NN v Abbey - *settled in full* at last WON WON WON

[Jane Austen]

Finally received some past statements (Feb 2005 - March 2006) so perhaps there are more in the post. Various leaflets enclosed and each month in a separate envelope - is the cost of this what we are paying charges for??

 

I added up the charges and it comes to £800.26. I can't wait for the other 5 years! It was really strange as I was actually looking for overdrawn amounts and the words 'charge for' and 'interest because you were overdrawn' instead of trying to ignore them like I usually do.

 

I feel so much better about the whole business just by reading of similar situations on this forum. As a result I am not actually worrying about money and if they stick more charges on I'll claim for them later.

Bring it on Shabbey!

[jonni2bad]

Strange feeling, eh?

 

Going through my statements yesterday, I was actually dissapointed when any given month had no charges!

 

Good luck

[Jane Austen]

Thanks.

I know exactly what you mean now I've gone through mine. Still, £800 is more than enough in just under a year. It's amazing how it all adds up.

[Jane Austen]

I have just E-mailed Shabbey, thanking them very much for their info so far. I then politely pointed out that I needed the other 5 years' statementsand they only have 18 days left to comply.

I presume the fact that Easter bank holidays have come and gone makes no difference?

 

:?

[Bookworm]

You presume right.

[Jane Austen]

Just received this month's bank statement. Shabbey are intending to take out £360 in bank charges this next month.

I knew we would have problems during April as my other half has changed from weekly to monthly pay so in effect we have had our income halved over the last month. We informed them in person and by phoning of the situation but they refused to help us even with a small authorised overdraft of £200. The charges therefore are due to "not enough money in your account" and two have been charged for twice - £70 each. % payments were not paid within 5 days of my salary going in to the account, which they obviously knew would be happening. We also, according to them, went overdrawn on a Sunday (for which we were charged £20)! How do they work that one out? We only have an Electron card which cannot make payments if the funds are not there.

 

Is this a case for suspension of disbelief?

[Seminole]

Just received this month's bank statement. Shabbey are intending to take out £360 in bank charges this next month.

I knew we would have problems during April as my other half has changed from weekly to monthly pay so in effect we have had our income halved over the last month. We informed them in person and by phoning of the situation but they refused to help us even with a small authorised overdraft of £200. The charges therefore are due to "not enough money in your account" and two have been charged for twice - £70 each. % payments were not paid within 5 days of my salary going in to the account, which they obviously knew would be happening. We also, according to them, went overdrawn on a Sunday (for which we were charged £20)! How do they work that one out? We only have an Electron card which cannot make payments if the funds are not there.

 

Is this a case for suspension of disbelief?

 

No it's a case for stringing them up by their scrawny necks and hanging them out to dry.

[Jane Austen]

Reading round I see several people have received 1 year's statements and a letter re: info. being stored on microfiche etc. I have received 1 year's worth of statements but no letter. Does this matter?

Do I still go ahead and inform Information Commission on 9th May?

[jonni2bad]

Yes.

 

[Jane Austen]

Just received a pile of statements from Shabbey. Only trouble is they are the same ones I've already received. I phoned up to query the situation and was told not to worry because they would not charge me for the duplicate ones! Fat chance!

 

I then asked what had happened with the other statements from 2000 to 2005 aand was told it takes 4-6 weeks. I pointed out that this would mean they were not complying with DPA, which in my case runs out (40 days) on May 11th and I would have no option but to report them to the Information Commission. The guy's reply was, "Please do so," and I then told him that I definitely would be and furthermore I did not need his permission to do it.

 

In the meantime I am sending the letter from the library, adapted for my situation.

[Jane Austen]

Hi

Just me again. I've been quiet for a while but the 40 days were up yesterday so I need to report Abbey to the Information Commission. What's the best way to do this?

[Jane Austen]

I am absolutely fuming! shAbbey have informed us that they are cancelling our Electron cards because there was not enough money in our account to pay the £360 charges they tried to take out this morning. Has this happened to anyone else? Itmeans that apart from the DDs etc being paid, our account is virtually useless as we cannot access our own money.

[Jamloo]

Hi

 

I am fully expecting the Abbey to do this to us as well we had over 700 due out in charges, but we have started to use our parachute account, so I couldn't care less what the shAbbey threaten us with. Have you set up a different account....if you have now maybe the time to start using it.....if not apply for one now.....it could be up and running within 10 days.

 

Good luck and don't let them grind you down.

[Jane Austen]

Yes - I have another account so I have arranged for my salary to be paid into the new one today. It just maddens me so much that they can act in this way when the sums they want are in dispute and they cannot be bothered to comply with the DPA. They are just so arrogant. They obviously do feel that they are above the law, particularly when you read of these cases where people have worn and then they plead that they haven't had the paperwork. Utter tosh!

Hopefully it won't take too much longer before the courts see what they are up to.

[Jane Austen]

Received 2 letters today. One informs me I am £363.30 overdrawn and what am I going to do about it? The fact that I'm overdrawn at all is due purely to unlawful bank charges so the answer to that one is zilch. We are already using our parachute and there will be no more money into the account with Abbey as from Monday. Too late to stop child benefit which I had overlooked. There was a contact E-mail however: theabbey [email protected]. This is for the debt management department. They'll be pretty busy soon.

 

It states "...call us now and we'll do all we can to help you. You should be aware that we pass information on to credit reference agencies."

A veiled threat perhaps. Hardly helpful.

 

Second letter reads:

 

 

Date: ——— 15 May 2006

OurRef XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Dear Mr XXXXXXXX

As you know, we are currently investigating your complaint that you raised with Abbey eight weeks ago. I am sorry for the delay you are experiencing and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued patience.

Although we have made progress, we want to make sure we fully understand the problem before writing and we are unable to give you a full response just now. If you do not want to wait any longer, you can go to the Financial Ombudsman Service now and you do not need to wait for our response. I am enclosing a leaflet that tells you what you need to do. I do hope you will give us the chance to complete our work and we will continue to look into your complaint unless the Ombudsman tells us they are taking it over.

We will write to you again when we have finished our review and if you remain unhappy, you will still have the right to contact the Ombudsman.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

Marc Winder

Head of Complaints

 

My other half was quite surprised to receive this letter as he has had nothing to do with the complaints and DPA, LBA etc etc apart from posting letters for me. Should I be insulted as I am obviously just the little woman and therefore not suitable for communications from the bank. Doesn't matter I suppose, that I earn over 3 times what he does!

 

When will they realise we all mean business?

[Robertxc]

You should be aware that we pass information on to credit reference agencies

They should be aware that they are not allowed to trash your credit rating if the amount owed is in dispute. See the Banking Code for more on this.

[Jane Austen]

Received another letter today which reads:

 

 

Dear Mr & Mrs XXXXXXXXX

 

Thank you for your email received 14 April 2006. I am also in receipt of your letter dated 16 March 2006. Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in my response.

I am sorry to hear we have given you cause to complain in relation to the charges incurred on your Abbey Current Account 090126 43009430. My colleague Jackie Hammond, responded to your concerns on 28 March 2006, however, I understand you are unhappy with her response. You believe the charges to be unfair and have asked us to refund all charges applied to the account during the last six years.

 

I have reviewed your complaint and taken into consideration the issues you have raised, but unfortunately I cannot uphold your complaint. We believe our charging policy is fair and ensures all customers are treated fairly. We do not want customers to incur charges, but there are costs involved in processing unauthorised payments and this is why a charge was applied.Most banking transactions are automated, but when there are insufficient funds in an account, a specific team must manually process the payment. Processing unauthorised transactions is costly and our charges will reflect the administration involved in handling each transaction.

I note you say you are unhappy with the charges you have incurred over the last six years. If you felt at any time the charges were unfair or incorrect, then the matter should have been raised at that time.

 

I accept that you did not set out to incur charges. Ultimately however, it is your responsibility to monitor your account and ensure there are sufficient funds in your account at all times. As such and given the above, I do not feel that a waiver of charges is justified. The charges in question therefore stand.

 

This is my final resolution letter. However, if you would like to discuss the content of this letter or have any new points you believe should be taken into account, and which may make a difference to the outcome of the investigation, please contact me within 14 days of this letter on the above number. If I do not hear from you by then, and you have not asked us to extend that deadline for any reason, I will file my papers accordingly.

 

Should you be dissatisfied with the outcome of our investigation, I would like to remind you that you can refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. I enclose a booklet explaining how to take your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, and should you wish to do so, there is a time limit of six months from the date of this letter.

 

The Financial Ombudsman Service contact details are:

 

Financial Ombudsman Service

South Quay Plaza

183 Marsh Wall

London

E149SR

Telephone number: 0845 080 1800

Facsimile number: 0207 964 1001

E-mail address: [email protected]

 

Yours sincerely

 

Anna Palczynski

Customer Resolution Manager

Complaints

 

Enc. Financial Ombudsman Service Bookle

 

I underlined the bits I thought were most interesting

 

Sorry for the lengthy post but I need to know whether I should wait for another reply from LBA or should I file with the court now? Personally I feel they have had ample opportunity to sort this.

[Robertxc]

If it were me, I would go straight to court.

[Jane Austen]

I have sent a letter today giving them 7 days and if not happy I am filing claim without further notice. This takes me to next week when I have time off work to deal with it properly. I don't want to rush the form filling and risk making mistakes.

[Jane Austen]

Just received an E-mai from the ICO after complaining to them about Abbey. It reads:

 

Dear Ms xxxxxxxx

 

Thank you for your recent correspondence regarding Abbey National.

The matters you raise will be allocated to one of the Commissioner's Compliance Officers who will give detailed consideration and respond accordingly.

 

I should point out that we do have an amount of correspondence awaiting allocation. We will, however, make every effort to give you a substantive response as soon as possible.

 

Should you wish to contact us regarding this matter please be sure to quote the following reference number:

 

XXXXXXXXXX

 

Failure to do so may delay the processing of your request.

 

Yours sincerely

 

DP Case Reception Unit

 

The Information Commissioner's Office

 

Is this the standard response or do I look on it as good news and Abbey will eventually be held to account with all the complaints they must be having made against them for non-compliance of DPA?

 

 

 

 

________________________________________________________

[Jane Austen]

Hi everyone

 

I am in the middle of filling in the form on moneyclaim but as I am making an estimated claim based on the last 15 months (due to lack of bank statements from Abbey) what do I do about interest? I am happy enough to forget it if that would be OK? Any suggestions anybody?

[jonni2bad]

Do you mean overdraft interest? This would not be a massive amount and is even harder to work out from an estimated claim.

 

If you mean 8% on each charge from the date incurred, just input figures on the spreadsheets and guess when they might have been incurred.

 

I think you'll be fine to use the template text regarding this part which states

"Interest pursuant to section 69 County Courts Act as set out on the attached list of charges or at such rate and for such periods as the court deems just."

That way, if they produce evidence, the court should be able to see from your claim that you had no way of knowing, but made a reasoned estimate, and then just award the actual figure.

 

Hope that doesn't sound too complicated!

[Jane Austen]

Thanks for the help. Finally finished. I just need to adjust it for Wednesday and it will be filed. I can't afford it until then, unfortunately.

[Jane Austen]

Just received this E-mail from the IC:

 

30th May 2006

 

Dear Ms XXXXXX,

 

Thank you for your enquiry regarding Abbey. Further to our recent acknowledgement email, we require some further information before we can investigate your complaint.

 

I note from your email that you have made a subject access request (SAR) under the Data Protection Act 1998 to Abbey and that you believe you have not received all the information you are entitled to. If you would like to pursue your complaint with us, please complete our Complaint Form available from our website via the following link: http://www.ico.gov.uk/eventual.aspx?id=16318. Please return the form by post, ensuring you read the accompanying guidance notes. Please also enclose copies of any correspondence you have sent to and received from Abbey in relation to your complaint, including a copy of your original SAR and details of the information you believe is missing.

 

Please provide the requested information within 28 days, ensuring you quote the reference number on your correspondence. If we do not receive this information within this time, we will assume you no longer wish to proceed with your complaint and your case will be closed.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

 

The Information Commissioner's Office

 

____________________________________________________________________

 

http://www.ico.gov.uk or e-mail: [email protected]

 

Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

 

Tel: 01625 545 700 Fax: 01625 524 510

 

 

 

I am printing the complaint form off now as I type this. Is this letter standard or should I have filled in the form initially?

 

At least the IC are taking complaints seriously.

[Jane Austen]

Claim Filed !!!!!! 2 minutes ago.

 

What a liberating feeling! :D