Hi, A friend of mine is a single mum on income support and got a letter today from her bank (Bank of Scotland) saying due to two unpaid DDs they were going to take almost £80 in charges from her account this coming Friday. Now while I know all about claiming back charges from past six years (in the process with the Woolwich myself at the minute) I'm not sure how it stands with phoning them up and saying "don't take those charges". As I understand it they're not allowed to touch benefits, is that correct? That's the only money she has going into the account. With a four year old son and Christmas looming she can't afford to lose £80. In fact, these charges would eat up her benefits for the whole week, leaving her nothing to live on. I'm hoping appealing to the bank's better nature might work (ha!) but failing that, is there anything I can quote them to get them to stop the charges, or credit them back? Any advice much appreciated. Cheers, Baz

Well I posted off my letter asking for repayment on the 22nd and this morning got a reply. Impressively fast. Of course it's the bog standard "we aim to have your issues resolved at some point before the end of time" letter, so I'll be going ahead with my fourteen day timetable and sending the next letter then. This is fun!

Hi all, Finally got round a few weeks ago to sending in my DPA request to the Woolwich. On Friday they sent me a list of charges, which come to £696.44. What infuriated me more than anything about the list is that it shows two charges for £30 a time taken from my account on CHRISTMAS EVE 2002! This put me into unauthorised overdraft the day before my son's first Christmas. They're obviously full of the joys of the season at The Woolwich, eh? Anyway, template letter has gone away today asking for all charges to be refunded. I'll keep you all posted on what happens. I'm also going through the process with the Bank of Scotland for my ex partner, but will post about how I get on getting her money back in the BoS forum once there's anything worth reporting. Cheers for a brilliant site. What an excellent community it is. Baz

Any update on this? Love to hear how it's going.