Being charged three separate charges for returning 3 direct debits on one day - although it is shown on my statement that I put money into my account later on that date. Also a monthly charge and interest. How can the OFT, FSO etc allow this?

Have to go back to court - if I cannot work things out with the bank. Have see it mentioned on here that if you go for the contractural rate of interest it is on the grounds of reciprocity - they use a high rate so we should be able to as well. There is a sound file "podcast" on this site somewhere that explains it well. Good Luck!

My case is at court now - between hearings. I claimed 20% and wrote on my forms that it was "less than the contractural rate charged by the bank throughout the period of my claim and which was then 29.7%". (Last letter from them i see it is now 29.85%). Bank are trying to only pay me 8%. Does anyone actually know what the actual interest rate on going over your overdraft limit has been over the last 5 years - or where to find it? I might need this for my next court appearance.

I have had to appear in court. Bank sent a letter to the court initially saying they would defend. Then less than a week before court they sent a another letter to court telling them the matter had been settled with me - but it had not. They put an amount into my bank account but not the full amount I was claiming and no letter or phone call to me. I was advised to go to court and tell the court that they had not contacted me, that the matter was not settled and that they had made a part payment only - which I did. The court has undertaken to write to the bank and tell them this and I have to go back to court in a couple of weeks. When I got back from court a letter from the bank letter was waiting for me - without a postmark - as it was delivered by some mail/courier company. They wrote that they had paid me 2 days before they sent the letter to the court (actually they paid the part amount 2 days later). Also in the "without prejudice" letter they say that the amount put into my account was the amount of the charges plus the court fee plus 8% interest. I was claiming the charges plus 20% (which i wrote on the claim was lower than the lowest contractural rate that they had charged me) plus expenses. So they were probably trying to settle to avoid my being awarded a higher interest rate and other expenses, such as postage and travel. Dont know why they did not send the letter earlier. So, you should probably be prepared to go to court. I didn't think I would have to but ... If you do have to go to court ask to speak to the In Court Advisor before hand. They will give you info on where to stand in court, what to call the sheriff - "mi'lord or mi'lady" in Scotland etc. Good Luck!

I think you have misread my post. I did not say that all the Royal Bank's profits were made up of penalty charges. Also I did not suggest that penalty charges will go up. I was pointing out that if penalty charges go and it becomes standard to pay for a current account, I imagine the standard payments will start off "small and reasonable" then they will go up and then they will probably not be challengeable under the present law in the way that penalty charges are now.

Not sure if you are referring to the cash deposit or the transfer in my post above. Re the transfer to pay the bill shown above, I have a receipt from a cash machine showing the funds still "available" in my account on 24/02/07. I think this is very misleading. Re the cash deposit taking days to clear - I put cash into abank deposit envelope and deposited it in a cash machine and they treated it as a cheque.

This is from the website of a bill I paid recently Payment Received Date and time:22 February 2007 00:59:05 GMT (This is the date company x received your payment.) Form of payment:Credit Card Visa Amount credited: £xx.xx below is an extract from my bank statement 26Feb07 DEB company x CD ???? xx.xx xx.xxDR I have changed the name to "company x" and blocked out the amounts cos I dont want them to know this is me! So the money went out on 22/02/2007 but the money was showing as still in my account and available to be withdrawn up until 26/02/2007. So if I had not realised this and made a withdrawal I would have gone over my overdraft limit and they would have got another penalty charge. Isn't this illegal or something?. Don't we live in an age when you can get real time up to date statistics? Since I started reclaiming charges, they have also refused my phone calls, left me on the line for 10 minutes after being told I was being put through to a special department who deal with this issue and a cash deposit has been treated as a cheque and been unavailable for days until it "cleared". Good old Lloyds TSB.

Regarding the "new" idea that banks should impose current account charges to all accounts instead of penalty charges, I have a few comments 1) If this is a new idea then it is using the old "divide and rule" strategy. It will annoy people who have never had penalty charges applied (or who do not want to reclaim them) and they will blame us for causing the banks to impose charges for current accounts on everyone. Someone has already had a go at me because of this. 2) I do not think it is a new idea. My bank have been trying to get me to change to a new type of current account for the last few years. They try to tempt me with "benefits" (such as discounts on joining organisations or taking out insurance) which I would not actually use. The price I would pay for these benefits would be a monthly charge on my new superdooper account! In a week when the Royal Bank of Scotland has announced the biggest profits of any Scottish firm in history, I don't think we should imagine there is any softening of banks attitudes to making a profit going on. The banks will make sure there is something in it for them if they stop imposing penalty charges. So we should beware of these new current account charges and try to ensure that they are not applied to existing accounts because whenever these proposed "new" charges are applied I imagine that it wont be long before the charges start creeping up and up and we wont be able to claim them back.

I have commenced court proceedings against Lloyds TSB in Scotland and since making the claim they have taken more money from my account in charges. Am unsure whether to lodge an "Incidental Application to the Court" to have my schedule ammended or whether to wait and file another calim when this one has gone through. Does anyone have experience of this and can advise?:idea:

Lloyds TSB did something similar to me in June 2006. I arranged a transfer by internet banking to be paid and I was sure there was money there but somehow this resulted in a penalty charge as they said there were no funds availble at the time they paid it. I said that I arranged for it to be paid "As Soon As Possible" which I took to mean only "When Money Was Available" and if there was no money availble they should not have sent it. The reply was something like they treat Internet Transfers & Payments as "Standing Orders" and so the same penalties are incurred - so yet another £35 was taken!

Thank You Michael Browne - Will prepare new "letter before court" and new schedule just claiming back the Penalty charges and read up on Scottish Court Procedure stuff then send the letter and new schedule (including the latest charges) and be ready to proceed to court this time.

Hi - Help Appreciated. Did letters 1, 2 and 3 and have had what seems the usual reply from Lloyds TSB - no money, go away. Have now done nothing for about 4 weeks but am getting psyched up to carry on and go to court. Meantime, since I sent the letters and schedule of charges, they have taken another couple of £35 charges. My Questions are - 1/ Would like to use the online claim facility but do not know if I can do this in Scotland? 2/ Was thinking of doing new schedule of charges and letter before action so newer charges are included - also think I made mistakes on previous schedule and included all interest charges etc - not just penalty charges. Is it a good idea to do new letter and schedule? 3/ Am going away over Christmas and wonder if I should leave it until January as I don’t know if I would have to attend court don’t want to have to cut my holiday short to come back to court? Have done reading here and will do more but if anyone has the info and time to help me with answers to these questions without my spending ages looking in the wrong places for info, Aunty would really appreciate it. Thanks

I have just received my statements of charges etc from Loyds TSB. I sent the letter to my branch, recorded delivery and when I telephoned a few weeks later they said they had not received it and I had to go through loads of phone calls being passed from dept to dept to Customer Services etc to try to find out what had happened / ask by telephone for the data required. Finally spoke to someone who said he would sort it out. Meantime, telephoned and went online to Royal Mail and it was confirmed that a bank employee had signed for the letter weeks beore. A couple of days later a letter arrived from my branch manager saying my letter had just arrived that morning and returning my letter and £10 saying another dept was now dealing with the matter. Trustworthy, reliable old bank and bank manager! Perhaps I should impose penalty charges for the bad service !!??