New user - where to start?

[morgado]

Hi everyone, have just been told about this site by a friend of mine who succesfully received a refund of approx 4500 in bank charges. For years now I have been putting up with charges from my bank, as well as huge charges on credit and store cards and loans. At the time I accepted many of these; a lot of them were due to my inability to pay while I was unemployed. However I have now had enough - I received a letter through the post today from Clydesdale Financial Services informing me that they are charging me £42.50. Why? Because I called up to move the payment date, and despite being told that the next payment would not go through until the date I had specified, they had tried to take it. They charged me 22.50 for an overdue payment (which they told me wasnt due anyway) and 20 pounds because I cancelled my direct debit with my bank (just to be on the safe side - looks like i made the right decision). When I called up and requested a refund, I was politely told to go away and then accused of being a liar. Since that call, I have basically decided to pursue claims against...

Clydesdale Financial Services

Natwest Offshore (the amount of money they have made out of me in the last 6 years is surely in the thousands)

Barclaycard (They have charged me hundreds on my credit cards due to late payments)

Argos (see Barclaycard)

Style Financial Service (again, massive charges).

Now, the problem is that due to various house moves over the years I no longer have all of my statements in order to calculate exactly how much I need to claim, and Natwest have informed me that for any copies of statements they will charge me 10 pounds per sheet - for 5 years of statements that is a LOT of money. Does anyone know a way around this? Im guessing that the other companies I am with probably have similar charges...

[clint1974]

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/faqs-please-read-these/

 

Read everything! £10 is the max fee for statements

[barracad]

Hi and welcome to the site.

 

Natwest have informed me that for any copies of statements they will charge me 10 pounds per sheet - for 5 years of statements that is a LOT of money. Does anyone know a way around this?

 

Yes there is a way around this - you can get all the information you need for a maximum of £10, regardless of how far back it goes or how many pages it takes.

 

The first thing you need to do is read through the FAQs thoroughly. You will find loads of important information including a step-by-step guide, and you will discover everything you need to do to successfully reclaim your charges.

 

Good luck with your claims.

[sleepz]

Howdy, welcome to the Consumer Action Group.

 

Have a look around some of the other forums, ie Clydesdale, Natwest, and the Store Cards forum for addresses for where to write to for the various companies.

Also check out the FAQ's, they are very important to read and re-read, be sure you know what your up against and the process involved before you start anything.

 

Your right in asking for statements. You'll need to do this for all the organisations you plan on claiming your charges back from (hence check the other forums for addresses).

If you check the Templates library forum you'll get all examples of all the correspondance you need to send to the bank / company, including a letter asking for back statements.

 

Natwest are incorrect in their claim that copies of statements will cost £10 per sheet. The Data Protection Act states that you are entitled to look at all the information these types of companies hold against you, including bank statements, the MOST they can charge you for this service is £10 (that's £10 for all the statements, not per sheet). So, either they're lying to get you to go away, or the person you talked to simply got it wrong.

Send off the Subject Access Request (in the templates library), and include a payment of £10 (cheque or postal order is probably best as you can see when it was cashed). Also ensure that you send all letters by Recorded or Special Delivery so that they have to sign upon receipt, which you can then also check if they claim they didn't receive it or anything.

Also keep copies of everything you send them, and they send you, try not to do anything by phone as you don't get a record of it.

 

I think that's about it, again, check the FAQ's, they tell you everything you need to know.

 

Good luck.

[barracad]

Read everything! £10 is the max fee for statements

 

NatWest are incorrect in their claim that copies of statements will cost £10 per sheet. The Data Protection Act states that you are entitled to look at all the information these types of companies hold against you, including bank statements, the MOST they can charge you for this service is £10 (that's £10 for all the statements, not per sheet). So, either they're lying to get you to go away, or the person you talked to simply got it wrong.

 

Sorry but that is completely incorrect. They are allowed to charge what they want to provide statements as they are providing a service. This is why it is so important you use the templates on this site, which you will notice do not ask for statements, because statements are not covered under the Data Protection Act. You are actually asking for a list of charges. If the banks decide to provide this in statement format because it is easier for them, then fair enough - but they are certainly under no obligation to do so as you seem to imply.

[sleepz]

oops, my bad ... sorry.

[morgado]

Hi there,

Just thought I would say something about my ongoing dispute with Clydesadale Financial Services.

I called them back in July to rearrange my payment date on my loan, which I am entitled to do. I confirmed twice over the phone with the woman I spoke to that the payment would not then leave my account until Oct. 1st and I was advised to cancel my direct debit with my bank to be safe.

A week later, and I received 2 letters from Clydesdale - one charging me £20 for cancelling my direct debit, and the second charging me £22.50 for a late payment.

I called Clydesdale and asked why they had charged me after informing me and confirming that the next payment was not due until the 1st October. The manager that I spoke to said that the change did not come into effect until after the September payment date. After informing him that I had confirmed back twice with the operator when I initially made the change he then accused me of being a liar and said he was not prepared to investigate the matter or listen to the call.

A week later I received another letter, charging me a further £22.50, due to late payment. Again I called and complained and asked them to note that I was making a formal dispute. I also explained, using information on this site, about how these charges are unlawful and asked them to refund them otherwise I would be taking further action. The woman on the phone said she would look into it and that all the charges would be refunded (after saying that she had noted it on my account.

Another week later, and another letter charging me £22.50.

And today, I received ANOTHER letter charging me £22.50. Outraged, I called Clydesdale again and spoke to a guy named Paul. He refused to put me through to a manager, saying that he had made an "executive decision" not to do so and it was up to him whether or not to let me take it higher. He also said that they are allowed to charge whatever they want for their services and there is "nothing you can do about it."

This is absolutely disgusting! Has anyone else had a similar experience with these people?

P.S - In the letter it stated that they will be charging me a further £22.50 every 10 days until I pay them my "overdue payment" - which, according to the initial agreement I made on the phone, doesn't exist!

[lauzie]

Please can someone help?????

I sent the primary letter to the bank requesting my bank charges on the 28th September , this is what i received back today from Barclays Bank and copied onto this blog,

 

Data protection act

We refer to your letter of 28th September, which was passed to this department for comment due to your request for certain information, relating to bank charges, under the terms of the Data protection Act ["the Data Protection Act"].

 

Please be aware that the Bank is not under an obbligation to present information according to any particular format. Therefore, your request to assemble a schedule of charges is turned aside. You may of course obtain this data from copy statements and these will be supplied to you within the next few weeks without charge on this occasion. As the Bank is providing the copy statements on a complimetary basis your payment is returned herewith. we would advise however, that some statement information arising from the period prior to and possibly during 1999 to 2000 is manually stored in the form of microfiche and does not fall within the data subject access provisions of the DPA.

 

As regards your mention of "manual intervention", the DPA does not oblige the Bank to comment about internal policies and procedures. Furthermore, in the context of managing day to day transactions arising from out of order accounts, the Bank does not hoild the information you have requested in a form that would be covered by the DPA. Whilst aggregated information is reatined for statistical purposes, this would not constitute "personal data" under the DPA and therefore would not be covered by a s.7 DPA subject access request. For the avoidance of doubt, the fact that we do not generally record information in a way that is caught by the provisions of the DPA , is in no way an admission that there was no such manual intervention.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Peter Townsend

Manager, Barclays Data Protection

 

 

help so confused, does this mean that they will send all information that i need from 2000 to present day or am i going to have to send another letter???

 

Laura