Scottish bank holidays

[craigers]

Some not so good news today. Received a letter from the FOS. RBS have asked me to fill in a common financial statement. I emailed the adjudicator dealing with my complaint to query what relevance a CFS has to my case, as it shouldn't matter whether I was a pauper or a millionaire. It was the FOS who treated it as a hardship case, not me who requested it be treated as such.

 

Adjudicator emailed back to say that it was because I mentioned in my complaint that I was not able to repay the charges and that I was already on a DMP to pay off my debts. She then went on to say that on the basis of information supplied so far, the charges were applied in line with the T&Cs of my account, so it would be unlikely she would rule it was unfair for RBS to charge me.

 

If I don't get the money refunded then I will appeal the decision. If that fails then I'll not be paying the charges.

[craigers]

Well surprise surprise! The FOS have written to me to say that they are siding with RBS. Words cannot express how angry I am. This is not the end of it!!

[craigers]

Wrote back to FOS stating that I am extremely disappointed with their siding with RBS, and reiterating the points of my complaint. Further went on to say I would accept a refund of 4 charges or the difference between the charges as applied and the new level of charges. I also said I would not be paying any more, and that RBS could threaten court all they wanted as I was confident that they had no case given the overdrawn balance is entirely a result of their charges.

 

FOS wrote back trying to brush me off saying its not RBS fault the organisations presented the direct debits on the 2nd January, and that RBS were merely following my wishes to pay the organisations. They went on to say RBS would refund two charges. The FOS are totally missing the point of my complaint.

 

Raging!

[yourbank]

Some not so good news today. Received a letter from the FOS. RBS have asked me to fill in a common financial statement. I emailed the adjudicator dealing with my complaint to query what relevance a CFS has to my case, as it shouldn't matter whether I was a pauper or a millionaire. It was the FOS who treated it as a hardship case, not me who requested it be treated as such.

If you mentioned financial hardship or if you could have been classed as in financial hardship then they have to assess for financial hardship.

Adjudicator emailed back to say that it was because I mentioned in my complaint that I was not able to repay the charges and that I was already on a DMP to pay off my debts. She then went on to say that on the basis of information supplied so far, the charges were applied in line with the T&Cs of my account, so it would be unlikely she would rule it was unfair for RBS to charge me.

That was not the issue because the Terms and conditions should state which law is used ie Scottish Law.

If I don't get the money refunded then I will appeal the decision. If that fails then I'll not be paying the charges.

 

Hmmm catching up so interesting.

[yourbank]

Wrote back to FOS stating that I am extremely disappointed with their siding with RBS, and reiterating the points of my complaint. Further went on to say I would accept a refund of 4 charges or the difference between the charges as applied and the new level of charges. I also said I would not be paying any more, and that RBS could threaten court all they wanted as I was confident that they had no case given the overdrawn balance is entirely a result of their charges.

 

FOS wrote back trying to brush me off saying its not RBS fault the organisations presented the direct debits on the 2nd January, and that RBS were merely following my wishes to pay the organisations. They went on to say RBS would refund two charges. The FOS are totally missing the point of my complaint.

 

Raging!

 

It's not their fault for them being presented but it is their fault for processing them on a Scottish Bank Holiday. Your wishes were not that they were paid on a bank holiday when you could not have the opportunity of paying in money to cover them. I would argue that your location meant that you could not possibly cover charges since no branch was open on that day but you could have on the day afterwards.

[craigers]

yourbank, i argued that with the fos. they wrote back to say rbs had provided statements and that i hadn't even paid money in on the next available day, which negates my argument, despite my saying there was no point me paying in the cash as the subsequent direct debits (which i was too late to cancel) would only bounce and that money would be swallowed up by charges. i even argued that if i had known the payments would be processed on 2nd january then i could've had the money in the account on 2nd january by using the the faster payments service but they ignored that.

[Bigdebtor]

yourbank, i argued that with the fos. they wrote back to say rbs had provided statements and that i hadn't even paid money in on the next available day, which negates my argument, despite my saying there was no point me paying in the cash as the subsequent direct debits (which i was too late to cancel) would only bounce and that money would be swallowed up by charges. i even argued that if i had known the payments would be processed on 2nd january then i could've had the money in the account on 2nd january by using the the faster payments service but they ignored that.

 

I have had similar treatment with FOS. They are definitely on the side of the Banks. Is it worth starting up a thread on the FOS? If there is a lot of anecdotal evidence of this one-sided then perhaps we should write to our MP's? Mine is called Gordon Brown!

 

On the other hand if every referral costs them £500 then we should ALL be making referrals on ALL our creditors at every opportunity!

Edited November 5, 2009 by Bigdebtor
typos

[rickyd]

RBS has a policy of following English Bank holidays and as such it opens is larger branches on 2nd January (much to the annoyance of their counter staff). Its true that villages and smaller branches will stay closed though.

 

There's a similar madness around Easter when they are closed on Good Friday and Easter Monday and yet open on the Saturday in between.

 

The bank says the extra open days are "in response to customer demand". I don't know if that's true but the staff certainly don't want to go in on holiday weekends, saturdays etc, especially as nobody gets overtime pay anymore.

 

I have friends who work in RBS branches and they tell me they are always facing issues like Direct Debits and Standing Orders being paid when everyone thinks the bank was closed.

[craigers]

Well FOS have passed the complaint between 2 adjudicators and a supervisor- all siding with RBS. I couldn't be arsed dealing with the FOS any more so I never asked for the complaint to be passed to an ombudsman, deciding instead I would hit RBS for every charge they have hit me for over the life of the account using the new mis-representation route. I have however been advised to hold off, so will wait to see what my SAR throws back at me.

[rickyd]

It will be interesting to see how this develops as the misunderstandings about banking days pop up once again.

 

It seems you have a bigger issue with FOS than with the bank.

 

In the end the bank can argue that they were following your instructions and I'm sure their terms and conditions will mention something about ensuring you have sufficient funds in your account to cover payments etc. My understanding of banking law is that banks may not delay presentation of a cheque, nor any regular payment if the cheque, d/d mandate etc are correctly written. The new faster payment scheme now means that standing orders cannot be cancelled if within 24 hours of payment either. The simple truth is that the main Scottish clearing banks use most of the English bank holidays

as the greater number of branches are south of the border. Its a massive anomaly, but we're stuck with it.

 

You may be morally right here, but with one of the new government's priorities being to stabilise the economy, getting bank shares up to a saleable value will be a key aim, so any ruling destined to open flood gates to a massive number of bank refunds is going to be hard to come by.

[craigers]

i fear you are right. might have to see about the old contract law route.