Hi All, Having finally come to terms with the severity of my financial situation i am now about to start my first steps with the kind help of StepChange. Your help, advice and guidance will be greatly appreciated as i have no income and have to leave my privately rented flat within a month... My current account with HSBC has had an agreed overdraft limit of £2000 for about the past 5 years ( having had a reasonably paid job ). I also have a credit card with them with a limit of £12,000. My account has been incurring charges for about the last 5 months and recently i have has letters to state certain debts haven't been paid which the have had a knock on effect with other cards i have. My Credit card has gone over its agreed limit a few times and i have been able to pay the interest to bring it back to £12k but can't anymore so again is 300 over £12.3k limit. I have had the CC since 2003 and normally had balances of 3-6k. I have just noticed that i am not covered with Payment insurance they have always been charging me and did ask for or notice until i got my self into this mess. Annual review letter states : last year i paid £818.69 ppi. So now i incur over dawn and over limit fees for both my current and cc accounts. Is the a way i can get some advice and to put my mind at rest and have some glimmer of hope as to how much if any i could expect to receive? I asked HSBC and they told me to speak to Aviva? Basically don't want to know. I another two cards with barley card again both to the limit, but no ppi as i think i cancelled, can i still claim for that ? Many thanks all N

Good evening all, I'll "try" and keep this brief. I'm looking into claiming some overdraft protection charges back on behalf of my mum, who has (still active) a barclays personal account with a £1,600 overdraft. She's recently requested all of her statements and has totalled up the best part of a grand (£998) worth of these mysterious charges she has no idea about. Is this O/D Protection same as PPI? Can you claim in the same way? She's printed off the payment protection questionnaire from the FOS but a number of questions on there don't apply or seem relevant. I was hoping somebody might have dealt with this situation before and could advise how we proceed with this one? Thanks for reading, Jim

Hi guys HUGE fan of the forum! has really helped me combat the pay day loan debt I have! Basically, I have a small debt with the pay day loan company PayDay Express. I was made redundant after I took out the small loan and have not been able to pay them back in full yet. About five weeks ago they used my card without my knowing or permission to take money out of my Natwest account, unfortunately there wasn't any money in that account so it went overdrawn! I have a Select account with Natwest which doesn't have an overdraft so its a unarranged overdraft! I was unaware of this and as soon as I found out a few weeks ago I paid it off! Now Natwest have written to me and said they are going to charge me £72!! The unarranged overdraft was only £13! Which I have paid along with a "returned item fee" of £6! My problem is my card was used without my knowing or permission by some sort of rogue creditor trying to forcefully take money from my account! Is there anything I can do about the charges????

Hi guys, New user here. I was a student many years ago and had a student overdraft paying of £1500 paying no interest on it. Once I graduated, they started charging interest on it for the next few years. I used to keep an eye on it through internet banking as I've lived abroad since graduating. If it was approaching its limit (-£1500) through the interest charges (approx £25 a month) I would transfer some money into it. After having post delivery problems in Spain (unreliable post) I decided to change my address to my parents' in the UK. Did this as I moved around a lot anyway. So last August they sent a letter to my parents address informing me I was over my limit. I hadn't visited for a while so hadn't read my post. In October I transfered some money accross to the account as I noticed it had gone over its limit through checking my internet banking. Without me realising it, the money was returned due to the account being "cancelled". In November I tried to access internet banking and it didn't work. Called them and they couldn't tell me anything. They told me to go to the branch in person which I can't do. After my Dad then opened all my post I realise now my debt is with APEX credit management. I contacted them and asked them what info they have on me and got an email back telling me to pay into their account and also this sentence - "I can advise that clients will hold the information regarding the account as Apex Credit Management are dealing on behalf of and this information will not be given." Not quite sure what that means really. Am I the "client"? Or is my bank? My questions are as follows - 1. Lloyds had both a telephone number for me and email address but contacted neither. Can I not complain that they could have actually spoken to me before passing the debt on. I would prefer to pay the money back to Lloyds and keep a clean credit record. 2. This is a blemish on my credit record right? Will I have many problems in the future if I move back to the UK? How long will this last? 3. How do I know APEX have the right to collect my debt? Shouldn't they send me all the info they have on me? Do I have the right to request it? 4. How should I proceed with dealings with APEX? Is by email ok? Writting letters would take quite a while for delivery. Would happily pay the debt back to Lloyds to avoid all these issues. I haven't actually had any contact with them as I can't speak to my branch by phone and sending a letter would take forever. Many thanks for any replies. Dhonky

Hi. I am having problems with Halifax and a debt on my account, I have a £100 overdraft on an account I hold with them. It all started last year when I relocated and ended up in a lower paid job so have a very minimal income at the moment. Obviously having to go into my overdraft on numerous occasions to get by from day to day they have a charge of £1 per day in order to use this facility. So with those charges in place my money whittled away very quickly and before not too long the bank charges they were charging me was sending me over my overdraft limit to which they charge me £5 a day to use. Things since then have escalated significantly and now my bank account is in £500 of debt still getting charged £5 a day for been in this and I can not afford to keep up with which is getting worse and worse each month, to which I have now received a letter stating that if I have not paid them back the full amount by 17/06/2011 that they will be taking legal procedures against me. Now I am awfully lost and have tried the debt advice line and not got alot of help from them. I am no longer using this bank account due to the fees that they were charging me been too much, so have opened a new bank account with no overdraft or charges in place. All in all I could do with abit of friendly advice as to how to approach the bank, if there is anything I can do or where I stand in my rights really. Thanks in advance John

Hello, I've been in a DMP with CCCS for just over a year, they reckon it's going to take 14 years to clear the debt, which is part credit cards, part bank loan, and part overdraft. The LloydsTSB overdraft is actually the smallest part of the debt, and stood at around £1200, a year ago. I've been paying them via CCCS about £5 a month. However they've continued to add on massive overdraft charges and interest - currently standing at nearly £28 a month. Clearly at this rate the debt to them is never going to be paid off. Is it really legal to charge this amount of money every month? and is there anything I can do about it?