Going For Barclays

[Guy]

Hi All,

 

My Partner has a business account, savings account and a current account with Barclays. The current account has, over a period of several months, become overdrawn. the reason for this is the charges incurred as they wouldn't give her an overdraft. Jo spoke to her bank yesterday to advise them that she was ever so slightly unhappy and wanted an overdraft facility. Told to talk to someone higher up, so she did. Today.

 

Was told thta her cards has now been stopped along with her credit card because she is £600 overdrawn. She tried explaining that being self employed money comes in at odd times and also got in about the charges have made her overdrawn. The man on the phone, she didn't get the name unfortunately, said

 

'We are paying your mortgage' at which point Jo 'lost it'.

I am now sending a letter before action demanding that £600 charges are refunded, that WE pay our mortgage AND their charges and will also invoice them an administration fee for having to cancel direct debits and the inconvenience.

 

Will also mention that they should NOT take money from the business account to cover the personal overdraft as that is a threat against her livelihood which would open an entirely new can of worms.

 

All she wanted was an overdraft facility!!!

[Guy]

This is the letter I used a version of the lawyers letter in General.

 

Our Address

 

 

Their address

 

LETTER BEFORE ACTION

 

Dear Mr J Smith

 

Penalty & unfair charges – request for refund for Jo-Ann Anderson Sort Code xxxxxx Account xxxxxxxx

 

Having just come off the phone with the debt recovery department and a very condescending man (fortunately for him I did not take his name) I feel that I MUST take this further. I am aware that my account went overdrawn to a sum approaching £1000 without having an agreed overdraft. I have had several discussions with the bank re this and have asked repeatedly for an overdraft facility of £1000 as money goes in and out of this account at odd times (I am self employed with a business account with yourselves). In the main bills of aprox £2500 go out and that is covered by ingoings of the same amount. This was explained to the man on the phone who at one point said ‘WE pay your mortgage’. Firstly I would point out that I pay my mortgage AND I PAY YOUR PENALTY FEES. Secondly if you had given me the agreed overdraft I would have no penalty fees and the account would now be in credit and I wouldn’t have had the conversation that has forced me to seek advice in this matter. I have calculated that since the account was opened a sum of £650 has been charged to my account and I am of the view that your charges represent a penalty and are therefore irrecoverable at common law. In the Scottish case of Castaneda and Others v. Clydebank Engineering and Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. (1904) 12 SLT 498 the House of Lords held that a contractual party can only recover damages for actual or liquidated losses incurred from a breach of contract. This is also the position in English law: Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co Ltd v New Garage and Motor Co Ltd [1915] AC 79.

 

Your charges do not reflect any actual loss, instead they appear to represent a lucrative profit-making scheme. In particular, charges were applied after I entered into a transaction(s) without sufficient funds in my account. Actual loss is the cost of automatically sending me a computer generated letter. I would respectfully submit that is valued at no more than 50 pence.

 

UK banks have recently given evidence to the House of Commons Treasury Committee on how bank charges are calculated: "The costs are going to pay for all the people we have who pursue debt, collect debt, speak to customers and chase payments. The way these charges are arrived at is by taking these total costs and making some assumptions about the volume that is going to come through to arrive at the individual charges" (2nd report, 25 January 2005, paragraph 50).

 

Accordingly, the charges applied to my account are not a reasonable pre-estimate of the bank’s loss in relation to my account. No-one has had to look at my account or telephone me. No one has had to collect anything. Your charges would appear to represent a device to recover global losses (for example, loan defaulters, bad debt write off, including commercial lending in, and outwith, the UK).

 

On a separate note, your charges appear to represent an unfair term of contract which is contrary to the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 (SI. 1999/2083). My account falls within the ambit of Regulation 5 of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 as I am a consumer. Your charges constitute an unfair penalty under reference to paragraph 1(e) of schedule 2 of the said regulations:

 

‘Indicative and non-exhaustive list of terms which may be regarded as unfair - 1. Terms which have the object of effect of - (e) requiring any consumer who fails his obligation to pay a disproportionately high sum in compensation’.

 

0n 26 July 2005 the OFT stated that 'a charge is likely to be disproportionately high if it is more than a court would be likely to award if the lender sued the cardholder for breach of contract'. Because your charges include a large profit margin, in addition to actual loss, they are irrecoverable as an unfair term in contract. I believe that your charges require me to pay a disproportionately high sum in compensation for incurring a transaction(s) which was ultimately declined by an automated computer system.

 

In addition, it is unfair to require me to subsidise your global debt recovery costs and debt write-off.

 

Please refund these charges to my account within the next 7 days and reimburse me my costs as per the administration invoice attached. I reserve the right to commence court proceedings without any further notice.

 

Yours faithfully

 

J Anderson

 

 

Have also invoiced them £50 for time and inconvenience caused.

:twisted:

[richardc]

Good for you! Keep us posted.

[Guy]

Delay delay delay!!!

 

Our letter has moved up to a Customer Service Advisor now. Very sorry for the level of service they are "looking into our concerns" and reckon they will give us an update no later than 10th April!!! they also very kindly enclosed a leaflet explaining how Barclasy works to resolve complaints.

 

I know a better way

 

I will now send a pleasant letter back to him explaining that weve been more than patient enough and will be filing a claim on Monday.

[Guy]

Times up -

 

Just filed claim via Money Claim for total £561.81 inc interest plus £80 cost.

 

Coincidently Jo has just had a phone call from the business accounts manager in response for an application for an overdraft on the business account. Guess what - cant have an OD because of her personal account. however if her personal account wasn't in dispute they might reconsider her application!!

 

Too late!!!!

[kaznelson]

Good for you!!! Keep us all up to date

[Guy]

Today resieved an offer of £300 as full and final settlement.

A gesture of goodwill.

 

Looks similar to other letters from Barclays but it has moved up the ladder a bit. I started this claim at branch. Customer services took it on with the usual see the T's and C's but this is now from Karl Voller at head office customer relations (have posted his address on one of the contacts threads).

 

This is probably a response from the claim filed last week.

 

Have declined his offer due to the extra costs and embarrassment at teh bank and want my £641.26 IN FULL!!!!!

 

(well Jo (my partner) does.)

[Guy]

They are defending. Moneyclaim has been updated on teh last day. Am now awaiting a copy of their defence and details from Moneyclaim.

 

Will update when i know more.

 

I now have Barclays AND Natwest defending so could be pretty busy for the next few weeks!!

[Guy]

Have received allocation questionaire to complete by 14th May.

 

Wonder if they will actually travel to the allocated court - Penzance!

[Guest red_ratty_rat]

Good work!

 

However I would advise that you move your business banking to NatWest - they are great to small businesses

[Guy]

The date is set.

 

Due to go to court on August the 15th at 10am. Court is Penzance Cornwall. Must now start to gather all relevant documents and send to all parties.

 

If anyone else has got to this point with Barclays would be useful to compare notes on our claims.

 

Guy

[Guy]

Offer of full settlement recieved today.

 

The offer is conditional with a confidentiality line in the acceptance letter.

This time will send the letter back with the confidentiality line crossed out with a note that we do NOT accept this and will continue to court if so required.

 

See what happens next.

 

(by the way this was prompted by an e-mail to Keith Jeimiah [email protected])

 

I expect him to pay up evntually without confidentiality and as soon as the money is in the bank i will be talking to the local paper - The West Briton and tell them the whole process and the crap way that Barclays treat thier customers.

 

Guy

[Barry031261]

Hi Guy,

 

Can you post the copy you emailed the Keith Jeramiah as he is the solicitor dealing with both my Barclaycard claim and my Woolwich claim. Would be interested to see how you managed to get a settlement offer from him.

 

Well done,

 

Baz

[Guy]

First e-mail sent was:

 

Dear Mr Jeremiah,

 

Im sure you are a busy man at the moment with the number of claims for return of penalties. (i am only number 23 out of 60 on my forum) (maybe exaggerated a bit here). But with reference to my claim, i have looked at your defence as stated on the allocation questionaire and it is the same as in all of the others so once you have been to court with one then the result will inevatably follow for all of the others where you have the same defense. (I know that each will be individual and no precedence set but we are all taking very close attention to each others cases.)

I note that one Judge has even made a comment on the allocation questionaire:

"It is difficultto see how the Defendant, absent any witness evidence, could show reasonableness of charges or details of its costs. Surely there will be a witness. This has a bearing on the time estimate for the case."

This only goes to give me and my fellow claimants more confidence in our eventual settlement.

 

You could lessen your workload by settling my claim. You could pay it directly into my bank account which then stops the phone calls from the debt department. (I keep explaining that they should communicate with the litigation section but their AUTOMATED system just keeps churning out letters and most of the people in that department have been on the Bernard Manning school of charm course, the best way to shut them up is to tell them that i am suing your bank and that usually stops them for a while.)

 

Settling my claim means that my account will go into credit, they have a positive result for their bonuses, you have one less to deal with. And i can get on and run my business (i actually have a barclays business account).

I presume that you would want some sort of gagging provision (Natwest did for my partner) but if so make me an offer.

 

I look forwards to your response and hopefully my bank account in credit again.

 

I hope that the banks will review their charges in due course at which time you will be able to get back to the run of the mill bank litigation.

 

And if you can't settle now then i presume that i will see you or one of your collegues on the court steps with your increased settlement offer (i'll bring the support team, banners and local papers)

 

Best regards

 

Jo-Ann Anderson.

 

HAve sent a further e-mail today:

 

 

Dear Mr Jeremiah,

 

Thankyou for your letter ref KJ/LIT - 030307 dated 14th June.

 

I am returning a signed copy of your letter however i do NOT accept the confidentiality part of the settlement. I have noted this on your copy by scrubbing through this section and making a clear notation to that effect.

 

I will forward a letter to the courts cancelling my proceedings ONLY on confirmation that the funds have been credited to my account and again will make clear the fact that i DO NOT accept confidentiality.

 

Once funds are recieved then i will cancel my action.

 

If you want me to keep quiet then i will consider any offer you wish to make in that respect.

 

Obviously if you are unable to settle this case then i will see you or your team in Penzance on the 15th

 

Thanks again.

 

Jo Anderson.:grin: :grin: :grin:

[Barry031261]

Nice!

 

I think Mr Jeramiah will be getting a similar sort of email from me today!

 

Well done again,

 

Baz

[Rooster-UK]

What progress, Guy ?

[Guy]

Sent the letter back with the gagging restriction crossed out.

 

Checked the bank today - money paid in. Overdraft now cleared and £95 in CREDIT.

 

So they paid up just short of £700 (more than claimed for)

 

Small donation on its way.

[mahala]

Congratulations.

 

However, I really must say that I do not recommend sending letters/emails of that nature. I'm not sure that it's appropriate to use information gleaned here about other cases, which are, until they reach court, essentially private matters. You could be putting fellow forum members in a difficult situation, not to mention the admins.

[Movingon]

Bank Claim Result

NatWest £2051 UnGagged myself. They paid up in full :grin:

Barclays £641.81 Settled in full.:grin:

MBNA AOL £390 fob off letter received

MBNA Card £880 fob off letter received

MBNA Loan £115 fob off letter received 23/06

 

Ungagged yourself?? Does this mean that you have agreed to confidentiality and have now reneged on that agreement?!

 

**AGHAST**

[icefall]

well done on your settlement!

[Rooster-UK]

Good for you, Guy.

Great news.

[alweeks]

Hi there

 

I am so pleased that you have had a result against Barclays. I am a Woolwich Customer and sent them an access request post on 9th May. They sent me back copies of the charges I had requested details on and told me they had passed on my letter to Barclays. I eventually received my details on 24th May. I was astounded to find they totalled £9060.31 over the last five years. I replied to them on the same date in the manner you have suggested on the Forum. Barclays Bank have replied to me on 31st May to say they will be contacting me shortly. Since that time I am being pursued by Equidebt on behalf of the Woolwich and also by Heatons, Solicitors in respect of an " unauthorised overdraft " on my account of £524.94. This is made up of their charges and interest as they would not give me an agreed o/d of £150 when I applied to them. That O/D would have wiped out the need for them to levy any charges against me whatsoever. All charges levied have resulted from delays in giving me credit when I have paid in monies, resulting in them knocking SO's and DD's.

 

I have today received an offer from Barclays in the sum of £834 " towards the cost and inconvenience inherent in a further dispute in mind and is intended as a gesture of goodwill ".

 

I intend therfore in sending them a LBA today and instituting proceedings against them forthwith. However as the amount that I shall now claim is above the Small Claims limits, does anyone have any suggestions as to how I should proceed?

 

Alweeks - Cardiff

[mahala]

could you start your own thread alweeks and then we can reply in that - it makes it easier for people to follow your progress and help you where necessary. Cheers!

[Guy]

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