A bit of help for you with RBoS charges

[isidore]

Firstly, the spreadsheet I used was mindzai's which you can find by looking at his profile page - there should be a link to the spreadsheet there.

 

Over the years, when I received my statements, along with it came an extra page outlining my monthly charge for the previous month. This was made up of my arranged charge(s) - in my case Royalties (I know, I'm foolish...). On top of this however, there would generally be other charges. If I had had a bad month and gone overdrawn, there would be an arrangement fee added to this charge of £28 (or sometimes more). It would then tell me that the sum would be debited from my bank on a certain date (next month) and come the date of charging, there would be an entry on my statement that read "CHG A/C 12345678" (12345678 being my account number).

 

Now when I received my duplicate statements having sent an S.A.R - (Subject Access Request), none of these breakdown sheets were sent so I was a bit stuck, I knew that some of the amount charged on these charges I could claim back and some of it I couldn't (because the Royalties charge for example, is a service and is therefore unclaimable).

 

Using my statements as a guide to what level of royalties I had (I have at some stage been on Royalties, Gold and Premium and at the top of each statement it will tell you what type of account it is during that month) I basically deducted the monthly Royalties fee from the CHG A/C charge therefore leaving the amount I could claim back.

 

When setting up your first statement (for your prelim) ensure you add to this any overdraft interest that you can claim back. DO NOT GET THIS CONFUSED WITH 8% INTEREST YOU ADD TO YOUR CLAIM AT COURT STAGE. Overdraft interest is the interest that is charged to your account on a monthly basis when you are overdrawn. This interest is calculated on any amount that exceeds your interest free overdraft (not your agreed overdraft limit). Because your unlawful charges contribute to your overdraft, the interest that is charged against these charges can be claimed back from stage one.

 

On the spreadsheet, enter the date the interest was debited, the amount charged, the interest free overdraft amount and the balance of your account at the time of the interest charge and the spreadsheet does the rest. It calculates the difference between your overdraft at the time and your interest free amount to find out how much the interest was charged against. It then finds out what percentage of your overdraft is made up of charges and adds this to the claim.

 

To explain in layman's terms what the spreadsheet does, if you were £600 overdrawn and had an interest free amount of £100, were charged £50 in charges and were deducted £10 in overdraft interest, the spreadsheet would calculate:

 

Overdraft £600 minus Interest Free £100 equals £500

Charge amount £50 as percentage of Chargeable overdaft £500 equals 10%

Amount claimable equals 10% of interest charge of £10 equals £1

 

Royalties interest free amounts are easy to find out, just ring RBS and ask them! The current amounts are (or at least were when I did mine) Basic 100, Gold 250, Premier 500. Anything over these amounts (whether it is an agreed amount or not) is charged interest. The obvious issue here is Royalties charges have changed over time and it is difficult to pinpoint when they have changed. For the sake of keeping things simple, I didn't bother finding out, just used the current levels and said so in my prelim - the bank can always amend if they want to (which I doubt they will).

 

Finally, you can find a list of all charges and their amounts going back as far as 1993 here. This can give you an idea of what charges can be reclaimed and how much they were at the time of the charge you are reviewing. An extremely useful post!!

 

 

 

Had a couple of questions regarding this over pm, thought I would post a couple of them as they may be of use also.....

 

Did the same royalties charges apply in the Years 2000 - 2004?

Can't say for sure, but I added to the letter that I was using the current charges at time of writing to them. Note, I believe some ppl in RBS forum are attempting to obtain a list of historical royalties charges.

 

CHG to 06JUL A/C £3.00

CHG to 04AUG A/C £3.00

what do you think these are for?

The most likely thing is Loanguard. If you had an overdraft and were somehow advised to take this out then you got caught! This is basically payment protection of your overdraft, is arranged and is therefore unclaimable.

[isidore]

It would seem you need a google account to view google spreadsheets......anyone know how to get round this? I can't seem to find a "how to" on this.

[isidore]

I hope you do something with amounts terms what the charge has been for and how it has changed.

 

With what??

 

[isidore]

Unable access your Google Spreadsheet!

 

If you PM me your email address, I will send it to you.

[isidore]

Anyone wish to host it for me / know somewhere I can host it permanently?

[isidore]

Just keep at it! If you want some guidance, read through my two cases with RBS - they will be in my sig. Start your own post (Qmart vs RBS) and post all your progress so others can keep an eye on what you are doing and help out.

 

Good luck.

[isidore]

Don't really know - neither of mine got that far. Both were settled before court.

 

Best bet is start yourself a new thread in RBS and someone should be able to help you.

[isidore]

I put them in my claim and got a full refund......

[isidore]

Hi T4FF.

I would be most gratefull if you could send me a copy of your claim spreadsheet.I am about to enter the puzzle of bank charges!!!!!and any help in working out what i may claim back would br very well recieved.

Thanks in advance.

 

 

Just sent it to you. Will be me last bit of action for a few days I'm afraid. I'm just about to leave work. My internet connection at home has been activated but I haven't received my modem yet so I can only log on here in work

[isidore]

Hey Walt.

 

I think the key is the letters we send always imply that if they let us know what their true costs our, we will gladly only claim the difference. As banks aren't going to let us know their true costs, we claim the lot back.

 

What you need to do is READ!! Ensure you know what you're doing. If you send an SAR (Subject Access Request) to RBS they will send you all your statements for the last 6 years, so asuuming you're missing some, they will fill the blanks.

 

Couple of places for reference.....

 

A-Z links

List of RBS Charges

Read through the FAQs

User guide from start to finish

[isidore]

Right, I've amended this post to include a bit of help about overdraft interest, removed my providing of a spreadsheet for ppl (as this was more troublesome than it was worth) and generally cleaned up my instructions.

 

I do tend to direct people to this thread a lot (and see others do the same), may ask whether it is worthy of becoming a sticky???

[isidore]

Seems to me though that you should just add up the charges yourself, no? Why bother asking them to tot up all the charges, when you just hit them with the whammy - time is awasting - longer they have to mount some sort of industry wide consolidated fudge against us.

 

Im off to start a thread in my fight.

 

No nor me. Who said anything about them totting up the charges for you??

[isidore]

*RELAXES

 

Ok, fair enough and thanks for pointing out.....my confusion was in this thread hasn't been active since january so I assumed you were referring to something in the first post (mine). Thanks for your contribution, can see what you are referring to but I think what he meant was to get a list of charges from them.

[isidore]

Hi Fiona,

 

Things are slightly different for credit cards. You can claim it but the calculations are different and you need a proper credit card spreadsheet. Mindzai has released one here. Not the first link - that one is for bank accounts, but read further down through the thread, there is a credit card spreadsheet released further on.

 

This should help you sort out the credit card interest.

 

HTH

 

 

__________________

Your feedback is always welcome. If you have thanks, tip my scales and let me know....If you're unhappy then speak to HydraUK :grin:

 

If you have any questions, you will get much better help by posting it on the forums and directing me to it as there are far wiser people around than me

 

Stuck with RBS charges? Click here!!

 

RBS CA1 £2794 SETTLED!!! RBS CA2 £503 SETTLED!!! HBOS CC £498 SETTLED!!! Barclaycard £705 (with CCI) ONGOING!!! NATWEST CA ONGOING!!! LLOYDS CA x 2, CC, LOAN ONGOING!!! HFC LOAN ONGOING!!!

[isidore]

Josie, don't worry too much, with a bit of luck they might miss it, or more likely they will just offer you a sum less the £3 charges (what are the £3 charges you are referring to for??).

 

What I would do right now, is calculate how much you would be due if you took out the charges you aren't entitled to so you know what the figure is when they come to make an offer.

[isidore]

Robbie, this is a common response from RBS and one you will find mentioned a lot around the forums. It is a delaying tactic....yes the FSA require them to respond to you in a maximum of 8 weeks, but in your letter you have said you require a response in 2 weeks and that's what you stick to.

 

It will help your cause to have a read around the RBS forum to get an idea of how the process normally goes with RBS, what tricks they try to pull etc.

 

 

Good luck