After being offered a settlement sum of approx 400 against my claim of 1000 I rejected this and have now had a letter retracting the offer and ststing that they will await my court claim. My question is how do I begin the court claim. This site is very useful but finding an abc list is quite hard. Do I need to go through a company or simply pay my £120 fee to the small claims court? What should I write to the small claims? Should I write to Natwests litigation department to inform them first? Any help greatly appreciated as this can be quite a daunting and confusing time. Thanks

I must say others peoples stories and advice is completly invaluable and much appreciated and makes me more positive about taking my claim further than the less than 50% settlement offered to me. My main concern is though (and this may sound a silly one) but I am not really a maths person (being a designer), I am not sure about what kind of spreadsheet to do and when I try to find spreadsheets to download to work out interest I either cant download them or cant unsderstand them. Although I would like to carry on with my claim Iam unsure about how to proceed. Would I need to go to a solicitor and begin a small claim or write back to the bank letter refusing the offer? Any help or advice greatly appreciated.

I have been going through the process with NatWest to claim back £950 that I have only incurred int eh last two years. They have written to me offering £420, should I accept or not?

Thanks Nora, its nice to know others are doing the same. I have already started action and tallyed my charges together after paying the obligitory 10 pounds for my back statements. The one thing I didn't do though was work out my interest on to the charges as I simply couldn't get my head around how to do this which is a shame! After sending my first letter to the bank I had one back saying they were looking into the matter and the complaint had been assigned to a specific perswon in customer relations. A couple of days after that (this monday night) I received a letter ststing that they felt the bank charges were fair. I was pretty annoyed at this letter for a couple of points, a/ the person that wrote back to me was not the person who the initial letter ststed was looking after my case. b/ althought the letter was addressed to me it was headed to a MRS SHEPHERD (not my name as I am a Miss Brady) and so I felt as though they had not even bothered lookign into this matter and had simply dismisse dme off hand and c/ since my initial letter I was charged another whopping 60 pounds fee. Naturally I was not amused and replied ststing I intended to take matters further and enclosed all of my above points with copies of their letters to me includding the one to MRS SHEPHERD to make a point! I only wish I had worked out the interest fees now as a matter of principal and urge all who read this to do so!! I have also takene the precaution of opening a new account with a company who stste clearly they wil nto exceed any charge for £12.

Hi Guys, I have decided to join this group after realising just how much I was being charged by my bank (60 pounds a go some months) and realising that I didn't have to just sit back and except this. Budgeting on a tight income is hard enough without being penalised so harshly.Unfortunetly it becomes a loop, you are charged and dont realise so you budget goes out and you go over your overdraft again and are charged yet again!!