Some sound advice - thank you very much. Shall keep you posted!

Last November, The Sun newspaper invited its readers to send in poems to help 'cheer our boys on to glory' in The Ashes series against Australia. The lure was to be £100 cash and a DVD of The Ashes 2005 series for each one printed. Naturally, I was delighted when I saw my effort in print and waited patiently for my prize to arrive. A couple of weeks passed and I sent an e-mail to the enquiries team in charge of competitions etc to ask if I needed to do anything to claim my prize. I was actually hoping to have the prize by last Xmas! I got a message back saying my e-mail had been passed to the relevant dept. Guess what? 10 months on and still nothing!! I have checked my mails and have sent them seven so far! Each reply I have received comes straight from customer service who appear pleasant enough and seems to promise a bit more - the last one promised my query would be forwarded to the author of the article itself which requested the poems. That was mid-summer though and still nothing back. I am very disappointed in them - especially as they are always championing themselves about consumer rights! I told them this in my last mailing. What should I do next? Some people have advised me taking my story to another paper! Some have said to contact the editor - but I can't see her being too interested. I haven't phoned yet as I'm sure my query would just be logged with a customer service team in the same way that my e-mails are. I have kept the edition which my poem was printed as evidence and although I can't find the original paper with the prize mentioned, I was able to download the original material from their online archives so I do have sufficient ammo as the prize is there in print. Any ideas greatly received.

This is a strange coincidence finding this thread. I too have been plagued by the dreaded 01772 number over the past couple of months - although have not spoken to anyone. However, today received a headed letter from Loans.co.uk. It says "We have recently learned that information relating to you may have been among certain data sold to third party loan companies without loans.co.uk's permission. We have Reported this incident to the police. This information may include your name, address, phone no as well as any previous loan amounts requested, loan purpose, date of birth and mortgage details. We believe the info may be used by these third party companies to contact you. There is a possibility it may also be used to commit identity fraud, although we believe this is unlikely" They apologised and have tried to soften the blow with 12months free CreditExpert from Experion for the next 12 months by going to the link Credit Expert from Experian. The website looks legit but I can't help thinking the word '[problem]' as the letter says "you'll need your credit/debit details so we can check your identity." Hmmm..... Don't think I'll try that! Don't know what any of you think about this!?? Weirdly enough, I also got a letter today from MBNA offering a loan, in connection with, you guessed it, loans.co.uk!!!

Hello all ! A quick update. Unfortunately, I have had to bail out at the early stages with this one. The need for the cash was too great because without going into any great detail, I failed on my mortgage which is on the final month of an arrears plan and my only offer of a loan which might have tided me over was an 'attractive' 36.9% APR from those people at Beneficial Finance who love to kick you when you are down!! Therefore, it has come down to a question of practicality over principles on this occasion - and these funds should allow me to be able to see my case against the Woolwich through to the bitter end instead !!! However, it is worth mentioning that I didn't go down without a fight and therefore I telephoned Barclays to see if they would be willing to offer any more. I spoke to a very helpful lady and I told her that based on my original claim of £2150 which could increase to £2500 after interest, that I found their 1K offer very disappointing and would they consider making me a more attractive offer? After a bit of haggling, they upped their offer to £1300 which is the figure I am now accepting. I have been told to amend the original offer letter as per my conversation. Do I need to be wary of anything on the return of this form or request any particulars? I have agreed it will be full and final settlement which I am OK with as I don't actually have any more outgoings from this account any more and I am therefore unlikely to have future charges. I assume 'full and final settlement of my complaint with Barclays' as stated on the form refers only to a complaint made against this account number (i.e that it won't hamper my Woolwich claim which is also through Barclays). I also asked about Barclays removing any defaults and she said to put that in writing and they would look into it. Any advice on the last paragraph would be great. It's a shame I'm not writing a success story on this one four months up the line but circumstances got in the way this time! I will be aiming for higher with the Woolwich!!

Excellent. Thanks for advice! A great help as always Welshman!!

Happy New Year to all ! Update on claim: Based on my request for refund of charges of £2150 (excluding interest), Barclays sent me their usual standard letter on 8th January offering £1000 as a 'gesture of goodwill'. Things actually seem to be moving quite quickly so far! For info, the letter came from: Retail Banking Customer Relations, PO Box 449, Swansea, SA1 5WY Tel (01792) 492673. So the banker has offered £1,000. Deal or no deal ???!? ('no deal' I hear you cry!!) A few people seem to be getting success by ringing the bank - is it worth doing this at this stage or should I stick with the schedule and do things via the snail mail?

Hi - and a Merry Xmas to all !! So far I have: 22 Nov: Sent S.A.R 9 Dec: Received summary of charges 20 Dec: I am now preparing my letter to refund charges using the templates (I'm not claiming the interest at this point, that's right isn't it?) However, on the list of charges they have provided, they have listed three instances of 'unauthorised daily overdraft fees' amongst all the other main £30/£35 charges. Two of these charges are only for £3 so I wasn't going to worry about that, however the third daily overdraft fee was £33! Unfortunately, I haven't got that particular statement to prove if this was actually the case or whether this is a typo on their part. I think however that this is a report produced from their system therefore not a typo - if so, bloomin' cheek - £33 as a daily charge!!! Two questions: a) can I claim back these 'daily overdraft fees'? b) If yes, and it turns out that the fee was only £3 after all, will this affect me because I would therefore have overclaimed in total or would I be able to use the document I have received from them as proof? Thanks for any help!

An update to my thread - followed by a question: 23rd Nov - Sent my SAR to Barclays recorded delivery to Churchill Place in the end. 27th Nov - Received the standard stroppy letter from them advising me statements would be on their way attaching my tenner back. 9 Dec - Received all my statements - and I'm about to get busy with the highlighter pen!!!! My question is this: I am at the same stage with the Woolwich and in an ideal world I would like to go all the way with one claim but would accept a quick fix with the other. The norm seems to be that following my next letter they will offer about half the total due - however I would of course consider this a derisory offer - although I would probably be happy along the lines of 75%/80% of the total claim. I was just wondering if in my letter to one of the banks, whether I could state my total claim as 100% of the figure but would be willing to settle on a 75% figure (call it my festive gesture of goodwill!!), otherwise I will go all the way. Surely it would be beneficial to them knowing that it would probably save them money in the long run? I dare say they might put hurdles in the way as always and laugh it off though! Has anyone ever tried this? Would this sort of letter be frowned upon at all by anyone?(I wouldn't want this to in any way undermine the good work of this site), would it weaken my case in any way? Any comments would be of great interest. It just struck me that it might be the sort of thing that someone else may have contemplated before. Thanks for any advice

Just about to update my thread with this very info - but I have just got a fairly speedy response to my S.A.R. Sent Barclays and Woolwich SAR recorded delivery to Churchill Place on the 22nd Nov, got a letter from each after a week (Barclays returned the £10 too) and statements from both arrived this week too. Hopefully you should have some nice Xmas post soon!!!!

Brilliant - thanks for that response. In branch sounds good. I was just trawling through the Woolwich links as well for my other SAR and in-branch seemed to be the favoured option there as well so I think that might be the way ahead.

Hi I have just completed my data protection S.A.R - what is the best address to send it to? A lot of the links suggest Churchill Place in London but the Leicester address also seems well recommended in a couple of places. Would your recommended address be the same for my Woolwich S.A.R too? Thanks for your help!

Just thought I would say hello. I found this site after initally accidently finding a link to one of those 'no win no fee' websites. After getting the general idea of what was occuring I thought I would try my luck in google to see what other websites came up and hey bingo - this fantastic site appeared which blows the others out of the water! Why? Because it's overseen by people who really do give a damn, read by people in similar situations, and the whole encouragment everyone gives each other is like nothing else - especially from people who have been there and won and want to help others too. I have been reading loads of threads over the past week and finally I have decided to be a part - especially after digging through my statements and finding £210 charges from the Woolwich in the space of only 10 days back in Jan!!! I wonder what 6 years worth may bring!?! I intend trying to swot up as much as I can on all the relevant links and FAQs but I will no doubt be asking for plenty of guidance as well as I am a complete novice in this aspect of things. I will be sending the data requests in the next couple of days. My first question is this: I am interested in claiming the following: Me vs Barclays, Me vs Woolwich(joint acct with my wife). I gather Barclays and Woolwich are under the same financial umbrella but I assume this would still be two seperate claims? Also, my wife has a closed account with Barclays. Could these statements be requested in the same request as mine (assume an extra £10 needed if so) or should all cases be seperate? I will of course start my own links when I get going for each case. Take care peeps!!