Hardship confusion

[junior232]

An update on my claim i received a reply from Natwest today and i have to fill in a form of all my income and expenditure.

 

Just a little confused about the whole hardship process, how does it actually work?

 

I am on benefits, i have two kids, and my expenditure is more than my income, so would i qualify?

[junior232]

Can anyone help me please, i have read the letter natwest have sent carefully and basically they want to help me sort my finances out and make sure i dont get charged agian but nothing said about the charges begin refunded can any one help with a letter to send back to them.

[maroondevo52]

Hi,

 

This link should help.

 

The Consumer Forums - Applying for refunds of bank charges on the basis of hardship

[junior232]

Hi,

 

Thanks for replying back.

 

I am just confused as to what i need to send back, i have filled in the income and expenditure form, should i include a letter stating i would like a full refund of the charges back or should i just send back the income and exp form on its own?

[maroondevo52]

Yes, also include a schedule of charges.

[junior232]

Hi, thanks i did include a schedule of charges with my original letter i sent them but i will include it when i send the income and expenditure form off.

 

Thanks for your help

[junior232]

Hi a few more things i am confused about, thanks for any help in advance.

 

The income and expenditure form from natwest states i need to include documentary evidence for my expenditure such as the amount of electricity, gas, water, telephone bills etc, i moved in my new place in april i did receive some bills but i have misplaced these, so what can i say for not providing the evidence and how will this affect my hardship claim?

 

Also how long shall i give natwest to refund all my charges after sending back the income and expenditure form?

[MandM]

Hi, mrs m here. WOW! What happened to cag while I was away.

 

My daughter put in a claim to Barclays for charges to her old account totaling nearly £2000. She told them she was a hardship case and they basically told her to get lost and to ask her new bank for help.

 

Not sure what we are going to do , am thinking of putting in a claim to the court but, not sure how to go about it or even if it will do any good. Decided not to go down the FOS route as we asked them to look at a claim for her PPI on Barclaycard and we were informed by the woman on the phone after 3 months, that unless she is being thrown out of her house or amenities are being cut off she would not be classed as a hardship case.

 

Mrs M

[junior232]

Hi,

 

An update to my claim, natwest sent me an income and expenditure form and basically they said i am not in financial hardship "Following our assessment of your financial position, we have determined that you do not meet the criteria to be entered into our financial hardship policy because you have understated your income and a duplication of expenses in your expenditure therefore you have sufficient income to meet your ongoing commitments. They have sent a 4 page response basically giving answers to every thing in the template letter i used on this forum quoting the supreme test case.

 

I am on benefits my income is pretty straightforward, i have two kids, i have debt over 4000 pound which includes electric, water and council tax, and i have other debts which i am not making monthly payments on but i soon will have to when they take it to court and take money out of my benefits, i have to feed my kids, i have to cloth my kids, i have to pay my household bills i dont understand why they rejected it, my expenditure is more than my income im really struggling and natwest keep taking my benefits money on a few occassions i have been left with 50 pounds to last me 6 days because natwest took over 40 pounds of charges.

 

What else can i do abou this i dont agree with what natwest are doing i need some guidance and advice from people who have been rejected for hardship but won over a period of time, i didnt even claim compound interest it was the basic 8%.

[junior232]

bump

[MandM]

Hi Junior

 

It would help you if you could open an account somewhere else, it means that they could not take your benefit from you and then you could fight them for the charges without worrying about your money in your account. I am not sure what bank would take you now but I would try the post office I know they do an account that is very basic, you can not pay direct debits etc but at least the money in it would be for you to use for your everyday needs not to pay off a greedy bank. It would be worth looking into this now.

 

Mrs M

[kennythecelt]

Hi There

 

Its not easy to get refunds under hardship, I'm afraid. Banks are under no obligation to repay bank charges for hardship, but under the Banking Conduct of Business Sourcebook and Payment Services Regulations 2009, they do have an obligation to be fair to you and consider the circumstances.

 

Chances are increased slightly if you concentrate on expenditure and arrears for priority items eg Mortgage/ rent/ secured loans and essentials. You need to try and demonstrate why the charges escalated your financial problems and ensure the claim for hardship is personal to you, your family and not generalised. Try to demonstrate how the charges meant you could not pay bill A and B and how that affected you financially ie how the spiral of charges escalated your financial problems.

 

You have the right of appeal to the bank on this.

 

I wish you luck, but success is limited.

 

Please have a look through the debt forums as well if you are having difficulties with repayment of mortgage/ loans or have had threatening letters. We can help you in those areas.

 

Good luck!!

[MandM]

Hi junior.

 

Just had another thought . I'm sure I read on the forum some time ago when I was doing stuff for my daughter , someone said that if you are on benefits and this is the only money that you have going into your account then the bank cannot take any of the money

if you need it to pay priority debts i.e utilities rent etc.

 

Someone else might know of this and get back to you. Will have a nose around and try and get some info for you.

 

Mrs M

[MandM]

Hi junior

Found this on the money supermarket.com site.

 

Not sure if it is 100% right but maybe one of the other caggers may know.

 

 

Social Security Administration Act 1992

Miscellaneous

Certain benefit to be inalienable **

 

187- Subject to the provisions of this Act, every assignment of, or charge on-

(a)benefit as defined in section 122 of the Contributions and Benefits Act;

(b)any income-related benefit; or

©child benefit,

and every agreement to assign or charge such benefit shall be void; and, on the bancrupcy of the beneficiary, such benefit shall not pass to any trustee or other person acting on behalf of his creditors.

 

** inalienable = not to be forfeited, or not transferable.

 

Basically they can't take your benefit money for overdrafts or debts, and if they have you can ask for it back.

 

If the bank staff argue, then insist on speaking to a manager - they know the rules.

 

 

it was brought into legislation to stop banks and organisations taking peoples benefits off them, as the law says that benefit is an amount that is a minimum amount of money decided by law and awarded for a claimant to live on, and banks or others are not allowed to deprive you of it, even the law itself can not deprive you of enough to live on.

 

The banks can expect you to pay something but that has to be agreed, and they are not allowed to just dig in and help themselves, without the recipients express agreement and permission.

 

 

I would go for the give me money back and if the quote above is right then maybe a letter to them with the legislation reminder and also a call to the FOS. I have found that sometimes if you call them they will give you some indication as to whether you can put a claim into them before you go to all the hassle of filling out the form. I also got a reference number so when I wrote to the bank I let them know that this was the number assigned to my complaint with the FOS.

 

You may still want to think about what I said before on the changing banks just to cover yourself while your claim is going through.

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

Mrs M

[junior232]

Hi thank you for replying back MandM and kennythecelt, the money which i receive are income support, tax credits and child benefit all which are paid to me so myself and my kids can survive.

 

I will of course be appealing agianst natwest's decision but if what MandM says is true i have a better chance of getting back my charges, could somone have a look at MandM's response and let me know if it is true and what i can use in my letter to natwest please, thank you for helping out ManaM.

[MandM]

Hi junior

 

Spoke to someone at the FOS today and he thinks that the Social Security act is a bit of a grey area. I do get the feeling sometimes that the FOS tell you not to do things for their own reasons so hopefully someone else on cag will know a bit more about this act and whether it can be used to push the bank into coughing up.

Will keep on nosing around as my daughter is in the same situation as you so it will help us both to get good advice.

 

Mrs M

Edited August 19, 2010 by MandM

[Parry]

Interesting thread; I have a family member who is also trying to claim hardship. Their charges amount to well over £1000 over a two year period and in the end they had to open another account so there was some of their benefit left once it was deposited!

 

The claim was made with schedule of charges, proof of benefit and yet the Bank just sent a letter saying “we won go away”. I’m just pondering what the next move is. The fos has never struck me as being very fair but may report to them if it’s worthwhile?

 

Surely someone on basic benefit qualifies as hardship and any attempt by Banks to plunder that money through a vicious cycle of overdraft charges causing overdraft charges is wrong?

[MandM]

Hi Parry.

 

I agree with you it sucks but ,what do we expect from the banks. I suppose at the end of the day they just dont like giving money back.

 

I have read some old threads on the site going back to 2007/2008 one in particular where a cagger did get her daughters money back. using the ACT. Will try and find the link for you.

Not sure if it will help as it was 3 years ago and I am sure by now the banks will have already found a loophole to get round.

 

Mrs M

[MandM]

Hi

 

On reading some of the posts on the ACT on this site and other sources. It seems that a lot of people are saying that it is hard to claim back charges under this act if the banks were not notified in writing at the time that the money going into these accounts was benefit allowance. So the feeling is that if the bank did not know why should they pay it back.

 

It is a very complicated argument and it would be great if someone in the know could maybe give some advice on this subject.

 

Mrs M

[Parry]

Hi MandM, thanks for that; why doesn’t it surprise me that it’s very difficult to claim anything under that act

 

 

In our case the only deposits in the account was a fortnightly sum listed as DWP on the statements. Hard to deny that they were unaware of it being benefit but no doubt they would do.

 

It seems incredible that people in receipt of benefit, who are forced to have it paid in to a Bank account, can then have their subsidence level income robbed by the very people they are forced to use. There must be some form of redress, even at Government level for their insistence on forcing people to use Banks to receive benefit?

[linz22]

Hi,

 

I will be contacting the F.O.S today and see what they have to say about benefits and charges, I know MandM has called them already i just want to see what reponse i get for enquiring about this. i have looked around and it does seem banks are allowed to take benefits but if you send a letter of appropriation they cannot, but the banks are aware of people who receive benefits in to there accounts if they wanted to they would not take this money. I think it is a little unfair for people who are on benefits and there are not any clear laws to protect benefit money hopefully that will change some day.

 

I will keep you updated on what the F.O.S say if anyone else can help us out to try find a way we can get charges back that were taken from benefit money that please reply to this thread.

[junior232]

Hi,

 

Sorry for the late reply i have contacted the F.O.S and basically they said the same thing its a bit of a grey area and it would be difficult to reclaim bank charges through the act, any updates MandM and parry?

 

I think my next course of action would be to try and dig up as much information as i can to try build up a case agianst natwest.

[noragchick]

The idiot banks are not obliged to refund benefit monies already taken and I wouldn't bother trying to convince them that they need to refund on the basis of what social security legislation has to say on the matter. The statute is too vague and too easy for them to dodge.

 

The only strategy that seems to work if you're trying to get a refund for your client of previously appropriated funds is to make the argument that by taking these monies, they had committed a breach of their Banking Code regulations to treat financial hardship cases in a sympathetic and reasonable manner and taking a big chunk of their subsistence monies is not the most convincing way to demonstrate compliance.

 

I've had three successes using this argument. One client got a £475 refund and all charges withdrawn. one got £40 and the account was set to zero balance. The FSO wrote to all the high street credit peddlars back in November telling them that the regulator was getting swamped with complaints about this and needed the banks to cool it on the appropriation issue. I stick a copy of that letter in with my own and it seems to work.

[mandyjay]

Hi im just at the beginning of all this Im going to try and ask Barclays for my money back, Im trying to get back statments but finding it very difficult so unsure on how much iv been charged over the years. Im a disabled single mum on benefits but iv been messed around for over a year with my benefit being paid late ect . The only direct debit going out of my account every month is for my car insurance which I cannot live without because I can't walk due to my disabilitys also I have a disabled son. But because I didn't have enough money in my account when my car insurance went out Iv been charged and its gone up since and Im unable to get it back down I feel like im in a huge hole and everytime more charges are added ontop I feel i falling deeper into the hole.

Iv been living on my family tax credit since early march 2011 while I wait again for the benefits department to sort my money out so Iv been charged 3 x £30 in just this month so im completely overdrawn and got no way of paying it off..

My main worry is what happens if they cancel my car insurance direct debit I'll be stuck inside my home unable to go anywhere..

Any advice would be great..

[MrZ]

The FSO wrote to all the high street credit peddlars back in November telling them that the regulator was getting swamped with complaints about this and needed the banks to cool it on the appropriation issue. I stick a copy of that letter in with my own and it seems to work.

 

An older thread I know, but by chance have you gote a copy of that letter?