Latest OFT Ruling

[veester]

Unbelievable

BBC NEWS | Business | Judge rules on overdraft charges

 

Seems a bit of farce....

 

Also the end of the article implies that the OFT have all but given up on the hope of any of us normal customers getting back any of our charges!!!

Edited October 9, 2008 by veester
i should read why they ruled they way they did

[mailmannz]

DOnt worry, the BBC is the last place to go to for news.

 

Better to read up on the judegement (posted above) to find out why the Judge came down the way he did.

 

Mailman

[veester]

Fair point mailmannz - am reading now

[mailmannz]

Once you are done, if you would be so good as to post a condensed readers digest version of the ruling, that would be great

 

REgards

 

Mailman

[Mr lex]

In a nut shell, It says is that historic terms do not constitute penalties - which is what most people expected it to say.

 

As for claims, it leaves us where we were - waiting for the appeal to be thrown out so that we can get the stays lifted and carry on suing the banks under UTCCR1999.

 

This was always the side act to the main event. More later in the month on the main site.

 

Thanks to Steven4064

[peter534]

When you say main site - what do you mean?

 

Also, what is happening later in the month?

 

Or do you mean that it will take that long to collate the information.

 

Please don't take this post the wrong way, it doesn't sound as curt when spoken.

[Mr lex]

Please don't take this post the wrong way, it doesn't sound as curt when spoken.

 

Not at all Peter

 

There's more information to come from the case and the OFT later this month, the 28th I believe. A announcement will be made when all the relative information is in hand and has been digested. It will be made in the main forum and I will put a link here.

 

Lex

[peter534]

Thankyou:)

 

Do you have any idea when the appeal is likely to be heard, or how can i watch out for any developments?

[Pogalong]

The appeal his happening on 28 October. Hope this helps

[bennyowen]

I am still wondering why the OFT is taking forever to come up with the result of its investigation.

 

In July 2008, the Judge was not particularly happy about OFT's delay in publishing the result from its overdraft investigation.

 

I wonder what it is waiting for or may be it has nothing to publish.

[Mr lex]

If you keep this thread in your fav's, I will update it as and when. There will be posts all over the site when there's any news.

 

Lex

[Pogalong]

As with all of these type of investigations they seem to take forever. You mayfind the attached interesting it gives you a timeframe for what the OFT are currently doing and when the next stages are anticipated to happen.

 

It is my guess that they may drag their heals until the decision in the appeal is know.

 

Hope the attachment is of help.

 

http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/personal-current-accounts/banksqa091008.pdf

[peter534]

Yes it does thanks.

 

Out of interest, where do you get this information from?

[legaladviser99]

I personally think bank charges are legal and this is a victory for common sense.If you sign a form saying "If you go overdrawn we will charge you £10 per day" ... and you go overdrawn for 14days and they send you a bill for £140 ... then you have received exactly what you have signed up for !!!I often get overdraft interest added to my account, and once I got charged £15 for exceeding it ... I couldnt moan as I accepted it when I opened the account.No one forces a person to open an account with a particular bank .. if you dont like the T&Cs then go elsewhere ...

[peter534]

Well bully for you mate.

 

Try and put yourself in the position of a single parent on benefits who for one reason or another goes 3 pence overdrawn, lets say for a hike in a particular direct debit.

 

They are then charged £30 because the bank paid a direct debit when there was not enough funds, and also charged them a further £30 for being that 3 p overdrawn.

 

This all comes out the following month from their already tight budget, the bank will not listen to reason and they just keep on getting charged because of bounced direct debits and the like.

 

This can quickly add up to hundreds of pounds. All for 3p.

 

Take your head out of your bottom. How ignorant are you!

[Mr lex]

To LegalAdviser, or what ever your name is today

 

We understand WHY the banks charge - although you do say that it's because we've spent money that isn't ours. This argument falls flat when you consider that they charge more for NOT paying a direct debit than they do for paying it - i.e. spending money that we haven't got.

 

With rising costs throughout the country directly affecting the cost of living, pretty much every normal citizen in the UK is spending money they haven't got - this site has been up for more than 2 years - in those 2 years we have heard horror stories from people - one where a disabled woman and her two kids had to eat dry breakfast cereal for a fortnight (one pack of Tesco's own cornflakes) because her disability benefit had been paid late, meaning her DD for her rent, gas and electricity were paid late. The bank took more in charges over this than was actually due in the account. Yes, I suppose she did spend more than she had, and I suppose she didn't really have to splash out on breakfast cereal.

 

If you breach the contract then the bank will charge you - fair enough - what they are not allowed to do for a breach of contract is make a profit - it's simple contract law 101.

 

Banks have been making profits unlawfully - someone caught them out. The owners of this site.

 

Well, if I were on a low income, I doubt I would be living somewhere where there is a decent and affordable public transport system. In fact, if I had to catch a bus from where I live to get to work, the earliest would get me into work 1 hour and 15 minutes late every day. I can't see me keeping my job for long if didn't have a car. Incidentally, it's STILL cheaper to have the car that it would be to catch that bus to work and back each week.

 

 

Now, if Barclays, and the others, had been reasonable and realised that we didn't create the situation and had refunded us the money they had taken when we asked, perhaps this mass of publicity wouldn't have occured and instead of it costing them millions it would only have cost them a few quid. Greed is what caused this - THEIR greed.

 

Each of the top 5 banks in the UK routinely post profits - a good chunk of that coming from people who can least afford it - and they know it, they also know that they are the people least likely to be able to do anything about it, and so the spiral continues.

 

Just because something is written into a contract doesn't make it legal.

 

If I were to have a contract with you, and it was written that if you breached it, I could slap you in the face, and I did so - I could still be arrested for common assault.

 

People, like yourself, often say "be responsible for your own actions" - well, aside from the fact that a lot of the time these charges are a result of someone elses actions (i.e. not being paid on time, businesses taking the wrong amounts via DD (and, yes - it happens, and you try and enforce the DD guarantee and see how easy that is! NOT!)) - I think the same could be said of the banks - they are kicking up because they've been caught with their pants around their ankles for once, and instead of putting their hands up they actually have the gaul to attempt to gain public sympathies with lies like "if we lose this case, we'll have to start charging for accounts" - when their lawyers know, I'm sure, that this wouldn't be legal any longer either. It's called deflection.

 

It works both ways. In law, if I break the contract I am legally bound to reimburse any costs incured by the other party because of that breach - I am happy to do that. I am not happy to condone the breaking of the law by making them a profit for a breach - to do so, IMO, would be aiding and abetting something I know to be unlawful.

 

Lex

[car2403]

This should help with the intrepretation of the Judgment and the next steps, which Mr Lex has alluded too;

 

http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/personal-current-accounts/banksqa091008.pdf