Before I actually get tthis in the post, can someone have a quick look at my planned LBA I have added my comments / queries in dark red: Freepost RLTA-CSUE-TCHC Head Office Customer Relations London E14 5HP LETTER BEFORE ACTION Dear Sir/Madam, ACCOUNT: xx-xx-xx, xxxxxxxx Your Reference: xxxxxxxx As taken from their acknowledgment I am very disappointed that you have failed to respond positively to my letter of the 10th October 2006. Added the word "positively" as they did acknowledge my letter, albeit with a standared response I now understand that the regime of 'fees' which you have been applying to my account in relation to direct debit refusals, exceeding overdraft limits and so forth are unlawful at Common Law, Statute and recent Consumer regulations. I would draw your attention to the terms of the contract which you agreed to at the time that I opened my account. It is an implied term of that contract that you would conduct yourselves lawfully and in a manner which complies with UK law. I am frankly shocked that you have operated my account in this way as I had always reposed confidence in your integrity and expertise as my fiduciary. I love this line, I'd have never thought of the word fiduciary I calculate that you have taken £1295.00 from the period of 5th November 2004 to 4th September 2006. I am enclosing a copy of the schedule of the charges which I am claiming. I have already sent you a copy of this in my original letter of the 10th October 2006 I require repayment in full of this money. If you do not comply fully within 14 days then I shall begin a claim against you for the full amount plus my costs and without further notice. Do I want to mention "...plus interest plus my costs" here? I know I'm not claiming the 8% at this point, but I don't want to have closed off that avenue down the line Yours faithfully, I'm planning on posting this on Tuesday (giving them 14 days from their acknowledged receipt of my preliminary letter). How does it look? Vince

The £100 is part of the costs you are claimingf from the bank. So yes, you should get this back

Well, the 7 days is up (more than) and Barclays have replied to my first letter (the GLC one) Thank you for your letter received at this office on 12 October. I am sorry you are unhappy with teh charges you have incurred. Your comments are receiving attention and one of my team will contact you as soon as possible May I take this opportunity to explain that whilst we will endeavour to respond to you within timescale outlined in your letter, we cannot fully guarantee that we will do so. Sometimes it does take longer to fully invesitigate a complaint. However we do aim to find a solution within four weeks. If we are not able to do so we will always write to you explaining what is happening. A full report or an update on our progress will be sent to you within eight weeks. Please refer to the enclosed leaflet which provides you with a more detailed explanation of how we will deal with this matter. Should you wish to discuss this matter further, please do not hesitate to contact us on 0207 116 4561 or via Freephone 0800 282390 Yours sincerely (so how long will it take by their timescale? As soon as possible? 4 weeks? 8 weeks? I don't thinkk so, they'll be acting a bit quicker than that) Now, my first thoughts are that this is a standard reply, but it seems different from what I've seen other folks receive as a casual brush off, and (sherlock holmes mode on) the spacing on the phone number suggests it was actually typed (by someone who doesn't know there is no such code as 0207) Still, I feel that my next step is to send the LBA.

Hi folks, I've just been reading through some of the posts on DVD-copying software and its suitablilty (in the PC World forum) and the discussion leant toward issues of copy-protection, which started me thinking about the whole issue (it crosses my mind every now and again), and as the thread title suggests, I feel you can break it down into three headings: Legality There are a couple of things here I'm not quite sure on here: 1) Does the DCMA have any effect in the UK? Surely it is US law (although I understand that an EU law is planned (or introduced? which is closely modelled on it). In certain countries (I am aware anecdotally of Iceland in this regard) it is perfectly legal to copy CDs and DVDs as there is a charge levied on the price of blank media, so the DCMA cannot apply in these circumstances (one country's laws cannot take precedence over another's in that second country right?) 2) I seem to recall (and I can't remember where I read this) it is legal in the UK to copy music from on format to another to enable playback on other equipment, so for example, I could record an LP or CD to cassette for use in the car (these days it's actually the other way round - LP/tape to CD), I believe this also applies to transfer from DVD-VHS, (even though there are technical limitations to that) - In all cases let us assume I bought the original CD/DVD but do not own the equipment to play it back in the place I choose, I would also classify transfer of my CD collection / iTunes downloads to mp3 for playback on my PC / mp3 player as part of this. Technicality Obviously, the technology to copy material from LP/CD to cassette/mp3/CD-R has been around for as long as those technologies have, but since the introduction of DVD (with its inbuilt CSS) and VHS (Macrovision) the simple act of copying material from one place to another has been made harder (although by no means unsurmountable). Music publishers seem to be rushing into the fray with Sony's infamous Copy Control system, by which they released "CDs" which did not conform to the Red Book standard (and so do not carry the standard CD logo), but seem to have overlooked / ignored the "analogue hole", even releasing albums that were widely touted as being uncopyable (I'm thinking of X&Y by Coldplay here - although to my mind, filling an album with Coldplay music is copy protection enough) on LP as well (great logic there guys) Each step the publishers make in trying to create stronger copy-protection just gives the enterprising software developers around the world (who can all collaborate thanks to the internet) newer tagrets to aim at, and each step make life for the average joe customer that little bit more awkward, I keep thinking of the old phrase my Dad used to say "any system created by a man, can be defeated by a man" (and he's the least technically literate person you could hope to meet) Ethics I have no problem whatsoever with paying for music or films, don't get me wrong here - I'm not condoning theft - I have a number of friends who are jobbing musicians and they deserve payment for their training, talent and creativity, however I do feel that restrictive copy-protection on an artist's album / film can give out quite the wrong signals, I would much rather be listening to a musician who values the fact I am hearing his music, than one who is interested only in the pounds and pence of his income. Many musicians have gone on record saying they do not want copy-protection on their albums (Chumbawamba spring to mind), many more are happy for fans to trade live concert CDs (Grateful Dead, U2) as it spreads their messages through their music (I don't want to put words into their mouths here) and even film-maker Michael Moore released the full version of Fahrenheit 911 for free download before it hit the DVD shelves, I don't suppose it did DVD sales any harm, and it tells an awful lot about how MM rates getting his message out vs bringing in the dollars. Sorry for this long and rambing post, but I thought I kick off a bit of a discussion on this issue - these are my thoughts, I'd appreciate anyone else's comments. If the whole thing's too OT then I'll apologise now. Vince

Hi folks, After picking up on both of your advice, I think my next step is going to be to send the LBA next Monday 23rd (ie 14 days after the preliminary letter, despite the mention of 7 days in the prelim letter) and from that point on, to stick with the templates from here. Is this letter best addressed to Leicester or London and does it make a difference? (I'm in Leicester as it happens so the question would be is Barclays internal mail any faster / more secure that Royal Mail?) - Maybe I'll just toss a coin... I'm actually beginning to look forward to this, although my finances are still a bit of state, a friend has offered to sub me any court fees, on the obvious understandng that he gets them back when we win (we WILL win, oh yes...). In the meantime I guess I'd better start plugging numbers into the famous interest spreadsheet so I know what I'm actually going to be claiming for. Cheers for the support, I'll keep you all posted (oh and I will be telling everyone I know about this site as well) Vince

Thanks Argyle, The reason I'm only going back two years is twofold 1) I already have the statements and can therefore skip the data protection act request merry-go-round phase (Actually, I've found a bunch of statements from 2001 and there aren't any fees on them, so the problem probably started for me much more recently), and what's more, as part of my budgeting plans to clear the OD I have entered all of them into Excel line-by-line (that was a fun Sunday afternoon!) so I can present them to Barclays. 2) over the last 2 years the amount comes to £1200, and to be frank, that's enough. I think I'll start all over again, using the templates on this site, I'm just a bit worried they'll see through the fact I'm obviously firing other people's bullets. Also, I am a bit panicked that they'll cease all DDs on my account and cause my mortgage to miss a payment - I'm hovering just outside my authorised OD of £1100 at the moment (currently at £1300) and have read a few horror stories about the banks closing accounts and demanding immediate repayment. With a track record like mine I think I'm going to struggle to open a new account as a parachute - any thoughts (I appreciate that's moving off topic there). Actually, I'm not panicked as such, but concerned. Vince (ready to regroup and start again)

Thanks Welly, I've just started with a rather lengthy post on the Barclays forum, so I'll let my concerns get answered over there. Vince

Hey CAG folks, OK, So I've come here a little late (I fear). Here's a little background, my current account with Barclays has been running with overdrafts & charges for a number of years, and has come to a crunch point where I need to stop all charges and claw my way back into the black (but that's a whole other story). A friend of mine heard last weekend's moneybox on Radio 4 about reclaiming banks charges and told me I could get them back. Like others I was naturally skeptical, but investigations on the net showed that the whole thing appears to be true, heck the BBC have it all over their websites, and I hear that Watchdog will be mentioning it next week (get ready for an influx of users after that). I first landed on the Govan law centre's pages and found the Motley Fool's forums enlightening - and it was from there that I came across CAG, and after reading the FAQ, I've signed up (obviously!). I'm a little worried though that I might have shot my bolt (for the want of a better phrase) - I have kept all my statements from the last couple of years (in fact most of them from the last few months were unopened - I'm really only just getting my mind properly switched on to managing this money, too late) so I can see that since Nov 2004 I have been charged in the order of £1200 paid referral fees. I downloaded and amended letter 2 from the Govan Law Centre (GLC) website (http://www.govanlc.com/step1_letter.html) and sent it to Barclay's customer relations department on Monday 10th Oct, but am slightly concerned about the following points in what I have done: 1a) The GLC letter gives Barclays only 7 days to refund (and I'm positive that ain't gonna happen) - I notice all the letters here give 14 days 1b) To my (non-legal) mind, the GLC letter looks quite harsh (to the point of defamation?) and having read the FAQ here regarding not calling the banks criminals I am slightly worried. 2) I sent the letter to the Customer Relations dept, because it was the only address on Barclay's website that looked likely - should I have posted it to my branch? - To be honest, I don't actually know which is my branch, is it the one that the sort code belongs to or the one that I actually use when I speak to a personal banker (these are in two cities about 150miles apart) 3) I'm only claiming for 2 years' charges even though the charges must have been in place prior to that, as that is all the data I have access to without a DPA request. Could the bank interpret this in such a manner that if I was really in the right and they were in the wrong, why not claim for all of it? 4) The OFT made their ruling in April, surely the banks will have altered their T&Cs to indemnify them against such claims by now? I realise I may have acted in haste and may have blown my chance at this, but any reassurance/advice you may be able to give, even if it is "Yes, you've blown it, forget about it" I will take with good grace and as a lesson learned. These are the facts, so it only remains for me to say thanks for taking the time to read this post, and thanks for any advice you can offer. Vince

Hi folks, Just joined, and am very interested in recovering bank charges, but am a little concerned about two things: 1) I assume the banks are aware of these forums, and that their legal teams are reading them, would any admissions / declarations here potentially damage a claim? 2) I think I may have jumped the gun two feet first by firing off the letter (amended as appropriate) that can be found on here http://www.govanlc.com/step1_letter.html (letter 2) to the customer relations department at Barclays, before reading the FAQ here, looks like this isn't the quick process that I had first imagined. So I'm not sure if I've already cocked up and even if I've sent the letter to the right people. I'll start a thread in the Barclays forum as soon as I've read and digested what I can from this site. Hope to see you all over there! Vince