Very true Bankfodder, but on the other hand, it's no skin off their nose. After all, it's not like you're going to be doing business with them again, and they can alter your credit file at will, so it's not hard for them to do.

Hello lidd, just a couple of comments. Is your overdraft greater than the amount they owe you? Also, bear in mind that The Banking Code specifically prohibits them from placing negative information with credit reference agencies if the amount owed is in dispute.

I've happily done both. Against Halifax at Dunfermline Sheriff court, and against Abbey at Central London county Court. I always assumed that there were two different rules involved - one which says that the case should be in the court nearest the Defender (Central London for Abbey), and a seperate rule which says that as a consumer I am entitled to sue in the court nearest me (Dunfermline for Halifax). Have I been working on a false assumption???

Just don't forget to make sure they clean up your credit rating when the time comes for them to settle...

This seems to be a very new approach from Abbey. I'm a bit further down the road with my claim against them - but not much, and I haven't had any of these nonsense letters. I've kept things extremely curt with them and left as little opportunity as possible for them to enter into a debate about it. Also, Janna, DO NOT let them make you feel threatened or intimidated. There are many many people on this forum who can give you all the moral support and assistance you need! Keep a steady nerve and you WILL prevail.

Hello gb050573,

Don't worry about being in Scotland for going after Abbey. I'm in Fife and am currently sueing Abbey at the Central London County Court (the nearest County Court to their head office). You won't be able to use the moneyclaim website, which you'll see mentioned a lot on this forum, because you need an English address for service, but you can download the necessary forms from the web very easily. The Clerk of Court is very helpful if you need help on the procedures.

Central London County Court

13-14 Park Crescent

London, W1N 4HT

Tel: 020 7917 5000

Fax: 020 7917 5014

From The Scotsman, Friday 17th March 2006. "Heroes and Villains" section

Hero: Brian Mullen

A big pat on the back to Brian Mullen of Manchester, who has successfully sued his bank for the return of £2,000 in charges he racked up as a student. He claimed the charges were illegal.

Now, going overdrawn is generally a daft thing to do and it's particularly daft if you've not arranged it with your bank first. But most people don't do it on purpose. For a start, they get hit with hefty penalty charges: Lloyds TSB charges up to £90 a month, for example; HBOS charges £28, as does RBS - plus exorbitant interest on the debt, of course.

Some people think this is fair enough and serves you jolly well right. But under contract law, any penalties must reflect a "genuine pre-estimate" of the loss - the fees can't be there to make a profit. So really, the charge should cover the cost of the computer sending you a letter, plus the real cost to the bank of the unauthorised borrowing. Which is likely to be a fair bit less than the actual charges.

In this case, the bank didn't defend the action so even though Mr Mullen won in court, it was a default judgment and has no bearing on any future cases. Until someone has the time, money and mental fortitude to battle it out to the bitter end with a bank's crack team of super-lawyers, we'll carry on paying over the odds for our banking misdemeanours.

By the way, HBOS made a pre-tax profit of £4.8 billion in 2005. RBS made £7.94 billion. Lloyds TSB, the poor loves, could only manage £3.47 billion. It's a tough life being a banker.

Mungo, are you in Scotland or England? If you're in Scotland you won't be able to claim £3000 through small claims (at least, not in one go).

Also, your point about claiming on behalf of your wife might be a problem. Unbelievable as it may seem, the Scottish courts operate one of the last 'closed shops' in Europe (along with The Showman's Guild!). This means that only members of either the Law Society Of Scotland or The Faculty Of Advocates can represent other people in court. I actually saw a case get tossed on these grounds once when a guy tried to represent his Dad (who looked to be about 150) against a big furniture company that had ripped him off. The poor old guy could hardly stand up, let alone represent himself in court. His son was absolutely furious and told the Sheriff, lawyers etc exactly what he thought of them. The Sheriff was actually quite apologetic about it, but the law is the law...

Unfortunately we have a rather pathetic Small Claims limit of £750 in Scotland. Anything above that and you will have to do a either a 'Summary Cause' or an 'Ordinary Cause' (phone the clerk of the court for more about these). In either of these cases you will not be protected against costs if you lose, and I think (but I could be wrong), that you have to get a lawyer to raise these types of action for you.

If you don't mind me asking, is there a reason why you feel it necessary to speak to their call centre? It hardly seems likely that some wee guy earning 50p an hour in a far distant call centre has the authority to refund you any money. Look at the people on this forum who are getting their money back. They tend to be doing it in a fairly aggresive and no nonsense give-me-back-my-money-now-or-go-to-court way.

Arguing with the call centre, or going through 'complaint procedures' just leads you into a carefully crafted maze which is designed to keep you talking until you give up.

Bearing in mind other people's experiences on this website, (not least Stephen Hone's) I would guess that the chances of you having to travel to court in London are virtually non existant.

ianc, I've recently started a claim against Abbey and I live in Dunfermline. You need to fill in the claim form manually (i.e. not using moneyclaim), and send it, along with the fee to:

Central London County Court.

13-14 Park Crescent London

W1N 4HT

Tel: 020 7917 5000

This is the court closest to Abbey's headquarters, and according to the clerk there, they get a lot of 'incoming' for Abbey. Don't worry about an English service address, just use your own. The law states that you're supposed to sue at the court nearest the defender anyway.

Good luck, and if you need any support, feel free to get in touch

Yes, you're absolutely right. A few years ago I was sued by a big company, and when I complained that the case should be heard at my local sheriff court, they successfully argued that because it was a contract governed by English law, it had to be heard in England.

However, what I was able to do was get the case moved to Berwick County Court (from Skipton), which is the nearest English court to Scotland, which presumably made it too much hassle to pursue, since they dropped the matter soon after.

I could be wrong, but surely this is not a matter of Scots law or English law, but more a matter of UK consumer law. As I understand ithe normal rules are that you have to sue in the court nearest the defender, you are a consumer, and the other side is a company, in which case you can sue them in the court nearest you.

I'm afraid that there is no equivalent to Moneyclaim in Scotland, so you have to do it through your local sheriff court. If the amount you're claiming is less than £750 you need to go on to raise a small claims action, which will cost you £39. You can download all the forms and guidance you need here: http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/. Also, if you need any advice on procedure I strongly recommend contacting the Sheriff Clerk's Office at your local court. I have spent a ridiculous amount of my time in my local court making sure I don't get screwed by some big company, and I can say that the people in the clerk's office have been, without exception, friendly and helpful.

In the event that you actually have to appear in court (unlikely, for bank charges), remember that you have one big advantage over the lawyers, which is that because you are representing yourself the Sheriff is obliged to help you as much as possible, wheras the other side - since they have to be members of the Law Society of Scotland - will be expected to have all the "i"s dotted and "t"s crossed.

This is something I am quite familiar with, as I tend to do all my litigation in Scotland. The Recall of Decree, as has been correctly stated above, allows the losing side to have the case brought back to court if for some reason they were not aware that the case was happening or the decree had been issued. Theoretically, they are supposed to give a good explanation as to why they didn't attend, but I have been told by a Sheriff directly that in practice they always grant the recall. However, if they try to have the decree recalled more than 14 days after THEY HAVE BEEN NOTIFIED that they have lost by default, then it becomes much more difficult. The reason for the capitals is, of course, that it is for you to notify them that you have won by default, and you can't just sit on your decree for fourteen days without telling them.

I think there is no chance of them defending such a small amount, but watch out for retaliation.

Is it worth having a section on this website dedicated to retaliation by pi**ed off banks?

Probably, but they would have had to continue the case to find out. Remember, mine was a counterclaim, which would have been dealt with after theirs.

The £200 per month was calculated from the fact that as soon as the default hit my otherwise blameless credit file, I was instantly denied access to cheaper credit. I calculated that if I shopped around for the best mortgage deals etc., I could save about £200 per month - but obviously not with a Default on my credit file.

Russe11, the sticking point to settling was the default, and this is what the judge wanted decided by the FOS

I happen to work in the field of large computer systems, and I know a few people who work for banks in their computer centres. A common theme is that even internally, the banks are very cagey about how much it actually costs them to knock back DDs etc. However, what is clear is that there is no magic involved and their systems are essentially quite straightforward and compare in running costs to any large organisation's computer system.

What this tells us (and I've asked a number of techies about this), is that from a purely computational standpoint, about 99% of the cost to the bank for returning something like a Direct Debit comes from the second class stamp to tell you about it. (Royal Mail are not allowed to discount for anyone).

Could this be the reaon the banks are so reluctant to go to court? I wonder....

Well, it's a little complicated...Nationwide are suing me for for £1500 after I told them I was only going to pay £600 (I deducted the charges). At this point they demanded all their money back and started their collection process. When they sued me, I put in the defence version of the argument which everyone here uses: they can't sue me for penalty charges. I also put in a counteclaim for damages of £200 per month until the default notice which they had posted is removed, on the basis that if there had been no charges, there would have been no default.

When we got to court they offered to walk away from their claim, if I walked away from mine "with no costs due by or to either party". This suited me fine, and the lawyer on the day agreed that the default would be removed. Interestingly, they wanted to walk away from the whole thing, even the bit which I actually did owe them! Result...or so I thought.

The lawyer who was in the court was just a local agent for the big law firm who do Nationwide's dirty work for them. A short while after the hearing they made it clear that they were simply not prepared to remove the default, because as they saw it, the account was in default. They were only prepared to mark it as 'settled', which is no use at all.

We went through three seperate hearings with me refusing point blank to even entertain the idea of settling on those terms, especially since I was able to point to the Banking Code which specifically prohibits them from posting a default 'if the amount owed is in dispute'. Considering Nationwide posted the default a month after starting their action, they are hardly in a position to claim that 'the amount owed is not in dispute'.

This was beginning to get messy. Eventually, the judge decided that the matter of whether or not the Default should have been posted should be decided by the FOS. In order to do that, I'm supposed to make a complaint about it to Nationwide and request a 'final answer' before the FOS can consider it.

...and so far the 'final answer has not been forthcoming, so I have a couple of ideas about how to ramp up the pressure. I was very interested to see what Stephen managed to achieve with his threat of a Declaration.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Nice picture in the Mail. Was it you who smashed the sign on the cash machine?

I'm currently having to use the Ombudsman to get Nationwide to remove the Default they posted at Equifax. Nationwide are only prepared to mark it as 'settled', even though they've agreed a full refund of charges.

I'll let you know ho w I get on.

If you're going to go to court, it's best to have your facts right. I suggest you get all your previous statements and add it all up. Then when you start your claim you can provide a detailed list of every charge. A little bit of patience and preparation at this stage is definitley worth while. Also, when you go back with your detailed list, you'll be sending a messager that you're dead serious.

I suggest you write to them and refer them to section 13.6 of the Banking Code, which most UK banks claim to adhere to, but which they happily to ignore when it suits them.

13.6 states explicitly that they will not pass information to a credit reference agency "if the amount owed is in dispute".

Do not let them get away with this, it is straight forward coercion. Get a final response from them and then complain imediately to the Financial Ombudsman Service.