gordieboyglasgow v BOS

[gordieboyglasgow]

HI all

hopefully somebody can offer some advice and guidance. I have only recently discovered this site and the advice is great.

 

I was recently charged over £300 in charges for exceding o.d. limit by BOS. this is in the space of 3 weeks! all the amounts i went over were small - from 19pence to about £10.00. (total o.d. excess approx £55) I looked at the which website and decided to claim back.

 

The question I have is:

 

1) does it make a difference to possible success if you are regularly exceddign your o.d?

 

2) I have already asked and sent of the 'first' letter from which asking for charges back (for the time period above) - if they refund does this affect any future claim for charges made previously or can I effectivly 'claim' multiple times?

 

3) I have asked previously for refund of charges and followed BOS complaints procedure and still refused refund (no action taken) can I still claim these charges again (and possibly issue court proceedings?)

 

4) finally (and slightly off topic) some of the charges relate to unpaid d.d for mortgages and credit cards all of which are held with BOS, somebody told me that banks are not allowed to 'bounce' payments for their own products is this right?

 

Also, when speaking to BOS complaints via phone, she told me that 'basically as I have a large amount of money going into bank account every week (between £800 - £1000) then I am obviously not in financial difficulty and therefor I couldnt have charges refunded' I read this to be ' because i can afford it then they will keep taking the money from me' cheeky bint!!!!

 

sorry if this has been answered before, but i have looked the threads and couldnt find anything that matched my situation. Hope I have provided enough info and everything is clear enough, if not let me know and I can provide more.

 

Thanks in advance

 

xGordiex

[sazz]

Hey, welcome to the group

 

Make sure you have a look around the forum as most questions you've asked have been answered already, plus you can gain insightful knowlege about the murky wee world that is banking!

 

1) No, it doesn't affect your claim. I keep going over my OD limit BECAUSE of the charges!

 

2) You will probably only receive a pathetic offer as a 'gesture of goodwill' which will be around a fifth of what you have been ***** for. It's up to you if you accept the offer, but make sure you state that you will be claiming the whole amount and it's not in 'full & final settlement'. Most people in Scotland are having to go through multiple claims as our small claims limit's £750. I handed in my first claim to the courts on Friday & will submit the next one then the next one!

 

3) Yes

 

4) Not sure about the term for bouncing own product payments, so someone else may have the answer. In short, any penalty charges that have been applied are unlawful and should be challenged. The exception is services that are provided. Obviously if you have to pay a subscription fee for your account for incentives etc then this is unclaimable. To be charged £38 for a DD bouncing & send you out an automated letter to tell you this is unlawful

 

As for the lurvely wee wifey you spoke to, she is working from scripts and fed info from the bank which is a load of pants! It's not the point of 'financial difficulty', it's the fact that the charges are unlawful and shouldn't be appied to anybody, rich or poor!

 

Welcome & keep us all posted

 

Edited by moderator - see below.

EDITED due to libelous wording.

[jonni2bad]

Well answered sazz...

[sarumane]

HI

 

I am a newbie too. Isn't small claims limit in Scotland higher than that? Thought it was about £750.00?

 

Regards

 

T

[jonni2bad]

Yes, I missed that one and have now amended that user's post to clarify.

 

Well spotted

[sazz]

Did I not put £750?

 

Spooo! Apologies if I confused further

[jonni2bad]

It was just a typo - accidents happen. I missed it too!

[gordieboyglasgow]

Hi

Thanks for all your advice and replies.

I will keep you all posted as to how I get on.

One more questions though.....

When I start submitting to small claims (hopefully it wont come to that!) is it better to submit them one at a time i.e. submit one await the outcome then submit another, or is it ok to submit multiple claims (so they all run at the same time as it where)I think the second way would get confusing, but what are people's experiences of either way?

I suppose in theory if I submit one claim and the bank 'caves in' then would they settle the rest without as much hassle? or do they 'dig their heels in' even more?

 

Thanks again everyone.

 

Gordon

[MARTIN3030]

Gordon the answers to this all here in the forums !!!

 

Let the mods deal with the ones that aint .............

 

 

 

[gordieboyglasgow]

Hi

sorry me agin!! lol.

 

I have just received a reply to my DPA request. It sent the letter found on the which website (it essentially says the same as your librar template, but not as long and detailed.)

 

I received the following reply from the Bank Of Scotland:

 

Dear Mr *********

 

I refer to the above mentioned account and recent correspondance regarding the charges incurred on your account.

 

I advise you to refer to your monthly statements for the information, which you require. If a copy of any statements is needed, there will be a fee of £5.

 

If you require further assistance please call 08457 203 040.

 

Yours sincerley

 

Stephanie McVean

Customer Service

 

Yes the grammer is as received in the letter!!

I assume this is a 'stalling method'. Unfortunatly I didnt realise at the time of sending that I should have included a £10 payment for my DPA information. Any advice on where to go from here?? Do I resend the request using your template and include the £10? or should I proceed some other way?

 

Thanks again for any advice.

 

(and I apologise if this I am jumping around and making a mess of the forum thread, but thought it better to keep my topic all together.)

 

Gordon

[MARTIN3030]

Send the 10.00 Gordon (this is quite clearly laid out in these forums)

 

You will notice that some Banks return the fee,and some return half whilst some take it all.

 

I would suggest you read some of the posts on here you will then have a good understanding of things and find the answers to many of your questions.

[jonni2bad]

Ditto that...

 

You would be best advised resending a request from our templates, including the fee. The 40 days will not start until they have the money anyway..

[gordieboyglasgow]

Thanks all. I think I am going to scrap any previous attempts to retrive the monet they have (edit) and just start again from square one (following the excellent advice and using the templates from this site.) to save me getting even more confused.

 

I will keep you all informed of how I am getting on (maybe even start a new thread if that is going to be ok?)

 

Thanks again and sorry for asking stupid questions and taking up everybodies time.

 

xGx

moderated: please do not post what may be seen as libelous comments on this forum please ,this is to protect the site

[jonni2bad]

No problem - you can repost here though. If you want a change of title, let us know.

[gordieboyglasgow]

Hi all

A quick update.

I have just received the majority of my statements back from the bank os scotland (how many pages!!! lol)

 

I have put them into the excel sheet provided elsewhere on here and WITHOUT the 8% (is it worth claiming this?) from may 2000 until august 2005 I have agrand total of £6913.00 in charges (the past year is probably going to add another 2000 to this amount!).

 

So here we go in trying to claim it all back.

 

I think I have got the rest of the procedure right, I think I proceed as follows:

 

I now start sending the letters off asking for the cash back,

The bank tries to stall and delay me

I get no joy with the refunds

I submit the small claims summons

The bank tries to fob me off with a 'suitable' offer

I tell them to stick it where the cheque book doesnt shine

They dont reply or turn up to court

I get my money back!

 

As I sayI think i have the above procedure sorted in my head. However do I inititally aask for the whole amount back from the bank and when they refuse break it down into smaller chunks, or do i break it down into the £750 chunks (as allowed by the scottish sytem) from the outset? (if so this is going to be about 9 'individual claims' - not that it will put me off but what a pain!! lol).

 

Thanks again for your help.

 

I will continue to keep you posted.

 

xGx

[gordieboyglasgow]

*******UPDATE********

 

Wahey!! I have just received a very nice letter from a Mr Richard Aitken at the BOS.

 

Basically it starts off as the usual standard blah blah blah about the terms and conditions, sticking to the banking code etc (i actually nearly stopped reading and put it onthe pile with allthe rest) but then........

 

As a gesture of good will they will give us £731.00 back as a full and final settlement, as long as I agree that all future charges will stand etc....

 

This amount is really good when you consider that the amount i was initially claiming was only about £300 (for the period stated at the start of this thread).

 

So now what? I really could do with this money, but the other charges over the years are amounting to about £7000. He has also sent a form to sign and return as below:

 

ACCEPTANCE FORM

 

WE: xxxxxxxxxxxxx &

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

of: ADDRESS

 

confirm that we accept the offer of £731.00 refund of charges from The Bank of Scotland in full and final settlement of our complaint regarding bank charges made on any of our Bank of Scotland accounts

 

Pay the monet to account .............................

OR

send a cheque made payable to ............................

 

etc.........

 

 

Help and advice needed please.

If I for example ammend the form to say something like

 

" we accept the offer as full and final settlement for this particular complaint, however we will still pursue any refunds from dates prior to this"

 

(im not actually bothered about the future - ive already opened another account with another bank) would this be accepted does anybody know?

 

Thanks again for alll your help.

 

Gordon

 

p.s. strangely enough the letter is dated on the same day as I submitted my small claims forms for this bit. spooky or what!! lol

[Tink]

The advice given to others with similar offers is to write accepting the £731 as an interim payment whilst you continue to pursue them for the balance of the amount outstanding.

 

They would not accept you paying as full and final on a loan from them a paltry 10% of the loan amount would they?! Why should you? I do understand though that you could certainly use the money I know I could, but I will be hanging off for every last penny from them.

 

Just my 2p worth.

 

T

[gordieboyglasgow]

thanks tink. But this is where it gets confusing lol. As the process of letters etc was started prior to me finding out about this site, getting the DPA etc I havent actually started the ball rolling for the BIG money yet. I am just really worried I will say or do something that essentially stops me from claiming charges back over the past years. If that makes sense.

I think I have actually started to chase myself into a corner . :confused:

[Tink]

Hopefully someone more experienced than myself with come along, but if it was me in the same position (and I am not sooo different, as I have commenced my first claim whilst waiting on the remaining dates coming through via my DPA) I would insist on the removal of the full and final clause ...... it is of course your call .....

 

Good Luck

 

T

[MARTIN3030]

Gord its not as complicated as it looks.

They have offered you someting.........which shows that they are taking the claim seriously.

 

You can do a couple of things here ...but they all have the same objectives thats getting a refund of ALL charges.

 

As it has been said you can accept the offer they have made as a partial settlement stating that you will be going on to claim ALL amounts owed.

In view of the figures you do know already that your claim will have to be in sep ones.

 

They are most likely to reject your partial offer of acceptance and so withdraw it.

 

Carry on to the next stage of the process and if you have not yet sent your letter off for the dpa info do it now.

 

The fact that you have not done so already will not affect the first claim.

They are unlikely to defend because of that alone.

 

hope all is clear

 

[gordieboyglasgow]

Thanks all.

So I think the way to go is to phone this guy and say 'i accept this payment as an INITIAL partial settlement which is full and final for the dates stated, however I shoudl let you know that I will be pursuing all charges from previous dates of xx/xx/xx thru until xx/xx/xx totalling £xxxxx. These are charges that I have discovered since my initial letter to yourselves.'

and see how i get on from there. Again my apologies for sounding stupid, I just dont want to mess anything up at this stage

 

thanks again

Gordon

[ecobabe]

hi gordieboy, i wouldn't do anything over the phone, you have no way of proving any discussion if you use the phone, they could change tak. i would write and send it recorded delivery, keeping a copy for yourself.

[MARTIN3030]

GB the way forward from here is the prelim together with a charges summary.

The prelim letter gives the first opportunity for them to see it as a chance to afford you constructive dialogue.

 

In the body of the prelim letter you can customise it to add something like...

I acknowledge receipt of your offer of.... made on ..... but feel unable to accept this as full and final settlement since it is considerably less than the amount being claimed.I would however,accept this offer of payment as part settlement,on the understanding by you that I shall still be pursuing payment of the full amount as detailed in the enclosed schedule of charges.

 

Send first class recorded.......of course giving them the 14 days.

 

Of course this offer will most likely be taken off the table,but could be followed with a higher offer at either pre or post lba stage.

 

As with other posters suggestions tho avoid telephone contact unless you are 100% sure that it will be in your interest to do so (which it usually is not)

 

 

[gordieboyglasgow]

Hi Guys

sorry not posted for a while. But here is a quick update.

 

Recevied hearing and return dates for small claims for the £295.00. a few weeks later received a letter from HBOS stating they would settle without prejudice etc..

 

received money to bank account (which strangely enough was near enough all taken out again to cover MORE charges.. but thats a different story!!)

 

Since then I have sent letter one and two off asking for the full amount (£6353.00) stating that I would beging proceedings to recover, but would be breaking it down into £750.00 chunks as allowed by the scottish small claims proceedure and these would follow on from each other with no further notice. Dont expect to get a resolution without issuing small claims, but you never know.

 

So here goes on the long road to recovery as it where.

 

A quick question.. After the first claim for £750.00 has been settled can I start another small claims straight away or do I have to go through the 2 letter process again? It is going to take long enough without having to wait for 28 days inbetween each claim.

 

Thanks again and good luck to everyone claiming.. keep at it Im sure it will be worth it in the long run!!!

 

G

 

p.s. A method I found useful, may be of help to others

I have noticed some people saying that the process is a little quick sometimes and they havent had time to get all the paperwork, small claims forms together etc or they feel the letters etc are never ending.

what I have done is when I had a few hours to spare, i completed all the small claims forms and letters for ALL the actions that i am going to have to do, saved them all on my computer (claim1, claim2 etc) so they are readu to print off as and when. this I think will help to stop me getting 'disheartened' by the reptition of the forms. I did it when I was 'phsyced up' to take them on and it should hopefully make my life easier.

[gordieboyglasgow]

Hi again all.

 

Here is a quick update......

 

Just received a response to my first LBA in brief as follows....

 

....to summarise you are requesting th refund of any default charges applied to your account in view of recent media coverage surrounding the subject......

 

it goes on to say that HBOS is reducing it's credit card default charges due to the OFT's finding even though it doesnt agree with some of the findings.

 

and then.....

 

.....At present the findings only apply to credit cards, so unfortunatly, no refund is due to you.

 

I assume this is another version of their GTF letter. So here goes with round one in the small claims. wish me luck!!!!

 

Cheers

 

G