lee_s v Abbey

[Natasha]

Thanks Lee

 

Yes please keep us updated

[lee_s]

Just had letter from solicitor offering a 50% settlement. Advice anyone ?

[vixtrix]

Blimey - you can't leave it there - you haven't posted since Feb and I need to know if you got your money back. I posted my letter to abbey yesterday and need to know what I have in store?? What happened??

[lee_s]

I've not accepted the 50% settlement yet and was asking some advise on how to respond. I've already drafted an email to their solicitor and think I have included the salient points.

 

Once the claim is concluded I will give a run down of what I said / went through.

[Natasha]

delcline it and press for full amount.

Its exactly what dave said happened to him.

[lee_s]

well still waiting for a response, I am going to proceed with Court Allocation Questionnaire - any one willing to help pls ?

[BankFodder]

Yes - not a problem. can you pm me about this please.

[lee_s]

Hi All,

 

Abbey have decided to pay the claim in full ( no admission of liability mind you )

 

Waiting for money to be paid back into the account and I'll update you with what happened ( although in a nutshell .. its the same as anyone else who has put a claim in and persevered )

 

At this moment I just want out, the refund of charges clears the overdraft and leaves us with a bit left over so at this point just glad we are no longer beholden to a bunch of p*ss taking t*ssers.

 

Oh and by the way, once I get the money credited back I cannot wait to phone the snotty customer complaints advisor who said there was no way on earth they (Abbey) would be refunding any charges (which at the time was a couple of hundered quid). That was their first big mistake, because I then went back 5+ years and got them all back (thousands !!!)

[dave]

Very good news.

 

I had the same thing with Abbey. I phoned and asked for 120 quids worth not to be taken from my account - they refused.

 

Their refusal prompted me to find out more, and ultimately to founding this site with BF.

 

Ultimately, when the charges are completely out of the window - I intend to phone them and let them know exactly who I am and what was said.

 

I doubt it'll make the slightest bit of difference to them - but it'll make me feel a very big sense of satisfaction.

[i_want_one_of_those]

Well done Lee

 

Just joined the forum today, having sat on the fence over the last week or so on whether to proceed with this or not.

 

Having read your thread, I am going to go through with it all. Only concern is that my mortgage is with them and don't want them to do anything silly with that to show me "whos boss"

 

Spence

[lee_s]

Just as an update on my story ...

 

I have now had my claim paid in full.

 

It all started last year when Abbey decided to take away my overdraft completely. Reason being we had exceeded it on too many occassions ( at least 6/10 this was because of charges and was never anymore than 10% more than the overdraft )

This left us in an a predicament as it was just after Xmas and we basically didn't have the money to pay it off in one go.

 

Abbey did offer us some options

a) pay it off in full and we could retain all of our cards / cheque books and keep SO and DD in place

b) agree to return all cards/cheque books, cancel all DDs and SOs and they would work with us on a plan to reduce the overdraft

c) said we do b) and get an account elsewhere and then work out an amount to pay them each month

 

The reason c) was discussed was, why have a bank account when you can't write cheques, have DD's and SO's !

 

Anyway in Jan we set up an account elsewhere ( with all the DD's SO's set up ) and call Abbey back to discuss what we needed to pay them each month.

The buggers then decided to throw a wobbly.. " oh so you won't be paying your salary into us anymore .... that means we will need a larger payment per month to bring the balance down ... and no they wouldn't be prepared to waive any charges"

 

We couldn't afford to pay them the monthly amount they wanted so they said the only option was to pass the account to a debt collection agency. The charges weren't going to stop and I could see this turning into a big problem,

 

That's when my internet searching started to see what could be done and I found this forum.

 

BankFodder and Dave have been an absolute inspiration - thanks Guys !!

 

Anyone considering action needs to read the posts carefully and understand all the letters you should be writing and the steps involved.

 

My experience with Abbey is they will call your bluff right to the last moment and then they will rollover. From filing a defence, to offering you 50% then giving in at the last moment.

 

Be prepared to go to court, make sure you have your evidence together and rehearse what you may need to say the court if it comes to it. I firmly believe the arguments here carry weight and that all the banks are seriously overcharging customers.

 

Now, if Abbey had helped me out in January properly, rather than taking their high and mighty stance, - there's every chance they would have got away with refunding a couple of hundred £'s of charges and I would be paying back a set sum to them each month.

 

After working out what they fleeced me for the last 5yrs, they ended up paying me just over £4k. And the argument for this .... " for the amount claimed they decided it would be better to pay up than the cost it would incur for them to defend it to court" !

 

Well since my claim went in in February they hit me for £500 more charges and I am considering going back for this too. Not worth asking them to be reasonable because I know they won't so no doubt will be entering another claim for the lastest charges.

 

By the way, they froze the current account and said that when I go to the branch to withdraw my money, that they would be closing the account. Funny thing was that when I called the debt collection agency to find out why they still had the account, they couldn't understand either. Why on earth did they have an account passed to them, when actually they Abbey owed me money !!

 

Hope this gives you all some inspiration to give it a go.

 

All it takes is determination, the knowledge that this forum will give you and the fact that actually you have every legal right to challenge ripoff bank charges.

 

Lee

[joneshousehold]

An excellent result. You have done well. Congratulations.

Did Abbey warn you they were going to close the account in accordance with the terms and conditions? We are only at the letter before action stage so they have threatened us in their (now) standard letter. Before we started the action there was no real problem with the account (apart from the charges). We wondered how they justify the closure.

[richardc]

An excellent result. You have done well. Congratulations.

Did Abbey warn you they were going to close the account in accordance with the terms and conditions? We are only at the letter before action stage so they have threatened us in their (now) standard letter. Before we started the action there was no real problem with the account (apart from the charges). We wondered how they justify the closure.

 

They may be just trying to scare you - in any case open a parachute account now. They would justify account closure as being for "commercial reasons"

[joneshousehold]

Yes we have a parachute and we have already written back that we shall report them to FOS if they close the account merely because of our complaint - it's in our thread. We were just looking for a bit of an angle to work out how to act.

We also wondered if Lee could have a go back if he wanted to, if the bank hadn't acted within their own terms and conditions.

We have a general view that if the bank are not scrupulous in their dealings we will refer it back to them. If the least we can do is make them earn their money it is worth it!

[richardc]

Lee can go back for the £500 they have since charged him. If he signed signed an agreement saying it was in full and final settlement against any future claims, it might be a little more tricky and he should put a new post in.

[lee_s]

When I asked about how I would withdraw the remaining funds from my account ( had returned cheque book/cards a few weeks back), I was told to go to the branch. I was told that as soon as I withdrew the money they would close the account.

 

In terms of signing anything, when the offer of 50% came through there was a letter to sign and send back if I was happy to accept. I think there may have been some T's and C's saying I wouldn't claim again.

 

Since then, all correspondance was via email and when they finally agreed to 100% settlement, it was done directly into the account with no mention of signing documents or that I would lose the right to claim anything else. I was dealing directly with their legal department so was suprised they hadn't covered themselves a bit better.

 

I think I should go for the other £550 of charges, what do you think ??

[alanfromderby]

Sounds to me that you have nothing to lose. Go for it.

[joneshousehold]

I agree with Alan. Go for it!

[steter]

first time i've read your story. You're an inspiration-well done mate, i'm really pleased for you! In theory, i should be issuing papers to scabby next week. They really are pirates aren't they! Once again-well done!

[Natasha]

Congrats Lee!

 

Well done for hanging on in there, i just hope i will be as succesful!

[lee_s]

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