Thanks Ozzy, I appreciate it. It will be interesting to see how this all unravels but I'm just astounded that this has gone on so long, and how incompetent their internal affairs is!!

Thanks Ellie, it seemed like hard work but it wasn't all that bad. You can by all means call but to be honest they will not settle until you have a court hearing date, and even then they will be settling close to the date and not before. I called them today about hubby's claim as he's got a hearing date of 19th April, and they told me they are in no position to settle until around the beginning of April. I actually called them only to remind them that if they leave it too late, I will be applying for costs again, as with my own Barclays claim...

Right, am sending the following letter to BG today by recorded delivery: Davis & Co. Solicitors St Michael’s Rectory St Michael’s Alley Cornhill London EC3V 9DS 14 March 2007 Dear Sir/Madam, Mrs. Crash v British Gas Services Limited (BGS) Aylesbury County Court Claim xxxxxx Thank you for your letter dated 02 March 2007. I have read your comments with interest. I have several concerns with the information you have provided. According to the information in your letter, this is now the third time I am being informed that the debt of £306.94 was not passed to the meter in my house. ‘Please note that prepayment meters are set with a recovery rate of £5.00 but the meter will only start deducting once a debt has been assigned to the meter. Therefore, whilst the meter may have indicated that £5.00 was being 'recovered for debt', because no debt was placed upon the meter, there was no sum against which the deductions could be placed, and the actual value of gas passed through the meter would be the total credit placed upon it; and the indicated sum of £5.00 'recovered for debt' would not in fact be taken.’ Yet, according to your breakdown of figures, I have still managed to pay over and above the debt amount, despite this being a pre-payment meter. The amount you have shown is £7.53 in credit. Please can you explain to me that when I was exasperated with the debt situation and spoke to BGS customer services in February and March 2006, how is it that I was given so many different debt amounts? Or perhaps you can explain how it is that I was informed one week that the debt I owed was £6.13 on the ‘system’ and the following showed £13.65? Or that a physical check on the meter indicated £170.87 still outstanding? Or how it is possible that when I called customer services to inform them of this discrepancy, they immediately wiped this debt clear over the phone for me? I am enclosing the letter I sent to British Gas in March 2006, as it will explain in detail my concerns over the mis-management of this debt. I am amazed that I am still a customer of British Gas. Had it not been for this overpayment of debt, I would have moved to another company a long time ago. I am NOT satisfied with the figures you have given me. I believe there has been a serious error in either the meter, the assignment of the debt to the meter, or the way my account has been handled. I DO require a meter dump, and I have STILL to receive the statements and transactions I requested in my Subject Access Request letter, as I need to know if there was any manual intervention to the running of my account, and I need to see what the transactional information shows. Please note in reference to court claim xxxxxxx, although the £60 for the court claim fee/costs has been paid, as I am still awaiting the information I requested, the court claim will not be discontinued. I have already informed the courts of this. Until I receive this information, or a satisfactory resolution to my issues, I cannot make further comment, and therefore still hold BGS accountable for refund on the overpayment of this debt by £393.06. I look forward to receiving my statements/transactional, and meter dump information from you within the next 14 days. I would expect this to be ample time to resolve a query that has been ongoing for almost five years now. Should I not receive a satisfactory response, then I will be escalating my complaint to Energywatch and to the Information Commissioner’s Office. Yours faithfully, Mrs. Crash cc: Roger Carr Chairman, British Gas Sam Laidlaw Chief Executive, British Gas Helen Alexander CBE Non-executive Director, British Gas Phil Bentley Managing Director, British Gas We'll see what happens....

THAT I'd have to see!! Good luck!

A couple of things Lou - firstly, are you still at the address, or do you have access to the address you held for the account? Secondly, my thoughts are that you can absolutely reclaim these charges on your own, because as a joint account holder as long as you have/had equal authority over the account, you'd be able to do what you liked with it, except as they say, changing addresses etc. I've recently reclaimed from a joint account with Halifax and my husband was never involved at any stage, I didn't need his signature either. My only concern is that if you successfully reclaim those charges, there could be come-back from your ex-bf on his 'share' of the money. You may have to give him half, unless you can prove you were the person who mainly handled the account back then. Just bear all this in mind, especially since he may one day want to reclaim charges from this account and realise that you've already done it and kept all the money!

May be a toughie, but is certainly worth fighting for...I'd go for it. You can start by sending a S.A.R. requesting all statements and transactional information on your account and then take it from there. If you have reason to believe that the money was taken out of your account fraudulently, you are within your rights to reclaim what Lloyds made you pay back in to cover it.

Sounds good to me...they haven't complied fully with the SAR so give them what's left of the 40 days since you sent the letter. If 40 days are already up, give them 7 days to comply, or you will commence county court action. You can also give them a quick call...sometimes if they know they've made a boo-boo, they send out the remaining statements super-duper quick.

Hmm, interesting...it is for the actual hearing, but they've asked for the docs way in advance. Never mind, maybe the courts just want to get a bit more organised Read through the court bundle link I gave you and start putting it all together in time for the deadline. You'll need to make three identical copies - yours will be all the original docs, which you'll need to bring to court (if it ever gets to that!) and a copy each to the court and the bank.

Cross out the confidentiality bit and the bit which says I agree to these terms, then sign it and send it back.

WOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! I am SOOOO pleased for you! You've done it, WELL DONE!!!

Thanks Andrew, I do understand about the service not being a penalty but as you say, it's a question of what they do for that fee. Anyway at £100 a month me thinks they should do more than they do at present..which is diddly squat! Oh well, all the more fun and games!

Lively got there before me....lol! Just for your info, an additional £100 fee for the AQ is only payable if your claim is over £1500. No other docs need to be attached at this stage as you'll get an opportunity to do this later

Excellent Moses, just proceed as normal now. You file yours, Halifax file theirs, and eventually you'll be issued with the final hearing date. Once you have this, closer to the date, Halifax will be calling you to settle. They waffle a lot initially to try and get you to concede for less. Make sure you stick to your guns in the conversation as it'll soon turn into a full settlement

Hi Reidy, you can put the following in the section G: "I am respectfully requesting that my claim be allocated to the small claims track. This issue is not a complicated one; it is an issue of fact and not of law. The issue is only whether the money levied by the Defendant in respect of its customer’s contractual breaches exceed their actual costs incurred. I am happy to pay their actual costs and I am surprised the Defendant did not counterclaim for these, because I would have reduced my claim without argument. However, the continuing problem is (in common with the hundreds of other cases currently being brought by other bank customers) that the banks refuse to reveal the details of their penalty-charging regime. As the banks have a fiduciary duty towards their customers, they have a duty to deal straightforwardly and in utmost good faith. Accordingly, I would respectfully ask that the court in this case, not withstanding allocation to the small claims track, order : i) Summary Judgement as the Defendants defence did not answer the particulars of claim and consisted of no grounds for defence; OR ii) Standard Disclosure. I believe this would bring a rapid end to this litigation." As for the schedule, I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you want, you can send an updated SOC now, and advise that you're enclosing it (covering letter will do) or you will get an opportunity to submit an up-to-date one at court bundle stage anyway. HTHs

Cab, this is just an allocation hearing isn't it? In which case you're not the first to have to attend this as these are for the judge to determine how/what/when the final hearing should be etc. Barclays probably won't turn up, which is good for you, or better still, they may call you a couple of days before to start discussing settlement. Barclays are notorious for not budging until days before the final hearing so you may have a while yet Good luck and try not to panic

Thanks for this, just subscribing for the future fight I'll be having with HSBC for my bro's business account (Ltd co.) Just out of interest, they now charge a management fee of £100 a month on his account, and don't charge him penalty fees anymore. One in place of the other hey?! Any thoughts on this?

Hi stobbsy, you need to check whether this is the actual hearing or an allocation hearing etc. For the actual hearing you are normally asked to send in all documents you intend to rely on in court, usually by 14 days before the hearing. I'm not sure why they've asked you so far in advance which makes me think it might not be the actual hearing but an interim one, so do check and let me know. In the meantime, here's some background reading for you! http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bank-templates-library/33060-basic-court-bundle.html

Hi jt2k6, and welcome, In answer to your question, the paid referral fees sound like penalties, so go ahead and reclaim them. At the end of the day it is up to Barclays to provide a breakdown of these charges. Until they can or do, you can claim all the penalty charges they have applied to your account; If you have all your statements then what are you waiting for??!! No need to carry out the first step (as this is done to get hold of the statements) go straight on to working out how much you have been charged over the past few years, and send them a preliminary letter requesting it all back

Posted this before but it doesn't seem to have come up? Anyway, welcome CnP, just spend your time reading people's threads...especially the 'Settled/Won' ones as they give hope that this will end up in your favour P.S. It's best not to use language such as 'steal'...they have 'unlawfully' charged you

Jojo, you can call them by all means, but in doing so, you are giving them reason to think that you won't see this through till the end. It is very early days at the moment and Barclays tend not to discuss diddly-squat until at least a court hearing date is issue. Don't give them the satisfaction of thinking that you're desperate for your money. See it through to the end, get the lot

Hi Gav, you don't have to respond to their offer, especially if it is very close to when you're about to file your court claim. So go ahead with that if you want to, they'll soon know you've rejected their 'generous' offer. You can, of course, send them a letter from the templates to say that you'll accept it as partial payment, and pursue the rest in court. Either way, they know what the next stage is, as you've already told them!

Called the court today as not heard anything. Have been issued with a court date of 19th April for the small claims hearing. I guess the fun begins from about 10th April then!

Thanks EL, remember, I started out thinking gawd how on EARTH am I gonna do this and succeed? But I did!! And if I can do it, anyone can. Glad you enjoyed the thread

Have patience my dear, they are allowed the full 40 days remember