Name of Claimant: Lowell Portfolio 1 Ltd re Lowell Finance Ltd Documents and payments send to: Bryan Carter Solicitors. Date of Issue: 23 May 2014 What is claim for: This claim is for 800 the amount due under an agreement between the original creditor and the defendant to provide finance and /or services and/or goods. This debt was assigned to/purchased by Lowell Portfolio on XX 07 2013 and notice served pursuant to the law of property act 1925. Particulars Lloyds A/C No xxxxxxxxxxx And the claimant claims 800. The claimant also claims interest pursuant to county court act 1964 from XX 07 2013 to date at 8% per annum amounting to 50. Value of claim: Total £980 Claim is for a defaulted current bank account/overdraft. Unsure when entered into original agreement (See below) overdaft occured in 2007 so possibly original account pre 2007. Claim is issued by the debt purchaser. Unsure if a notice of assignation issued. (See below) Original creditor sent default notice early 2008. Unsure if Notice of default sums issued yearly. (See below) Payments ceased because unable to pay the £20 a day bank charges which then became £40 a day. The bank were telephoned to state unable to afford bank charges. No acceptable resolution could be reached. All further contact has been ignored. Further info I'm posting this to try and help the son of a friend. As such I don't have the full details but have looked through a pile of paperwork they kept. I think a fair bit has been thrown away. The debt was originally around £100 of unauthorised overdaft with Lloyds in 2007. Lloyds started adding bank charges including a £20 a day charge, which at one point i'm told doubled to £40 a day. After an unsuccesful conversation with Lloyds the youngster abandoned the account and ignored further communications, which went on to come from debt collection agencies and finally Lowells who have now issued a claim through the courts via Bryan Carter Solicitors. I would like to help him defend the claim rather than see him offer no defence and get rubber stamped a CCJ. Two things strike me... 1) This debt arises from bank charges that were ultimately ruled unfair I believe. There was a time when these could have been reclaimed, sadly he didn't do that. So can these charges now be enforceable? 2) It's over six years since any payments/debt acknowledged and I'm fairly certain the default notice is over 6 years old, the last payments certainly were (I can check the date as they have the notice). So i think this debt should be statute barred. Any advice on the best way to proceed would be appreciated. I'm thinking we need to get them to prove they have the appropriate proof of the debt in place and that it's not statute barred but no idea how to go about that. Also the claim is from the County Court Business Centre in Northampton. This is no where near us and not his local court. Should this be transferred to his local court? And if so how is that done. Thanks in advance!

Afternoon, Back in 1999 I purchased two items, a TV & a Hifi (on separate occasions) from Dixons on higher purchase over 48 months, on each loan. At the time I was a student with a job, and I wasn't informed about PPI being applied to the loan. It only came to my knowledge recently when rummaging through old paperwork, whilst clearing out my old room at my parents house. I have the account number for the TV loan (taken from a payment book) but nothing else. For the Hifi I have the account number, the credit agreement with amounts and printed on X in the Credit Protection Insurance section. The loan details for the Hifi are such: Sony Hifi £169.97 1+3 yr (I suspect this is the insurance) £75.00 Total cash price £ 244.97 Less deposit paid £ 30.00 Credit Amount £ 214.97 Interest Rate* 2.06% per month APR* 27.7% Anticipated number of monthly repayments 48 Amount of monthly repayments £ 7.87 The loans were underwritten by HFC The TV I think was around the same price, but without any actual amounts I'm unsure. On both of these accounts I do recall getting behind on my repayments later on into the loan, and gaining a lot of bank charges, to the point that I had to loan money from my parents at the time to both clear the charges and the loans. I've never tried to get these charges back as I didn't think I had the documents with it being so long ago. My really after some guidance as I not sure how to proceed with reclaiming both the PPI and the charges. I did recently do a SAR request using the account number for the TV loan however HSBC wrote back to me saying that they now service HFC accounts and they have been unsuccessful in their search to locate my account, using the information I have given them (account number, my name, & my old address). They have asked for: personal information - Previous address history and date of birth. legal agreement to confirm the account information bank statements to show the account had the benefit of Payment Protection Insurance, including proof of any early settlement payments. They have also said that they have destroyed the cheque for £10 that I sent to them. I am thinking of starting from scratch as I haven't sent a request for the Hifi loan and I have thought that it would be easier to start the TV loan request again along with the Hifi so that the dates will tally. Could someone point me in the correct direction, as I've been reading a lot of posts on here and several other website & forums and I seem to be getting lost in how to go about gaining both the information relating to the accounts & their charges and if I receive that information how then to proceed with reclaiming the PPI & the charges. Family & friends has advised passing it all over to a PPI company, however I would only like to do this as a last resort, as it would feel like a bit of a defeat. I have reclaimed bank charges in the past for family and some for myself but from what I've read the whole procedure has changed since 2007 when I did it for them. Thank you for your time, and I'm very sorry for the length of this post I just wished to give as much information as possible. Again thank you

Help! To cut a long story short, I am so useless when it comes to getting back bank charges and it is not as easy as I thought it would be! I currently get Income Support, Child Tax Credit and Child Benefit into my bank account, this is ALL that's goes into my account. I heard that because of it being a benefit the banks can not legally take it from my account, I have seen a few stories where no judgement was made and Barclays refunded, so I gave it ago. On the phone the lady actually lied to me and told me they treat all their customers the same, if they are working or not a charge will still apply.. .. I told her I knew she was lying as I have seen a few people beating the banks. I received a letter in the post last week and it states: 'I understand you are unhapy with the bank charges incurred and debited from your account between 2009-2013, when taking into consideration the provisions of the Social Security Admin Act 1992. As a resolution, you would like a refund of the above charges.' 'I can clarify that where the Act refers to a 'charge' it is intended to mean ''to assign an asset'' rather than to ''incur a fee''. Therefore, the true meaning of the Act is that benefit payments can not be used as security or assigned to a third party. This means Barclays can charge fees in respect of the products and services we offer your banker. ' This bit is the bit that has thrown me 'As a result, I am unable to uphold your complaint and will not be refunding the bank charges you have complained about' Since writing to them and them giving me this as there final findings I have incurred 2 more bank charges. What do I do?

I claimed bank charges to Barclays 2007, small claims I received a Court date but it was stayed. What do you do with this, I have had no communication regarding this with Barclays or the Court .

Hi, I am new to this forum and forums in general so please forgive any lack of etiquette. I am in very serious trouble and have been for years, and will shortly be going bankrupt and making myself homeless in order to get out of it. With what i'm reading and hearing, I may have cases to bring which I've decided to look into before going Bankrupt. I'll try to be as brief as possible. Below is a list of what i have going on and my comments & questions. I appreciate any assistance or advice for any of it. My problems stem from setting up my own business and it subsequently failing in the recession. 1, Mortgage on my home: Spml/Capstone/Ascenden interest only mortgage for 92k taken out in 05. Current outstanding is 97k. Obtained through broker. Late charges throughout the life of the mortgage. Currently in arrears but under agreement and 'safe' for the time being. Could this mortgage be mis-sold?, Are the charges refutable? Is the fact that I have been forced to take buildings insurance with them refutable? 2, 2nd charge on the property with Nemo Finance for 25k 2006. Currently in arrears but under agreement and safe. Charges throughout the life of the loan, current balance still 20k plus. Are secured 25 year loans being scrutinsed for mis-selling? 3, 3rd charge on the property for 25k with Halifax 2006 within 6 months of the above loan. Charges throughout the life of the loan. Same question as above. 4, Santander mortgage on another property taken out in 2004/5. Increased mortgage to 85k. Charges throughout the life of the mortgage. Ran into serious arrears 2011 to 3.5k. Started back in full time employment following the collapse of my business in september 2011. paid Santander 1800 in October and entered agreement. Missed the following 2 months payments due to more pressing debt catch ups with other creditors. House repossessed on the 18th of Jan 2012. Called the head of dept to try and get the repo reversed but was told i would have to settle the entire 85k for that to happen. Advised the woman that the property had been empty for years and that they should have notified me at my home to tell me what was going on. She did not know I had another house and thought she was making homeless. Despite the fact that my Santander bank account is registered at my home address and not at the repo'd house. House was on the market by the end of Jan 2012 for 1 day and was sold for less than half it's value, leaving me with a shortfall of 50k. They are now in pursuit of this money. the whole process from entering agreement, to sale of prop was 3 months. Do I have grounds to sue based on: duty of care to make sure they had actually spoken to me to tell me what was happening, consideration to my change of circumstances i.e. not earning any money until i went back to work in Septemeber, after which I paid them 3 quarters of my 1st months wage. giving me the chance to sell the house for a larger sum, or to a family member so as to not lose (what they thought) was my main residence, allowing the property to sit on the open market and not accepting the first and only offer on it for less than half its value. the property has now had it's refurb (which I had done half of) completed at an estimated 20k and is worth 120k. Santander sold it for 45k. Additional borrowing had PPI attached. 5, HFC personal loan taken out circa 2005 for 7500. current staus is 12500 owing. I paid a company 500 to see if this had been mis-sold which took about a year. They came back and said it was enforcable, but they got my ppi back. Since then i have not recieved any demands for payments but do recieve a yearly statement telling me the balance is 12500. I do not know why they do not chase me for this anymore. 6, Halifax current account, charges totalling at least 6k over the last 10 years. Already put a claim in but was told by them that they were fair and the court case ruled against payouts. Is there any point in attempting to reclaim this money? 7, Santander/Alliance & leicester bank account, Charges througout the life of the account. Apologies for the convoluted way this is written, I am currently putting together a more concise and detailed history of my circumstances in order to submit to somebody that may take up any or all of these cases. I am finding it all a bit overwhelming and want to find out if people think I do have relevant grounds to bring cases. Also, how would I go about this? Does anybody know a good manchester based law firm that deals with this? Please help. My wages don't cover outgoings and I only eat 3 weeks out of every month to maintain my current status. Any help is appreciated and i can go into more detail on any points above if requested. I also would like to know if it is possible to sell the house I live in now for less than it is mortgaged for ( and therefore not covering the 2nd and 3rd charges) as I know from experience that if I hand the keys back, they will simply gice it away and chase me for more shortfall. Best Regards,

Hi kaz320, I have just written out a long winded message detailing where I am upto, only to be told I don't have a high enough score to send it to you and then it was lost. Pretty infuriating but there you go. I have an interest-only mortgage with Spml/ascenden/capstone. it was sold to me by a broker in 2005 for 92k. it now stands at 98k. What can you tell me about mis-selling of mortgages of this type? Do you know of cases that have been successful? How do I go about it? I am going to be chasing them for charges also, but this is a seperate issue Any help greatly appreciated. Regards, D.J.F.

In September 2012 my 20 year old daughter stopped using her Santander account on a regular basis, as, after a short period of self-employment, her circumstances had changed and she was now living on a budget, paying cash for everything. She had two months’ of direct debits still to come out of the Santander account and a £100 payment (loan repayment from a friend) that was due to go into the account would have covered that, so she assumed it was OK simply to leave her account unmonitored as she thought all would be covered. She’s temporarily living away from home, so didn’t see her bank statements for September through to the beginning of January until yesterday, when a letter arrived here (which I opened at her request) telling her she was overdrawn, at which stage she asked me to open her bank statements and send her copies. That was when she discovered that the money she thought had been paid into her account with Santander in early September hadn’t been paid in (the fault of person meant to be paying that £100 in, not the bank’s). Consequently, on September 24th, when the bank tried to pay a £17.75 Direct Debit from her account, contrary to what she believed at the time, there was only 16p in her account, so they returned the direct debit. On October 24th Santander applied a £25 fine to her account for bouncing that direct debit in September. This put her in the position of having a £24.84 unauthorised overdraft. On October 24th Santander tried to pay the second (and final) direct debit that was due. This also bounced, because, not realizing there was a problem, my daughter had not put any money into her account, which was already £24.84 overdrawn owing to the fine Santander imposed from September. The situation then began to spiral out of control. Santander didn’t notify her that she had gone into overdraft, she (believing there were sufficient funds in an account she was no longer regularly using) hadn’t looked at her bank statements and didn’t know this was happening, so wasn’t able to redress the situation. On 24th November Santander added a further £75 fine to her account - this was a £50 fee for being overdrawn at the end of October and a £25 fee for them bouncing the direct debit in October. This took her £99.84 overdrawn – entirely in Santander bank charges. Once again, nobody notified her about this. On December 26th Santander fined her a further £100 for still having an unauthorised overdraft in November. This made her £199.84 overdrawn in total. Until the letter arrived yesterday telling her about the overdraft, she had been sent no notification, even though the bank had her email address and mobile phone number and have communicated with her in that way in the past. The letter was dated January 2nd, but arrived on January 9th, and it was the first time she had been told about the overdraft, even though it began in October. Her end of December bank statement shows that the bank had fined her a further £100 on top of that, for still being overdrawn in December, and they propose to take that money on January 24th. And at the time she received the letter they were fining her at £5 a day for still being overdrawn. To stop them running up even more charges against her, I yesterday lent her £355, which has gone instantly into her account and should, I believe, be enough to cover the £199.84 overdraft and leave enough money in there to cover the overdraft fee of £100 that they plan to apply on January 24th and the fine they will apply on February 24th (this will be the £5 a day for the unauthorised overdraft from January 2-9, so I guess £35). It wasn't easy for me to come up with the money, but she wasn't in a position to do so, and I couldn't bear the thought of them racking up yet more charges. Of course she should have checked her bank statements, but she genuinely believed that she’d been paid the £100 the so-called friend (who is now, unsurprisingly, no longer contactable) owed her, and that she’d left the account with sufficient funds to cover the two direct debits. £335 seems an obscene price to pay for this. I have only ever once myself gone into an unauthorized overdraft situation, and the bank wrote to me that same week to alert me. I simply don’t understand why they didn’t do so in my daughter’s case. All her bank-related post comes to our house, so I would know if something had arrived. She is going to write to ask that they cancel these charges – do you think she has a hope?

So I approached Cap One prior to xmas with a claim on PPI misselling, I reckoned about £100 + interest + 8%, they've offered £90+interest+8%, close enough as not to matter. I have checked all of the statements for this account and there is about £400 in late charges and overlimit charges, ranging from £15, £18 and £20 and dated as far back as 2004. Question: given that this card is long closed and settled, would it be prudent to accept the PPI offer and then go after the charges refund once the cheque has cleared, would they be likely to concede charges as easily as they have PPI?

Hi my mortgage was with gmac from 2001 to 2009 hit with dd charges and late paments 50 pounds a month these were added to mortgage arrears i calculated at least £3500 in charges what can i claim back plus interest

I have read of many individuals considering attempting to recover mortgage arrears charges and I have read the FSA's statements on the subject but I have never read of anyone successfully recovering a meaningful amount of mortgage arrears charges back. Have you?

Hi, I hope someone will be able to help me. I have had quite a number of credit cards and loans in the past whilst trying to pay off student debt and haven't got the details as when I closed or settled the accounts I shredded the documnets. I am getting lost in the procedure and the more guides I read the more confused I seem to be getting. I don't know whether some of the cards are worth persuing or whether to forget about them and keep my £10 for SAR's etc. Some are quite old. I have opened an Experian account to view details but not all the cards I had have appeared and I wondered whether it was worth sending those financial institutions SARs..... A bit about my background: I was shocking with my money at University despite working every holiday that I had. I had a barclaycard through Uni and am pretty sure I backed with Lloyds. I took out a graduate loan with Lloyds and the advisor advised me to get a loan out big enough to pay my £2000 overdraft off and when I agreed a figure of £3000 with him he said but you should take out more for a holiday, new clothes for work etc - so I did. This is going back to 1999 and I was incredibly naive. I asked how many £10 charges had been applied to my account over the previous 4 years and he said "You don't want to know" and left it at that. I guess that these are too far back to claim..? I switched banks when it dawned upon me what I had been duped into. I was in full time employment with 13 weeks full sick pay up until August 2005. I then went self employed. My wife was made redundant whilst pregnant (due to company pulling out of the UK) nearly four years ago and we now have two children. My wife is unable to go back to work as the children are 2.5 years and 1 month. We are not claiming any benefits. I currently have a large credit card bill on 0% transfer until Oct next year and any money that I can claim back would be a big big help. The data that I have been able to get from Experian are as follows Egg loan started 2007 (self employed) settled Nov 2010 for 36x £320 - I don't think I took PPI out on this but couldn't be sure Egg card started 2003 (full time employment) settled July 2009- possible PPI pre ticked online ? MBNA card started Oct 2006 (self employed) - setteld 2008 - PPI? Tesco credit card started 2009 to present - don't think it had PPI on it Also had the Barclaycard at Uni and carried it on just after graduating. Had a couple of late payment fees applied plus a lot of interest down the years. Hope someone can point me in the right direction. With the birth of our second child I have been considering going to a claims handling company to help give me advice and steer me in the right direction. However when I googled Egg card PPI success this forum came up and I thought I would see if I could get help from people who know what they are talking about. Yours In Hope Zoon

Hi all, Need some help with my barclays account, which I have held for years like many of you from what I have read so far. I am in a spiral of reserve fee charges, and overdraft debt. My wages go in each month pay all the bills, then the charges, interest account fee, etc, come out and I am straight back in the the reserve amount and incurring charges to be paid out the following month..it's a never ending circle. I do not want to count how many reserve charge letters I have received but I could easily pay off my 1800 overdraft and some, with what they equal . I phoned barclays for some help breaking the reserve cycle but all they could do was offer me a small loan to pay off my overdraft and stay out of the reserve fee. I decided to go with it and be very careful with my pennies..however my wages went in, bills came out, reserve fees and interest paid and I was back in the same cycle I didn't borrow enough to get out and stay out of my overdraft. So as you can see I am nowhere to getting this resolved. Has anyone had any joy with claiming any of these charges back? Does the bank charge test case a few years back mean that charges cannot be reclaimed? Please excuse my ignorance of this! ...anyone got any advice? Thank you for your time.

Hello Everyone I would like to share my terrible experience with you all... HSBC and then the Ombudsman.... My concern started in October 2009... personally I am a Financial Analyst and decided to invest some money in a HSBC Invest Direct (share dealing) account, which is DD to my HSBC Plus account, which means I have got 2 different contract with HSBC. I made quite few thousands in couple of years... In October 2009 unfortunately I was diagnoised with swine flu and could not manage to get out of the bed, in the meanwhile few days before couple of my orders were executed and which made me overdrawn £5,750 in my HSBC Plus current account but considering I have got £1,500 authorised overdraft limit and appx £15,000 worth shares in my Invest Direct account.... HSBC started to charge me around £398 in 2 months and then decided to sell my shares and suspend my account... The contract says: HSBC Invest Direct: If you do not have sufficient funds in your account, HSBC has got rights to sell your shares.... HSBC Plus account says: I have got an authorised overdraft limit of £1500 and excessive use of this limit will be penalised with daily interest + fees (which does not state any kind of how much unauthorised you can go up to) Wait for this... I was overdrawn around £5,750 from which I have got an authorised overdraft limit of £1,500 and they sold a total of £6,145 worth shares in 2009... and also they suspended my share dealing account for around 10 days in which I had around another £9K worth shares.... I tried to contact HSBC and proceed my complaint and of course dont be naive... NO result.... when has anyone seen to get a result with their complaints in the first step... I tried to contact the person who authorised to sell my shares, and asked him why he sold more than even the overdraft? his answer was: "We left you a budget for your daily expenditures" I asked him if he has ever seen me paying any bills from my account? he said "No" I took this case to the Ombudsman.... Great big Ombudsman... only 500-600meters away from HSBC headquarter.... 3 adjudicator amazingly found HSBC within their terms and conditions.... I appealed and requested a "Final Decision".... in August 2010.... Mr Ombudsman took my case as the adjudicators are not allowed to give the final decision.... He took his time and in February 2011... he gave a "Provisional Decision" of fair compensation for me his words were: "A = Total amount sold B = Unauthorised overdraft (which means - £1,500 of authorised overdraft) C = A - B So I was supposed to be getting C amount of shares in todays value as compensation .... When I proved that my C amount of shares are worth £6,750 in todays value (current BBC prices), I think they did not like that... Then what happened.... Final Decision came in October 2011... NO COMPENSATION given and HSBC has rights to do so??? I took it further and went to the Independent Asssessor.... No result..... upppss sorry, I should not say like that... here is the result I got: The Great Big Ombudsman sent me a cheque of £100 as an appology as it took 21 months to come to this conclusion (if you consider average handling time for each case is 6 months) ... I call it as "Consolation Prize" Keep quite son! we give you £100 go and have a glass of wine, which will cool you down What I dont understand is; if I used my credit card and bought lots of stuff and gone overdrawn, what would have happened? I dont expect HSBC would come and cease my clothes or the stuff I bought? Even if they were right (which they are not) why did they charge me £398 for an unauthorised overdraft fee + Interest + daily charges? It is a service that I have not received and why did they sell my shares? I dont really know what happened between Feb and October 2011 but it is not really surprising especially if you consider HSBC HeadQuarter and Financial Ombudsman is only 2-3 street far away each other.... May be a nice lunch break in an expensive restaurant or a small coffee shop will be a great place to negotiate??? What do you think???? Anyway I really dont know what to do??? I tried to contact the media sources, tried everything... Sky, BBC, ITV Daily Mail, FT, etc... even Daybreak and Lorraine no response.... I would really appreciate if anyone can help me as I ran out of my options... Btw European Ombudsman is not even bothered about it, they are more interested in Euro then GBP Kind regards

Hi Hope someone may have some ideas on this. My husband took out a business loan in around 2003 with HSBC. He had a business account and personal account with them for a few years already. The business got into difficulty at the end of 2004 and he had charge after charge on his business account and overdraft. All the accounts were shut mid 2005 and refered to debt collection solicitors D and G who deal with HSBC the total debt including hundreds of charges was about 20k. We had an agreement to pay 400 a month which was tough but we kept it up. We then went through the process to reclaim bank charges and were eventually awarded (after a fight) close to 5k which was taken off the debt. This didn't include personal or loan charges only the business account ones. We requested to reduce monthly payments which we did to 200 but they were not happy despite us proving our financial difficulty. We kept up with them and didnt miss any but they decided to take us to court to put a charge on our house. We were really unhappy about this as the bank manager at the time of the loan was adamant that as this was an unsecured loan it would never and could never be secured against our property. I was never involved in the business or names but I do jointly own our home. We went to court, argued but the judge just said they could do this and they could have interest. So they added about 6k to the loan overnight! All the charges and more went back on. We had at one point reduced the loan to about 11 or 12k. They still add charges which they cant really explain and despite the fact we still pay monthly years and years on. We now only pay 100 (agreed about a year ago) we somehow now owe them about 21k? My husband contacted them by phone about PPI as he realised that was on the loan too and they wrote offering a meagre 1800. I don't think we should accept it as they will just add it back on as some other charge. We are going to write to them asking for a breakdown of all the charges and a statement showing all the charges. We have repaid thousands and the only original debt was the loan of which over a years worth of payments were made back on before the difficulty. The overdraft was just charge upon charge and there was no money owing on personal account. Do we have a case for them pushing us into more and more hardship with all their charges including PPI? I just think if we don't do something about this it will go on until we are a hundred! Any advice appreciated! Thanks

Hey Everybody I've been lurking on this wonderful forum for a couple of months now reading up on as much as possible whilst familiarising myself with knowledge through the conversatoins being carried out here - phew. I'm kinda stuck now but here's where I'm at: I sent my SAR's letter mid December and received all my statements first week in January. I'm now in the middle of completing Mindzai's easy-to-follow spreadsheet and looking to claim contractual compound interest at 29.84%. I have a Royalties Premier account. I selected Minzai's contractual daily rate sheet as the correct spreadsheet for this but after having completed all cells, the calculations are telling me for the period from May 2004 until present charged at an interest daily rate of 0.07% (29.84% annually): Total Penalty Amount Total Compound Interest £1917 £719 Total Combined charge and interest £2,636 Is this right as it seems a little low in comparision to other people's calculations for contractual compound interest even though I'm only claiming for just over 2 and a half years. Could one of you lovely maestros of Mind's spreadsheet let me know if i'm on the right track!!! Also, the column that says Date Of Interest, do I insert the date the Interest charge was Withdrawn or do I insert the period of the date the Interest relates to: ie. INT TO 21 APR A/C £10.94 7 May 2004 (do I insert the date as 21 April OR 7 May???) Finally, the cell that says SCHEDULE OF CLAIM FOR CHARGES: FROM: is this supposed to be blank as I thought it would have automatically put the date of my very first charge or does it only do this if you complete the Charges & Interest spreadsheet? Sorry to ask such spastic questions but I promise, I have read through the FAQ's and pretty much all threads under RBOS for more info on filling out these spreadsheets but couldn't see anything relating. Thanks in anticiaption for your help! LOVE YOU GUYS AND GOOD LUCK!!!!!

Hi all, I'm just about to leave Santander (Metro Bank - in case you're curious). However, they have hammered the final nail into their coffin this month. The month before last I received some (fair) bank charges for going over my limit -about £35. Santander took these out on circa 16th of the month, at which point there was no money in my account - thus I went overdrawn. The next month they charged me - again - for going overdrawn, when my bank charges were taken out (no other occasions). I seem to recall it being against policy for a bank to 'charge for charge' or equivalent, in cases such as this example. before I call them tomorrow I wanted to ask if anyone has any information regarding this. Would greatly appreciate any guidance NJ

Hello all. I have been reading this forum for a while with great interest and gleaned some extremely useful information. I currently have a problem and I would be grateful for some advice. During 2002 bought £950 worth of items from a store on 1 years interest free credit. I didn't pay the balance within a year so it became a storecard with Clydesdale Financial Services (CFS). I kept the account in good order for a while but got into financial difficulty. CFS responded by placing charges on the account of between £20-£35 a time for sending out late payment letters (sometimes three times within the space of a month. Once twice within a week). At one point the balance of the account was down to around £450 but these charges crippled me and the balance skyrocketed. I'm pretty sure this card also came with mis-sold PPI. To cut a long story short I ignored the debt (wrong I know- I was young). By the time unfair bank charges became a topic of conversation this debt had disappeared from my credit report and the calls and letters had stopped. I adopted an attitude of 'quid pro quo'- the balance of the card was entirely made up of charges and I assumed (rightly or wrongly) that the company knew this and were no longer pursuing me for the balance. This assumption was strengthened by the fact that CFS seemed to disappear (I later learned that they were taken over by Barclays Capital Finance. I decided to let it lie and not rock the boat (especially because to do so could risk resetting the 6 year Statute of Limitations clock). In January this year (2012) I got a letter from Capquest stating that they owned this debt and that the balance was £1085. I have never received a notice of assignment. I've read extensively about this company since and decided to ignore them. The last payment was made around May 2007 so it has about a year to go before it becomes statute barred. They sent a number of misleading and threatening letters which I continued to ignore. A few days ago I received a Statutory Demand via first class post (dated May 2nd 2012 but not arriving until May 15th). I'm unsure what course of action to take next. I'm happy to pay my debts but given the history of this account I have no intention of paying Capquest a penny on principle. I am a recent graduate and unemployed with no assets or savings. If Capquest have indeed done their research on me as they claim to have then they will know this. As a result I am almost certain that this is a bluff. However, I'm also an aspiring lawyer so I need to be very careful with my next steps as if I am bankrupted I will not be able to practice. If I were to ignore the statutory demand would I get notification if bankruptcy proceedings were brought against me? Would I have an opportunity to pay the balance before any hearing? If I apply to have the statutory demand set aside is there any potential that this could be seen as an acknowledgment of the debt? If I apply to have the statutory demand set aside, am I right in assuming that my strongest grounds are that: (a) it has been improperly served (i.e. by post, not in person- I live above a shop and the general public have access to my letterbox so I don't have any post sent to my place of residence); (b) Capquest have not demonstrated that they own the alleged debt; © I contest the validity and size of the alleged debt; (d) That the balance of the account is made up of unenforcable penalty charges and PPI charges. I appreciate that point (d) might be difficult as most of the charges were added to the account over 6 years ago. However, as they make up the bulk of the balance, could I argue that they should be used to offset the balance as they are the source of the debt? Furthermore, this debt disappeared from my credit report for years and CFS disappeared. Could I rely on s.32 of the Limitation Act 1980 to argue that six year statutory time frame for challenging some of the later penalty charges should only begin in January this year as this is the earliest that I could have reasonably been expected to have discovered them? What is my position with regards to PPI? The account is over six years old but interest and payments towards PPI will have been made much more recently. Any advice anyone can give me will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Hi all, I'd be really grateful if anyone could please explain this one to me, I don't understand it. I received a letter from Ashurst LLP dated 17th December regarding the bank charges test case, and telling me that Alliance & Leicester's business has been transferred to Santander. It goes on to the findings of the test case, and that the OFT would not continue its investigation into the fairness of the charges. It then says that many of the complaints are in template form, and are often not particularised, and goes on 'All of the complaints (which have been on hold pursuant to the FSA Waiver) are now being rejected by Alliance & Leicester and the Financial Ombudsman Service has stated that it will not generally be able to help with cases that involve "template" or "standard letter" complaints about unauthorised overdraft charges. The next part says A & L considers that claims brought on the basis that their unarranged overdraft charges are too high and/or are penalties cannot succeed in light of the Supreme Court judgement and the earlier Commercial Court Judgement on penalties. Although customers could seek to amend their claims and challenge the fairness of the unarranged overdraft charges on other grounds, A & L shares the OFT's view that such challenges have no realistic prospect of success.' I've just received this letter, and I'm afraid I don't understand it, was hoping to find some advice on here about what to do next, it goes on: IN THE (...) COUNTY COURT (the dotted bits are as it is shown on the letter, the court, claim no., claimant name are all left blank) It is ordered that: 1. Unless the Claimant files at Court and serves on the Defendant his amended Particulars of claim with a properly verified Statement of truth, which disclose reasonable grounds for continuing with the Claim, within six weeks from the date of this Order, then the claim will be struck out without further notice. 2. This Order has been made without a hearing under the Court's case management powers contained in the Civil Procedure Rules, Part 3. You may within 7 days of the service of this Order apply to the Court to set it aside or to vary the Order pursuant to Rule 3.3(5) of the Civil Procedure Rules. If you do so, you must file with the Court and serve on the other parties an application that sets out your reason for objection. Please can anybody help, what does all this mean? What 'other grounds'? It is dated 17th December, and I received it in the post last Friday, i.e. 19th January!! :?:

I hope this isn't inappropriate but I have been an ardent follower of CAG for years and have on a number of occasions referenced the site to gain information on how to proceed against banks and even again the inland revenue. So far I have won all four of my cases. I am not quite sure if posting links to other sites would constitute spam aunder the sites rules but I am hoping that the members and those who run the CAG site will be behind me on this. I have started a cause online in regards to Unfair Bank Charges: Opt-in to prevent exceeding overdraft limits. Effectively, I am attempting to try and pressure the government into passing legislation which would allow consumers to advise the banks that they do not want them to pay out debits over and above their authorised overdraft limits and therefore preventing bank charges. I would very much appreciate it if everyone would take just a few minutes to join the cause. In July I will be hand delivering a letter to westminster advising the prime minister to view the site which in affect is an online petition. http://www.causes.com/causes/562020