Lloyds TSB -Are they ignoring your request for hardship ?

[MARTIN3030]

Just looking for claimants or complainants who have applied for refunds and cited hardship-and been ignored.

Please add your comments and also indicate if you have lodged a complaint with the FOS.

[Jezzaa]

Hi Martin

I've been ignored since Sept

Requested list of charges Sept 08 ( No charges applied )

Lying £800 +

Still not received 1st request

Wrote again beginning oct.re request SAR Non compliance

Been on and off work due to illness for 4 months

Can not claim on PPI Self employed Mis sold ? being queried at moment.

Oct 08

Letter hardship waiver etc.

No responce so far

Still getting phone calls, solicitors letters, enforcement notices etc

Got fed up at Christmas

Sent to FSA last Fri.

Not sure how long it will take but worth a try ?

[HONESTKNOB]

Totally ignored mine. Just offered me an emergency overdraft if I sent back cheque book and card. No refund of any charges.

[GASS]

I have put in a claim for my charges, they actually amount to more than what the overdraft was.

 

The claim was put in mid last year, got normall letter, at court waiting for test case.

Wrote back and advised that we would like to be considered for hardship case, response was that they would notify a particular department (can't remember whom) and they would be intouch, nothing received.

 

Wrote again - as we are on Debt Management Plan and still same response as above.

 

So at the moment, nothing.... BUT, will be contacting them again this week, as our circumstances have changed again and not for the better.

[flossie1]

just received letter from lloyds tsb stating that we are a business and cannot claim hardship!

Does anyone know if this is correct or the usual brush off?

if it is wrong does anyone know of any second template letters

thanks

Edited January 25, 2009 by flossie1

[sparks199]

hi i did post this on a threads but didnt get anyreplys so i try here

 

just wanna say that taking your complaint to the Ombudsman on the grounds of financial difficultywill do nothing

 

i made my claim at the end of june2007 just before the test case .

the banks took so long to get back to me that it then came under the waive on the 27th of july

 

in november of 2007 i sent my letter to lloyds back about my financial difficulty and hardship they didnt repond untill jan 2008 .

 

i wasnt happy with there reponce to my hardship claim

so i got in touch with the Ombudsman in march of 2008

 

and in dec 2008 the ombudsman adjudiactor wrote to me ..yes thats 9 months it took them to reach there findings

 

my hardship is im on income support i have rent arrears ,gas arrears, phonebill arrears credit cards arrears all 5 of them .. plus the bank have put on £2350 in charges

on my account since june 2007

 

£1790 in charges since my hardship claim .

 

the ombudsman wrote :

after 9 months

lloyds tsb has explanied to us that it has agreed to suspend future interest and charges from being applied to your account .this means that the outstanding debt you owe to the bank will not increase.however, this does not mean that the bank will suspend the pursuit the outstanding debt.if you would like to come to a repayment arrangement for the amount you owe, then it may be beneficial to contact lloyds tsb

as explained, the bank is under a duty to treat cases of financial difficulty positively and sympathetically.

but that does not mean that there is any kind of financial difficulties 'threshold' which,once reached,triggers a refund of charges

for these reasons i am persuaded that the bank is not under an obligation to do any more at this stage .

lloyds tsb appears to be treating your financial difficulties positively and sympathetically.According ly,i do not think that your complaint should proceed.

 

yours sincerely

sam wedderburn

adjudicator

 

what a joke they have acted positively, yeah by chargeing £1790 since put into hardship

[sparks199]

and my replay to the Ombudsam was

 

in relation to my financial hardship :

 

it is unacceptable that only now that lloyds tbs have stopped all charges

what about all the changes since november of 2007 when my letter was sent to them

about my financial hardship .

you cannot say that to stop the charges after more than 1 year of them being told im in hardship

that they are acting within the banking code of conduct

theses charges should have been stop at lease 1 year ago

but no they carried on chargeing untill yourself wrote to them

again thats not acceptable nothing less than a full refund of all changes made since hardship was made

will be accpeted .

how can you say that have acted in the right manner over 1 year to do what they should of done in november of 2007

and only now to stop them once you sent them a letter .

 

FSA outlineing the FSA waiver guidance

 

1) A bank has 8 weeks from the point a claimant indicates to the bank that they believe they are a hardship case. This applies both to cases where a claim for bank charges is made from a claimant who is claiming hardship (at the same time) and also where a claimant with a bank charge claim already made is subsequently claiming hardship status.

 

You don't have to put in a separate complaint to your bank about the hardship element of the claim to exhuast the 8 week complaints time limit in order for the FOS to take up your case. Therefore if the bank have taken more than 8 weeks to decide on your status the FOS will take uo the case.

 

2) In the instances where a bank does not agree that a claimant is a hardship case then you can go straight to the FOS who will adjudicate and if they agree you have hardship status they will make a reccomendation to the bank on whether they should refund the charges. The hardship criteria the FOS would use is the FSA waiver guidance

 

In making an assessment of financial difficulty the firm will take into account:

 

a. evidence of changes in lifestyle, including loss of employment; disability; serious illness; imprisonment; relationship breakdown; death of a partner; starting a lower paid job; parental/carer leave; and starting full-time education;

 

 

 

b. evidence of the following events:

1. 1. items repeatedly being returned unpaid due to lack of available funds;
      
   2. failing to make loan repayments or other commitments;
      
   3. discontinuation of regular credits;
      
   4. notification of some form of insolvency or court proceedings;
      
   5. regular requests for increased borrowing or repeated rescheduling of debts;
      
   6. making frequent cash withdrawals on a credit card at a non-promotional rate of interest; and
      
   7. repeatedly exceeding a credit card or overdraft limit without agreement (and, in this regard, where a complainant has incurred over £500 in unauthorised overdraft charges in the previous 12 months, that is to be treated as indicative of financial difficulty).
      

   
   

[sparks199]

and again there reply back

 

the finanacial ombudsam reply was:

 

I have explained that in my view the bank is adhering to the provision of the banking code in relation to your financial difficulties.

by suspending future interest from accruing on your outstanding debt to the bank,Loyds TSB has taken the appropriate steps.

The bank does not appear to be disputing the difficulties that you are encountering,but there is little else that we would expect it to do

 

 

then it goes on about the oft test case

 

this is just a joke ..even the FOS are now doing nothing

[RedVixen]

They completely ignored my hardship request.

 

That complaint went in with a couple of PPI claims which they did respond to sort of. So I am sending the complete complaint package into the FOS to see if they will take this on as well

 

My whole overdraft is charges plus there is another £1K they took £900 in the period upto may this year when they without warning stopped adding the charges

 

The overdraft was sent back to collections and debt collecting activities were stopped after I told Apex go on then sue the counter claim will be more

 

After speaking to that complaints department earlier in the week - i have no idea if they intend to restart debt collecting on the overdraft - they didn't seem to have aclue themselves

[sdbrown1983]

I've just got Lloyds to admit that I'm in financial hardship, but says it won't take my case off hold, because they don't have to. They say they simply have to deal with the case of financial hardship, which they have done by offering me an account at £10 per month with slightly lower charges!!!

[Chris J Denman]

I have an old LLoyds account and only have two transactions that take place each month:

 

£30 in

£22 out (loan)

 

That's it.

 

However, one month after moving my DD's around something went wrong and one £22 payment got missed.

 

Then all hell broke loose.

 

Since then I have lost count the charges incurred. We're talking hundreds, over £500 in the last year.

 

Why?

 

When I went into my local branch to ask how much money I needed to put into my account, I was told the wrong figure. I was gutted enough putting in over £100, but when the next statement came in I was charged £165 again.

 

All for missing ONE £22 payment.

 

The only thing they have done after spending half a day on the phone was give me a temporary reducing overdraft.

 

I put in a complaint and it was rejected.

 

Someone mentioned that if you have over £500 in charges within 12 months that this was classed as "hardship".

 

Well, my wife and I have just had a baby and now we only have my income. On top of this we have had to move into a bigger house.

 

Half of my wages covers the rent, and I can only just manage the bills.

 

When I have to walk into Lloyds to make £100's in payments for missing a single £22 it makes me feel ill. I feel like screaming out to all the customers what they have done. But nobody seems to care.

 

It really is daylight robbery.

 

In any case, can someone put me in the right direction?

 

Chris Denman

[RedVixen]

Chris start your own thread it will help as people will only be looking at this one for the general hardship data collection Martin is doing

 

My own opinion is that I would tell them to stuff it stop paying them. And take your complaint straight to the FOS what they have done is ridiculous and completely unfair

 

I have to say having done the same thing with RBS it is clear that the banks will try and look at hardship cases along the lines of well we won't add anymore charges - RBS are certainly making those sorts of noises in the letter that accompnaies their I and E form. Which sort of line sup with the response that Sparks got form the FOS - i am thinking see if I can get my court fees weighted and just take them straight through it. The charges on my RBS account are about half of the overdraft and they are chasing that

[spidey41]

i've been through fos over lloyds tsb totally unbelievable , they took lloyds tsbs side right from the start , it ended with me agreeing a £10.00 a month payment on a credit card debt , lloyds tsb never sent me anything to pay this debt with , and 3 weeks after this was agreed through fos they put apex debt collectors onto me demanding full amount owing , i got back in touch with fos today , they told me lloyds tsb were sending out a paying in book but if i did not recieve it dont call fos call apex debt collectors to find out why , total shambles , completely on banks side , i think it is disgusting that you ask these people for help with a situation and they help the banks not you