Bank charge reclaiming post Supreme Court decision

[brokestudent111]

Hi,

 

Don't know if anyone can help me. I used to have a current account with NatWest and rang up about £1,800 in charges before they defaulted me and closed the account. This all happened back in 2008/09. Now, I know the SC decision was in favour of the banks, but I have read a lot of stuff on here about the charges still being unlawful -- espc. under s.5 UTCCR and s.140a CCA. Also, I have heard people are still having successes despite the SC judgement.

 

I am looking for some advice if it is worth starting the claim process, and how to proceed with it (as I think a lot of the information/letters on this site are for claims prior to the SC judgement). I am not sure if I can take the 'hardship route' since the reason I got the charges in the first place (and entered hardship as a result) was because I had a gambling problem, and I rang up my overdrafts to about £6,000 with gambling debts and bank charges. No doubt they will see the online gambling debits and decline the claim straight away. (Its amazing how they let a 19 year old student's overdraft increase to this level, esp. when statements were filled with gambling transactions!)

 

The charges were applied to a NatWest Current account.

 

I have no problems with going to court, and am prepared to take it all the way.

[slick132]

Hi BS,

 

The Site Announcements about new strategies for reclaiming have been removed recently as they've been displayed for a while and get rotated.

 

Check in the bank forums for what folks are doing now to reclaim. It's no longer a case of a few template letters and, BINGO, you get the refund.

 

[brokestudent111]

Thanks for the reply

 

I'll go and check it out

[slick132]

If I come across any useful threads, I'll post you a link here.

 

[rebel11]

I personally think it's irrelevant about what you used the money for.

The first thing to do is get your statements off NatWest for at least the last six years. Send a SAR request with £10.

[brokestudent111]

Hi, cheers for the reply.

 

This has been done already. Have received all statements, etc. (conveniently on the exact day of the 40 day expiry).

 

Have tallied up all the charges, it amounts to almost £1900 if you include the overdraft interest that has been applied to the charges. (About £1500 without interest)

 

I was trying to find the template letter for the preliminary request for repayment using the new arguments, but I could not find one (they all had references to the OFT case and s6. UTCCR arguments). I did find the one I needed on moneysavingexpert though.

 

I did find the guides on this site as well. As I understand, I have to prove that NatWest claimed that their charges covered their administration costs. I couldn't find any documents that said this, but they may exist somewhere. I opened the account back in 2004, which was long before the OFT case and NWB remarketing their charges as 'payment for services'.

 

The one thing I did find was an old 'full and final' request to repay some bank charges on this account, but back from 2006. This time they mentioned nothing about the charges being payment for a service, nor that they were being used as cross-subsidy.

 

The paragraph that caught my attention was "We believe our charges are fair, reasonable and transparent. We consider that the amounts debited to your account have been applied strictly in accordance with your agreement with us and our published tariff, which we are satisfied, complies with all applicable laws and regulations. We are also committed to ensuring the transparency of the information that we give to our customers about the operation of our accounts."

 

Don't know if this is of any use, its the only thing I could find.