Have you contacted them in advance to request the money back? I'm not sure, but I think you have to show that you've given them a reasonable period to pay it back. I've got my statements and they owe me about £3000, however, I'm giving them the 14 days to consider paying it back, and on the expiry of that date giving them another 14 days under the LBA (see Library), thereafter applying to the courts for the money back. Not sure how it will all work out - I'm still only a law student!

Hi - not sure how to deal with it! I've yet to decide whether to use the English or Scottish Courts system. Moneyclaim seems a good system, and I do have an address in England I can use, however, the convenience of using Edinburgh Sheriff Court is not something to be sniffed at, so I may be following the same course as you in pursuing this via our own legal system. It will be good training for me as I'm now in 2nd year of a Law degree so consider it valuable experience. Something I pointed out the the Halifax when they phoned.

No way!!! I'm not changing my 11 yr old phone number because one department of the Halifax doesn't speak to the other. If anything, they've just made me even more determined to take them to court for the full extent of the charges. I have, however, registered a complaint with the Telephone Preference Service today about the number of calls they have made which rings once or twice before hanging up, and am shortly to prepare a complaint to HBoS themselves. They are making me angry, and definitely taking them all the way now.

And another phone call at Sunday lunchtime from the Halifax!!!! "You're beyond your overdraft limit can you make a payment today?", that less than 24 hours after another part of the Halifax offered me over £1000 to settle. DO THEY NEVER BLOODY LISTEN?! How many times do you have to write, fax, phone, etc.................... "Could you phone Customer Services and ask them to give Collections a call about this?" No. I have a dispute with the Halifax - not the Customer Services Team, but the Halifax as a whole. You blinking well phone them. Complaint being sent today. It will result in sod all but it will make me at least relay the strength of my feeling to them. "I will not let these people bug me any bloody more"

Oooooooh, my mantra may have worked! Today came an offer for just over £1000 but no statements Anyhow, it transpires that there's over £3000 worth of charges on the account since 2003 (Apparently I was a good girl before that - ties in with the time of my redundancy), so I think I'll wait to see the list of charges coming through (should be Monday or Tuesday) and then decide where to take this from here. "I will not let these people bug me anymore.................."

Another threatening letter from the Halifax and another 2 phone calls yesterday, and one more today Despite the fact that the account is in dispute, and that I have phoned them before, and that I have responded to their calls, and that I have faxed a response to their letters, and that I have written to them on several occasions......................................they persist in making daft phone calls while I ahve previousy advised that their account is in dispute. It is beyond predictable and has now just become boring. I did advise the caller today that the course of action as becoming harassment because of the extent of the contact. I couldn't quite remember the name of the legislation to quote, but hey, I think I got my point across, "I WILL be pursuing legal action you for your charging regime over the past 6 years (I'm using the English court), and I believe that you owe me between 4 and 5 thousand pounds. So continued calls about £60 beyond my overdraft is a joke while I'm still awaiting a reponse to my recorded delivery letter of early Sept". At present the account has been put on hold, and hopefully that will stop the calls in the meantime. But I am fed up of these direct diallers phoning me up and annoying me and everyone else at work. When I defeat those Evil forces of Darkness at Trinity Road and get all that lovely wonga back, I will be treating myself to a fancy phone that plays a tacky muzak version of 'Sexbomb' or 'Who let the dogs out' while I leave Banks and other organisations on the end wonder when the hell a human will answer. Press 1 for more tacky advertising jingles Press 2 for some more options and more patronising jingles. Press 3 for another menu with a long silence and no other options to get out of the present call loop hell Press 4 to speak to a patronsing person. Repeat, "I will not allow these people to bug me anymore...........I will not allow these people to bug me anymore......................"

Your solution sounds very similar to mine! DPA response way quicker than the Halifax (still waiting - wake me in 2045!!!), and with one phone call a settlement at approx £1800!!! I've now spent days at work saying to people, "Yu got an MBNA account - ever had charges". It's becoming an obsession!

Great news! It's great to hear that you got what you wanted. So many of these places are following a formulaic approach to refuding customers that I hope my favourable outcome is inevitable!

Hi - I've also had the gubbins from Nationwide about my 'complaint'. Darn tooting right we're not happy!!!

Good luck with it. Hopefully it will settle before then and you can avoid the hassle of having a day in court. I'm always sure they will. Incidentally I noticed 2 or three people taking Banks to court in Edinburgh over the coming week. I wonder if those cases will be settled without needing to eve appear. Either way, I'm sure you'll win!!!

I hope you do get the settlement you want - the Halifax seem to have some of the highest charges of all, certainly of all the Banks I have been with. It would certainly be reassuring to hear of others getting a favourable settlement while I'm waiting for my DPA response! Good luck!

And I got it!! Woo hoo - that's a few drinks on them for me this weekend!

What evidence do they have that you lived at that address? Do you have copies of bank statements, etc, for the time that you lived at your parent's address? Was your driving licence registered there? Has someone contacted the Council and given your details? Did the person actually living there have a similar name to you and that is why you are being chased? Was your driving licence / Uni / wage slips, etc, registered at your parent's address? What about speaking to your local Councillor? Turn up at their surgery. The Council staff will have 2 days to respond to any query that your Councillor raises internally, whereas us mere members of the public are lucky to be on the '10 working day' reponse time. It sounds remarkably similar to some guff I have had to deal over both Council Tax (sent bills to an address that didn't exit in a town that wasn't even in the county that I gave them the details for - then issued a summary warrant against me even though their records proved that I gave them the correct address and some bozo decided to enter into the system completely wrongly!), or when I got chased by a DCA over a gas bill for an address I never lived at purely because my name was similiar to the person they were chasing. In the second instance they used a tracing company to find me, and they based their whole pursuit of me on the basis that I had the same first initial and surname as the person they were looking for. Seriously, it does not take much for these companies to start action with little or no foundation. Speak to your MP, your Councillor, arrange to see the Head of Finance at your local authority, write via Recorded Delivery to all parties concerned and provide anything you can by way of evidence whether it be bank statements or even a written statement signed by your parents saying that you were there at during the dates concerned. I'm no lawyer, but I have been put in a situation where these bampots have made my life hell and scared the life out of me. It was resolved but it did take a few days of my time off work, a meeting with my Councillor (who was by coincidence Convenor of Finance at the Council and able to do something quite quickly), a call to my MPs office and a fax sent by them to the Council, as well as turning up at the reception of the Council Tax HQ and telling them I would be contacting my local press (distribution half a million!) if it was not sorted. All this was on a Friday afternoon, and after a worry filled weekend, I had a letter of apology from the Head of Finance hand delivered on the Monday morning and it was resolved. Don't know if that helps, but I would use every resource available to you to have it resolved. If the Council Tax Officer themselves will not listen to you, then it's all guns blazing. Don't be afraid of using the 'big guns' when required. Although politicians are on the whole useless, you can't over-estimate how rapidly something which has a VIP's (as they are known in Councils) name on it can get resolved. They communicate with the head of the department in question, and it bypasses everyone elses case to get a response. Good luck.

Well done! It seems that out of all the Banks and FIs, MBNA seem to have just accepted that the law is against them and it's better to just cough up, deal with their CUSTOMERS (and I've highlighted that because a lot of these places forget that we are customers, not ****) and reach a satisfactory conclusion. And they have actually went up in my estimations for the way they've dealt with my claim.

Nearly £1800 agreed over the phone today! Woo hoo!!!! Now just to wait and see my existing balance fall to zero and get the little cheque arrive with the remainder as night out money (not to mention a donation to the site!)

Well, that's me prepared my LBA. My total comes to over £2,500 using the spreadsheet from the template library. Fingers crossed. Let's see how it goes!

Yeah, I had exactly the same letter, "..bla bla.........if you want a full DPA please send a cheque, etc" yet in the envelope they returned to me was the £10 cheque I originally sent them along with a copy of my driving licence! I did speak to one of the MBNA staff today and she seemed helpful - will call tomorrow once I've run the charges through the spreadsheets attached from the Library section.

Is there much of a difference between a mad axe man and a bailiff??!!! At least the axeman would be honest!

Not brave - just entitled! I suppose I'm quite lucky in that going to court is a fairly regular part of my job, but I've never been the one raising an action before! I hope Nationwide are quicker to resolve than Halifax as they are next on my list.

Speaking of the 'least problematic account' that I mentioned, I have came hom today and received a list of charges on that account and an offer to settle of £640. Confusingly, they seem to have only provided charges for one account rather than the three, so I think I'll have to contact them AGAIN! They are prerilously close to the 40 day deadline for providing the info requested (after all, they only provided a third of what was asked for) so hopefully that will encourage them even more to just settle and make me a happy girl!

More pestering calls from the Halifax asking me to resolve my overdraft issues and not willing to put matters on hold while our dispute is resolved. Oh well, looks like another letter of complaint going to them.

Sorry, meant after sending the LBA!!! Getting ahead of myself there! The thought of getting back all those charges I struggled, worked extra hours, went without, etc, to meet was just to exciting for me on a Tuesday afternoon. Michael, like to think of myself as brave!

Well, well.................................received my statements from Nationwide on Friday and have spent this morning tallying up the charges making full use of the spreadsheets on this website. From initially thinking I was only about £800 worse off because of these charges, I'm actually over £2000 worse off! So, they'll get an opportunity to pay me or it's Moneyclaim or the Scottish Courts if I can be bothered with multiple claims to be recompensed for their unlawful charges. It's my money, they cannot justify those costs, and I want it back. Time to pick out my new bathroom suite!

Looks like you and I are going to be going through this at roughly the same time but with you a few weeks ahead! I'll be right behind you picking up whatever scraps of leave of Sainsburys in your wake!

Well done!!!! Imagine how long it would have taken to pay that back without getting the charges back!!! That's the way I'm looking at mine - it's a chance for me to pay off the remaining balance quicker and try and get back to an even keel. Well done!!!! 10/10