Been repossessed 5 times this year, I know record time. In my world anyway! Wrote to one company i.e. Blenheim, that have stated that I am owed 400 pounds in excessive mortgage fee arrear charges. NRAM, claim their charges were fair. Just wondering what I can claim on, and I really want to go further with NRAM. Any ideas?

The US Government have announced a $1b lawsuit against Bank of America for toxic loans. There have been 8 others this year. Published fines from the FSA show the growing figures following market abuse in the UK. Here is their list from last 10 years. Total amount of fines in 2002 - £7,444,000. Total amount of fines in 2003 - £10,975,000. Total amount of fines in 2004 - £24,769,000. Total amount of fines in 2005 - £16,965,860. Total amount of fines in 2006 - £13,309,143. Total amount of fines in 2007 - £5,341,500. Total amount of fines in 2008 - £22,706,526. Total amount of fines in 2009 - £35,005,522. Total amount of fines in 2010 - £89,121,281.50 Total amount of fines in 2011 - £66,144,839. In 2011 fines were levied against a number of UK Banks and Investment companies,here is a list of some of the biggest fines; 11/01/11 £2,800,000 Royal Bank of Scotland and National Westminister Bank For multiple failings in the way they handled customers' complaints 18/01/11 £7,700,000 Barclays Bank plc For failures in relation to the sale of two funds 26/01/11 £1,127,559 Barclays Capital Securities For failing to protect and segregate on an intra-day basis client money held in sterling market deposits. 18/04/11 £1,400,000 Norwich and Peterborough Building Society For failing to give its customers suitable advice in relation to the sale of Keydata products. 25/05/11 £3,500,000 Bank of Scotland For the mishandling of complaints about retail investment products 21/07/11 £6,895,000 Willis Limited For failings in its anti-bribery and corruption systems and controls. These failings created an unacceptable risk that payments made by Willis Limited to overseas third parties could be used for corrupt purposes. 25/07/11 £630,000 Swift 1st Limited For unfairly treating some customers facing mortgage arrears. 14/09/11 £494,900 Towry Investment Management Limited For compliance failings in respect of management and protection of client money and Towry’s communications with the FSA. 20/09/11 £2,000,000 Michiel Wieger Visser For market abuse 17/10/11 £4,000,000 Rameshkumar Satyanarayan Goenka Financial penalty of US$ 6,517,600 (approx £4 million) plus restitution of US$ 3,103,640 (approx £1.9 million) for engaging in market abuse. 25/10/11 £5,950,000 Credit Suisse (UK) Limited For systems and controls failings in relation to sales by its private bank of structured capital at risk products (SCARPs). 07/11/11 £6,300,000 Coutts & Company For failure to comply with Principle 9 in connection with its sale of the AIG Life Premier Access Bond and Premier Bond, Enhanced Variable Rate Fund. 02/12/11 £10,500,000 HSBC Bank Plc For failings in suitability of investment advice provided by NHFA Limited 05/12/11 £3,500,000 Integrated Financial Arrangements Plc For compliance failings in relation to the FSA’s Client Money rules. 19/12/11 £2,800,000 Combined Insurance Company of America For breaches of Principle 3 and 6 that put customers at risk of receiving unsuitable advice.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19598492

My mother died and her second husband was named as the sole Executor of her estate (that is another issue not covered here). Her second husband received Probate and was given the legal position of Executor and Trustee, as well as being one of several beneficiaries. The Probate Document which he has signed as being 'a true and accurate representation' of her assets is in fact not true or accurate. I have evidence to show she had more assets at the time of her death than he has declared. He has withheld assets from the Probate document. This is ‘fraud’. I contacted Santander and Bank of Scotland and sent them certified copies of the Probate Document and certified evidence and asked them to confirm to me, and my lawyer, that the Executor had indeed missed assets from the Probate document and to therefore report him to the relevant authorities. Both banks, Santander and The Bank of Scotland, have refused to do this. First they said they 'had lost all of the documents' I sent them. They then stated 'client confidentiality'. Although they have evidence of a crime being committed and their first 'Duty of Care' is to their customer, my mother, not the Executor who is committing the crime in her name. I have asked. My lawyer has asked. The Police are unable to ask as the law does not give them the authority to investigate without going to court. In refusing to give the information requested or report him to the relevant authorities, they are helping the Executor to continue with his crime. They say to do so I would need to take it to court. At a cost of thousands. I have been to the Police and although this is a criminal offence being committed by the Executor, the current laws to not give the Police the ability to get the information from the Banks and for them to press charges against the Executor. If I want him held accountable for his crimes I must fund a costly court case to make them give the information. This man is 'getting away with daylight robbery'. I feel my family are being failed by the law. I want to know how we can make Banks stop 'helping Executors' to hide such crimes. I want more power to Beneficiaries to be able to have fraudulent Executors held accountable and Banks to be more transparent without having to resort to costly court cases. Please note I do have a lawyer involved. However, the lawyer can only follow the laws as they currently stand. To get the information from the banks requires a costly court case. Then there will be another court case to hold the Executor accountable. Banks should be able to state whether an Executor has not declared all assets on the Probate document as they still have a 'Duty of Care' to the deceased, before any 'Duty of Care' to an Executor. Can we get consumer action to make changes ? Can we get more transparency from Banks ? Can we get justice ? Do you think Banks should give this information to beneficiaries, and their lawyers, the Police and the Tax Office without a court case ? Please help.

Hi, HSBC now doing the same as Natwest did and don't bother actioning a SAR if they think you're just after PPI! I sent HSBC a SAR on 30th March 2012, I used the template letter from here but I didn't enclose a fee. Now I didn't send the fee because...... a) I just didn't have the money to pay all 11 and the template letter I used was worded "please inform me, prior to processing this request, if you require a fee to be paid" . Yes I now know this was a mistake! I should have changed it and just enclosed the fee! and b) I know from previous experience with bank charges a lot of them waivered the fee back then. I re-sent my SAR on the 13th June 2012, changed the template by adding bullet points to make it clear what i required from them and also enclosed the fee. I have today received a letter saying they have been trying to contact me by phone to get a "clearer understanding of the type of information that you wish to receive, to ensure that we send tyou the correct information" . They then go on to say that they assume I wanted to know if I paid PPI so they gave me to Loan aco**** numbers and dates loan started but NOTHING ELSE! they also returned my cheque uncashed. Now as much as I am grateful that they admit I paid PPI they haven't said how much, when etc so I need my full SAR so I can work this out. I am also killing two birds with one stone becasue I am desperately trying to work out my finances, we are in a lot of debt and I am trying to get organised and by having all my data I can see a clearer picture, file it all neatly and keep it. (Previously I burned everything to try and make it go away !!!) Now by sending a new SAR letter and fee I gave them 40 days from 13th june which means they have until 23rd July to respond. This tactic has just stalled that completely! now i have to write back, tell them I want it all and wait god knows how long to get it again! Can anyone please suggest a template letter as I am furious that they are getting away with this. Here are the letters I sent: SUBJECT ACCESS REQUEST Mr ********** 87 ******** ****** **** *** HSBC 8 Canada Square London E14 5HQ 30thMarch 2012 Dear Sir/Madam, Ref: Credit card number: *********** and Loan Account number: *********** Please supply me with copies of all the data which you hold on me inrelation to any matter and in any form and for any period of time. This mustinclude: · A copy of my credit agreements for each creditcard, loan or account I hold · Details of any payment protection insurance andamounts paid · Copies of letters and emails that I have sent toyou and vice versa. · Customer activity logs · Account screenshots · Telephone logs · Copies of correspondence with third parties, alist of third parties who my data has been processed/shared/passed to · Statements for the duration of the account · Anything else relating to my account Please note that I require disclosure of any personal data which youhold on me for the entire period of my dealings with you. The Subject Access is not limited to my transaction history and it isnot limited merely to 6 years of historical information. Additionally, where there has been any event in my account history overthis period which has required manual intervention by any member of your staff,or any other person, I require disclosure of any indication or notes which haveeither caused or resulted in that manual intervention, or other evidence of thatmanual intervention in relation to my banking business with you. If you are unable to supply this data becausethere has been no such manual intervention, then please be so kind as toconfirm this in your response Yours......

I am not sure if this has been covered on the forum before but I have been alerted to the prospect that although my disabled husband would want me to hold LPA for him the bank may not allow me to register and use due to the fact that I was bankrupt in the past and do not have a good credit history...mainly due to job loss. He trusts no one else and really wants me to do this, he has a number of conditions that are worsening so we would like to start acting on this asap.

Hello everyone, I really hope that I can have an answer to this problem and that it may help others as well. Recently, after much struggling with a sense of guilt! I decided to go ahead and use the services of a claims company to try to reclaim some of the PPI I believed I had been mis-sold. Within a few days of contacting the company i received a call and made a few claims through the company. I believed it to be a no win no fee so was quite happy to pay the charges should they be successful and should I receive any payout on a successful claim. Today I received a bill from the company for over £400 for their services. In the same envelope was a letter telling me that the bank had made me an offer for over £1100. Delighted - no! I thought I was going to be over £600 better off after I had paid the claims company, was I ever wrong:( On closer scrutiny the bottom line is this - Whether I agree to the Bank offer or not the claims company want their fee. The bank offer is to pay £1100 and to take over £900 of the money for an existing loan I have with them.(not in arrears) I feel like I'm being ripped off because I am being asked to pay a claims company before they will process my claim and the bank want to keep most of the award from the PPI complaint. it goes like this - 2 forms in the letter for me to sign - one for the claims company to get their money the other for the bank to get my money, only I dont get the full 1100 from the bank I only get £180 after the existing loan is settled, and I dont even get that unless I pay the £419 to the claims company up front. And, to add injury to insult even if I don't agree with the banks offer (not the amount, just taking the money they owe me to pay an existing loan not in arrears with the payment) and reject the offer, the claims company have billed me anyway. 'Rock and a hard place' and the word 'squeezed' come to mind. Now my perspective is this (and I would appreciate any sensible comments and advice on where I stand and how to proceed in all this from a legal perspective please)-: the claims company should not have billed me prior to my accecptance of the banks offer because as far as I'm aware the bank should pay the full award settlement to me before I have to pay the claims company. This is not the claims company getting me the money legally due to me it is the claims company getting my money and the bank keeping it. I'll end up a further £240 out of pocket!!Which I can not afford - I can barely make ends meet as it is. The history with this bank is this: I had 2 loans with them in 2003/2004. I went into arrears with payments because of redundancy. After a period of time of paying off a reduced amount they were bought out by a larger bank and that bank wrote to me and offered me a solution to consolidate the existing amounts outstanding into one new loan, thereby getting rid of the loans and the bad debt. I accecpted that new loan agreement nearly 6 years ago and have not missed one payment in all that time. The bank now want to take the money I'm being offered for being misold PPI on those original loans and use it to pay off the balance - surely that cannot be right? I know I owed the original loans but a new loan agreement had been extended by the bank and agreed. I want to contact the claims company and tell them that I do not accept the bank offer and do not accept that I owe them any fees until I receive the settlement in full into my bank account from the bank. Can anyone give me some sound advice please? Many thanks in advance

I have an account with ISME and have made regular payments to that account via online bank account with no problems until June. I made the payment through the 'faster payments' process and my bank have confirmed that this has left my account and it should have arrived at ISME account within 2 hours. However, ISME have been sending me text messages and calling my homeline chasing payment, and I have explained that the mistake is not with me. I placed a small order last night and by accident today, I find they will not release my order due to the missing payment. I have spoken with their so called 'customer services' department today only to now be told that their bank Nat West have had glitches with it's system and all payments made in June have been lost in transit!!! They have tried to tell me that whatever effect it may have on my credit report, they will reverse it asap. I have a sqeaky clean credit file and to add insult to injury - they have applied a DEFAULT CHARGE to my account until the mess is sorted and no further orders can be processed either. When I asked what compensation would be provided she said, we will reverse the charges and your credit file will be right, what do you want compensation for? Apart from anything else, they have lost my custom. Any thoughts peeps? Shelley

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/cardsloans/article-2158352/Banks-siphon-refunds-owed-PPI-victims-square-unpaid-debts.html Are you one of those affected ? Post your story below.

Interesting Movie, especially the part about the Banking Elite:

A group of campaigners in Shropshire have called on banks to halt the closure of their rural branches. Ludlow MP Philip Dunne said local branches were important to the economy of south Shropshire market towns. The call comes after Barclays announced its Bishop's Castle branch would close on 29 June. Barclays, said the decision to close the Bishop's Castle branch was not taken lightly and it would look to minimise the impact on customers. The full story from the BBC is here :- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-17514318

Over three years on from the bailouts and taxpayers are sitting on a huge loss running into billions and billions of pounds. The Bank of England have kept rates at 0.5% yet major banks have announced rises in variable intersted base rates. It's not right that families struggling to pay their rising costs now face an increase in monthly mortgage interest rates despite no hike from the Bank of England. Is this how shareholders should be repaid? The govenment needs to step in and force the banking groups that have been Nationalised to reduce their rates NOW back in line with the 0.5 rates set by the Bank of England. Stop nationalised banks raising interest rates now! Please sign if you agree and forward to like minded friends and family please type the following into your address bar: epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/31089

A petition has been put together on the government e-petition site to have the government enforce and impose fines on banks / organisations who fail to meet their requirements under the data protection act. We are trying to get as many people as possible to sign the petition and spread word of the petition through social media. http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/22295

I havent seen this posted anywhere on the site yet so i thought i would share the good news with my fellow caggers. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13128692

Hi, I hope someone can give me some advice on a £350 loan I got with the money shop. In December I issued 3 cheques for £100 and one for £50. these cheques where used with my card, so i think that means they are guaranteed cheques, but i'm not sure. My card is just a visa debit. I've paid a monthly interest charge since to roll over the loan to the next month. However my work contract ended in jan and i have not been able to find work since. This has meant that this month I could not pay the interest roll over charges and stupidly i didn't ring them or try to sort the problem out before hand. I went into the money shop today and they told me that as i did not pay the cheques have now been cashed and i should contact my bank. I told them that there would be no funds in the bank to honour the cheques, so he told me to check with my bank as one had already gone through okay but that the other 3 were still due. if the remaining cheques were not paid then he said to ring head office to sort out a payment plan. I have since checked my bank and three of the cheques are on my statement spread over three consecutive days, but i have gone over my overdraft limit. i don't know if these will bounce back out or if the bank is honouring the payment. I also don't know why there are three cheques and not four on my statement. Could that one have already bounced in and back out? If any one has any advice to help me, then that would be great! I just need to know if I'll be paying both companies or if the bank will pay the money shop off and then i'll just have the bank charges for each cheque to pay. Any help appreciated thanks

Hi all My first time here - please be gentle with me. I was made bankrupt over three years ago, and that is all now resolved. Outstanding is a business loan, secured against my house. I had heard nothing from the bank for over three years, until recently. I was told at a meeting three/four years ago that they were freezing interest on the loan, but their current chasing of the money DOES include ongoing interest over the last three years. Anyway. I do not have a regular income. I would like to keep my house if possible. Someone I know MAY be able to provide some funds for me. However, those funds are limited. The bank want a total of over £60,000 (made up of the amount which was outstanding [it had been a bigger loan, which was being paid until the bankruptcy], plus around £10,000 interest). The person who may be able to provide me with funds would have to mortgage an asset. Naturally, I would prefer for them not to have to seek any amount higher than is necessary - not just for their sake but because ultimately I will have to pay it back (though not in the foreseeable future). So. Although I recognise that the bank has a RIGHT to seek the full amount, I am under the impression that they would consider an offer of a lower amount, just to get it settled, and so they don't then have to evict me and take on the house and all its attendant issues in trying to get it sold. Does anyone have any knowledge or experience of how low such an offer might be, and still be accepted? Is it feasible that they might take an offer as low as, say, £10,000? Or would it have to be, say £30,000 even to be considered? How low might they go? I am not trying to "get away" with something. But equally - and naturally - in the circumstances, it would be very helpful to my getting back on my feet (there are other issues involved) if I don't have to pay any more than the lowest amount the Bank might be willing to accept. Anyone who can give me a "feel" for a figure to offer, which would be treated seriously, but not be more than absolutely necessary, would earn my grateful thanks. NotGivingUp