Where to send your letters? {poll}

[Andy S]

Having read up on the bank charge recovery process there seems to be conflicting opinions on where to send your letters at each stage of your claim. I thought a 'poll' of where you would send them would be a good idea. I would be interested to hear your thoughts as to why you think where you are suggesting is the best place. Here's the questions:

 

1. Where's the best place to send the S.A.R. Letter?

 

a) Your Local Branch Address

b) Your Bank's Head Office Address

c) Your Bank's Complaints or Customer Service Address

c) Your Bank's Data Controllers Address

 

2. Where's the best place to send the Preliminary Approach Letter?

 

a) Your Local Branch Address

b) Your Bank's Head Office Address

c) Your Bank's Complaints or Customer Service Address

 

 

3. Where's the best place to send the LBA Letter?

 

a) Your Local Branch Address

b) Your Bank's Head Office Address

c) Your Bank's Complaints or Customer Service Address

 

 

4. Where's the best place to send the court papers to?

 

a) Your Local Branch Address

b) Your Bank's Head Office Address

c) Your Bank's Complaints or Customer Service Address

 

5. Is contractual interest worth claiming for?

 

a) Yes

b) No

 

6. I am living in Scotland acting for my Uncle who lives in England. I have a Letter of Authority from him to say that I can deal with his bank charge affairs. I am acting as his agent. Can I bypass MCOL and take the bank to court in MY local sheriff court? Although he is living in England and the court papers would have his address I am his agent living in Scotland and surely I should be able to have the case heardin MY local court as I am his agent!!! He cannot appear in court as he is too old and frightened. The reason for this is MCOL is a rip off at £120 upwards a claim when in Scotland I can claim up to £1500 for only £39. (Penny pinching Scots)

 

My thoughts are that it is possible that by contacting your branch first they can make the decision to refund at branch level. So why send to head office or complaints department. Didn't Barclays recently empower their branches to deal with their own bank charges?

 

Surely Head Office/ Complaints Address will be snowed under and if the branch will not refund they will forward onto head office anyway.

 

Surely the whole purpose is to get it to court so you can claim the interest on top of the charges. We all know that 90% of the time the bank's won't refund before the court papers are served.

 

Claiming contractual interest is fine but it's hard to work out exactly and one mistake could mean the bank's lawyer contesting the exact amount you are claiming. Why take the risk of a small mis-calculation holding up your claim. Makes sense to forget it especially as it's usually a paltry amount anyway.

 

Your thoughts, ideas and feedback would be appreciated on this guys.

[Guest NATTIE]

1©, 2 (b) or ©, 3 see 2, 4 (b) and please read FAQ's, 5 IMHO nope because you would have to have a very good argument claiming penny by penny the enrichment at the rate at that time. KISS principal will work every time

[Andy S]

What I don't understand is why you and others recommend sending letters straight away to head office or complaints department.

 

The branch manager has the authority to make a refund at branch level.

 

This means that you have a chance of getting refunded very quickly by your bank manager rather than it being referred to head office. I did this myself with the local Halifax and they phoned me from the branch 3 weeks after the Prelim Approach Letter and paid me back £1383 straight into my account for the last 5 years bank charges.

 

If they won't refund you then they'll simply refer it to head office/ customer complaints themselves. You have nothing to lose.

[chorlton1]

Well, you were lucky!

 

I spoke to my "Premier bank manager" at Barclays, who is meant to be able to cater to my every whim as my "personal" manager - she did nothing and was able to do nothing. I also spoke to the manager at the branch near my office and he just referred me to my premier manager or "customer services".

At the Abbey I spoke to the branch manager who said no, he could only refund one or 2 charges in exceptional circumstances, and that because there had been a "regular pattern" of charges on my account (8 in 6 years!!) he could do nothing. He put me on the phone (freephone, how nice) to customer services at Abbey and they did make 1 charge refund over the phone, but that was it.

Halifax clearly operate differently, and I am all for taking the easy route. I do disagree with your comment that 90% wont refund before you file - every one of my bank and credit card charge refunds has come following a phone call and I did not get beyond LBA stage with any of them except Barclays who I have just filed with.

Unfortunately, the majority of banks have "customer service teams" or "lending teams" to work out what they do and the manager is not much more than a sales representative with very limited power.

I know I read somewhere else on this site a post from a bank employee who said that each branch are allocated a maximum amount they can refund over a period of time so in most cases their hands are tied anyway.

It is also very intimidating for people with little or no legal and negotiating experience to walk into a bank (probably a bank with whom they have a pretty poor relationship) and to speak to a complete stranger who works for that bank about why the bank should refund their charges. If things are in writing it is harder to get flustered and you know what you are claiming and you will get your money - if you walk into a branch, unless you are well prepared and have all the statements and information and you clearly understand what you are doing one of 4 things will happen...1) you might get lucky, which is fantastic but appears unlikely given other posts about this elsewhere 2) you will get told to put everything in writing and send it to "head office" or similar; no loss to you and you may even save on the postage! 3) they may take one look at the account and say OK, here is £500 as a full and final settlement, and we can credit your account this afternoon if you sign here....if I was claiming £1000 and was in dire financial straights, the temptation might be far to great and I would probably crack, saving the bank £500 (or £1500 or £2500 or whatever) 4) they might just embarass you by talking down to you (almost all banks see people in the "open office") which doesnt achieve anything.

 

Just my opinion, but in writing works so if it aint broke, why fix it?

[chorlton1]

That was a bit rude of me - didnt reply to your survey!

 

FWIW....

 

1 c

2 b or c

3 b or c

4 b but there will be an address for their legal department which they will put on court requests that may be different to b, so use that

5 a (credit cards) b (bank/BSoc accounts)

6 I dont know, sorry