately wrote off the £360 owed and cancelled another £1100 in charges and interest, but closed all his accounts and transferred the savings balance to a key account where he got no interest and had only a cashline card for access until he took the funds away. Even worse, when his mortgage deal ended he went to SVR and couldn't get another fixed rate or tracker deal from the bank. He shopped around and ended up with only Platfom Funding offering him mortgage facilities at a truly horrendous interest rate and moved his bank accounts to HBOS. I also have a suspicion that as his direct debits were cancelled he will probably have issues with paying monthly to BT and Scottish Power going forward. He did go to court over the debt and was told they were entitled to charge him as they did, although the court was critical of the bank's methods. It held that they were within their rights to close his accounts and mark his credit file with an unsettled default. He was told that even though he had since offered to repay the disputed amount, RBS were not bound to accept it as the notified period had elapsed some time ago and that they had followed their stated terms and conditions. The bank's request for costs was rejected however as the court ruled that they could have helped everyone by dealing with this better at the outset and instead of going to law. The ironic thing is that the RBS SVR is now far lower than his "special deal" was. What I would do is set out very clearly why you feel aggreived, state clearly that you are not unwilling to pay any debt legally attributable to you and that all you are seeking is clarification. I would certainly point out that as they cannot locate your Credit Agreement, it seems clear that they cannot argue for its enforcement. (the missing file is probably at Iron Mountain in a box with either a missing or wrongly numbered label which, given the sheer volume of files any bank will hold, is probably gone forever. This is why they are allowed to recreate your loan agreement.) What's obvious to me is that the size of the disputed amount is not going to cause RBS sleepless nights whether its repaid or not, its the principle thats valuable here. Just like bank charges, where operating costs have no relation to charges, but the sheer scale of money involved means that they have to take their argument as far as possible as the alternatives will mean a complete restructuring of the banking system with monthly charges for using a bank account. What you must never lose sight of here is that RBS have to beat you in order to dissaude the thousands of other people who would see your victory as a "green light" for them to follow. One other thing to contemplate - remember how RBS had to dispose of its stake in Santander because they were considering buying Abbey all those years ago? Competition law enforced this to prevent them becoming too dominant in the UK banking arena. Odd then, that last year the same law was pushed aside to allow Lloyds to "buy" HBOS even though they had no money available to do it. Subsequently, the same Lloyds went to the Government with their begging bowl for state handouts and got them, and the latest episode will see hundreds of lloyds workers lose their jobs as they try to reduce costs. My point is simply this - the Goverment is so far up sh*t creek with the banks they are breaking their own laws to help them. They are all feeling the pinch so much that common sense and the usual rules no longer apply, that's why you need to be 101% clear what you're after here because they ain't taking prisoners.

the change of description means nothing, it'll still be a "fixed rate unsecured loan" and will always have been capital and interest, unless it features a balloon payment at the end. The "periodic" just means paid by instalments. The FSA forced this change of description through this year. Same destination, different route that's all.

Whoa hold on there tiger! I keep hearing this "we own them" rant, do you think this gives us, the consumer, any special privileges? The real facts are that the banks still have all their power, the governments shareholding is held in an impotent special purpose vehicle with the long-term aim of getting more money out than they put into the deal. They didn't have any choice but to keep these banks afloat as they are so intimately spliced into the country's commerce that not to do so would have meant no more direct debits; no switch payments; no cash machines, Internet shopping would all but cease. Payroll staff would buckle under the pressure as everyone demanded their wages in cash etc. As an example consider the fact that 1 in every 2 card transactions goes through an RBS system at some point no matter which bank is involved. And this is before you consider the spectre of 70 to 90,000 bank staff on the dole costing a huge amount in benefits and contributing little or nothing to the economy through tax and national insurance. The government had absolutely no choice in this which is why they have little or no influence now. Fred Goodwin's pension is a case in point - they even signed it off for him as he walked off the pitch. We may not like it but they still have as much power as they ever did and if the Government is to get our money back, the banks have to keep on making profit and the more charges they refund the longer it will take. Rant over!

At the greatest risk of receiving a verbal mauling here I think its only fair to remind everyone that before any financial institution can offer help in restructuring loan agreements, the existing facility needs to go into default. The logic is simple but put emotion into the equation and it all seems a bit crazy. So in defaulting your loan they are actually moving from one part of their processes to another, where they could actually help you. Think of it as the fire brigade not coming out until the fire has actually started if you will. Crazy, but logical. The operators attitude stinks though and there is no excuse for it. On those grounds alone you should pursue them to the ends of the earth

The general format is to resolve within 48 hours (no further letters required); or acknowledge receipt of complaint and respond again within 10 days; if not resolved, send a letter explaining current progress and when they will respond again (10 more days); then another letter with further update. Theoretically the issue should be resolved with 28 days, but there's no hard and fast rule to this providing they keep updating you.. The main thing here is that the FSA can access the concerns system at any time to see how their process is being followed with fairly draconian fines etc for failures. Its in their own interests to get the concern closed as soon as possible though as all concerns are logged and the general flow of these is monitored by the FSA so any unduly long running concerns will show up and count against the bank.

I don't want to dampen your enthusiasm, but this is a word perfect standard initial response per their Concerns process. If you read between the lines it neither agrees nor disagrees with your points, just acknowledges that you have written. The real detail will come from the next response, once they have looked into your complaint and taken advice from Group Legal Services on how to answer you. Fingers crossed though as the FSA imposes very rigid time scales on the process from here on in and the clock is now well and truly ticking.

re-reading this case I can see that there does seem to be a case for non-compliance under the act. My experience is that a concern file will have been raised for your account and all contacts will have been recorded on this file. The main issues seem to be non-receipt of bank statements (they need to show they sent them) no advice of intention to default your account, depends greatly on what address details they have for you, whether or not they attempted to contact you along the way, or whether they decided to just default without notice. There's also the possibility that they have "parked" your file along with all the others claiming unfair charges under the FSA exemption granted until the court case has been settled. I would suggest a telephone call to Customer Relations, that should be interesting! As you are able to tell them when then received your recorded delivery letters they won't be able to claim non-receipt. This woill also push your case up the queue as its very much a case of the dog who barks loudest gets fed first. How much are we talking about in total now?

another thought has occurred to me. If the d/d was to repay the loan with the same bank there may be a "no cancellation" feature which is why they keep reinstating it. If you look at it from their point of view they could hardly stand back and let you cancel the payments that you agreed to make when you took out the loan. Harsh though it sounds, they are probably correct when they do this unless you have arranged with the lender to repay the loan in another way.

re RBS management fees - they are standard across all personal accounts and any amount of excess will trigger the charge. They run from one "charging period" to the next and are fixed so no matter how much you go over your limit, or how many times this happens in the same charging period, there will only ever be one management fee and always at the same rate. Cancelling Direct Debits are slightly more complicated due to the recently introduced "faster payments" system which everyone had been shouting out for but which means that the cancellation period moves further away from the actual payment date. In short, you now need to cancel several days before a payment falls due to ensure it doesn't get paid. If you did do this and they still paid it, you have a strong claim for a bank error with a full refund and possibly compensation