Abbey head office address: Abbey National House 2 Triton Square Regent's Place London NW1 3AN Janey

Hi Lisa, You should send a preliminary approach letter requesting they refund your charges. Give them 14 days to respond in your favour. If they don't respond or they refuse to give you your money back, then send them the letter before action giving them another 14 days. If they still refuse to back down, then file a claim with the court. There are letter templates here: (cut and paste into your browser) http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=33 I sent my preliminary approach letter today, addressed to the head office by recorded delivery (cost £1.00 including postage) Address: Abbey National House 2 Triton Square Regent's Place London NW1 3AN Re. interest, just copied this from a thread by Spiceskull "To give you a rough guide, you can claim for everything on your statements that is not a justifiable service fee, or justifiable interest: Claim: * Penalty Charges applied to your account. This is for exceeding overdrafts, referral/representation of DD’s and SO’s, cancellation of DD’s and SO’s, card misuse charges - the list is long! * Interest charged to your account for any of the above * When the interest is applied to the penalty charges, then this interest should be included in your claim * If your transaction history identifies what interest is applied for what reason, then be honest about the amount you request * If the interest is not itemised, then claim for ‘Interest Charges,’ and the onus will be on the bank to demonstrate the proportion they are entitled to Don't Claim: * Agreed fees, such as £5 monthly overdraft arrangement fee * In any 'charging month' if you have an interest charge, but no penalty charges, then clearly this is 'legitimate' interest charged to your overdraft. Do NOT claim for this * Additionally, this figure can be used to apply an 'average' to your interest 'proper' charges over the months - i.e. deduct this figure from 'Interest Charges' each month, and the remainder will be an approximate figure for interest applied to penalty charges * Any concept of costs or time at this time * Interest other than that which appears on your statements * Interest at 8% APR (that comes when you raise your claim at court)" Good luck Janey

OK, that's good. Just got the collywobbles about starting the ball rolling and my charges total just over £1,010 for the last six years. I've been a customer of Abbey for 28 years, since I was 17 and sort of felt some (misguided) loyalty to them. But not since reading this forum. Now, I feel like I want to kick butt, especially as we just last month finally paid off our mortgage, which we again stayed loyal to them for the whole 28 years (!) and were not tempted to change to another bank to get cashback/more favourable terms etc., only for Abbey to stiff us for £225 redemption fees. Thanks for your encouragement sweetie, gonna go for it - big hug from me. Janey

Ooerr Lueeze, I'm was just about to type my Preliminary Approach letter and have just read your comment above. Is this true? are people now actually going to court ? Don't know what to do now ........ Janey

Hi everyone, Sorry if this information is posted somewhere but I have searched and cannot find it. Can anyone advise what address I should use to send my Preliminary Approach letter to for Abbey. Head Office, Complaints Department or do I just send it to my local branch ? or e-mail, and if e-mail, should I confirm with a letter. Thanks for your advice Janey

Hi Spiceskull, That's a great help, thanks very much. I'll try andwork out what interest is in relation to charges I incurred. Janey

Hi guys, I'd just like to say how fantastic I think this site is and how grateful I am to Dave and everyone else on Bank Action Group who so selflessly give of their time (which must be hours upon hours) to help people out. I think you all are great. Now, sorry if this is a bit of a daft question. I'm trying to calculate how much money Abbey owe me. I've read the "Preliminary Approach before action" letter and I'm a bit confused about the bit that says "plus £XXX which you have charged me in overdraft interest for the sum which you have taken …… I've got lots of entries on my statements which say IDB (interest debit) but there are many more of these than there are charges. To be honest, my account was almost always in overdraft so how do I know which of these IDB's are connected to the charges I incurred for unpaid DD's etc. ? (or are they all ?). Hope someone can help me. Janey

At 7.30 p.m. on 26 February I requested copy statements for both my accounts back to January 2000 via e-banking (no mention of a charge anywhere on screen). A couple of days later I received a letter dated 27th February saying they had "received my request and had passed it to the administration department as they've been archived so they'll send them to you shortly." (still no mention of a charge). After a couple of weeks they had not arrived so I called the phone number on the letter - 08456 090014 Customer Account Service Excellence and said that I had not received them and was told that they would progress my request. About a week later, I received some sheets of paper which were not actual statements but a list of all transactions on my account including the date, what the transaction was, i.e. transfer, ATM, Visa payment etc., the date, amount and balance, and when a charge had been applied to my account, it said CHG. However, they only sent this info. for one account. A week later, I got some more lists but they were a repeat of the first lot! I'm still waiting for the other account info. and have called various numbers to expedite and "should receive it this weekend". I don't appear to have been charged for this info. at all and I can wait, I'm just biding my time. Janey

I'm about to begin the process of claiming my charges back from the Abbey, just waiting for some copy statements then I'm good to go!. Just a couple of questions if anyone can help (I've read the FAQ and cannot find my queries there but apologies if I missed them). I have two accounts with the Abbey, a current account and a saver account, both of which in the last six years, have incurred charges although not for some time. My question is, should I combine the charges on both accounts into one request for repayment or should I do each one separately? If separately, would I have to file two small claims actions? Hope someone can advise me. Thanks in advance Janey