First offer from RBS should i take it.

[ttl2004]

Hi guys,

 

I am currently 5 months into my claim from RBS (long time partly down to me).

 

I have recently sent my letter before action letter for a total of £6,500 including overdraft interest.

 

They have subsequently offered £4,700 clearly stating that this excludes any interest paid.

 

Two points to mention.

 

1. should i accept the offer ?

 

2. they have stated that it is to paid into my account where i have a £2,900 overdraft facility which is always close to it's limit. which is fine but my concern is , are they allowed to subsequently withdraw my overdraft facility at their whim.

 

regards

 

ttl2004

[isidore]

Question 1 all depends on what you mean by overdraft interest. If you are referring to the debited interest charges on your statements, then certainly not. The reason they offer partial amounts is to make you think twice about accepting it - saving them a fair amount of money.

 

If however, you have already added 8% interest to your claim before you should have then I would expect this is all you are entitled to and you shoudl accept.

 

You have to be fully aware of the implications of refusing it however. If you do not receive a full settlement offer soon you will have to file a court claim, this will increase your claim as you will be able to include 8% statuatory interest to your claim. However, you will need to be fully aware of how to file you claim etc.

 

Question 2 is a little difficult to answer. They might, the might not? No one is really sure. If you overdraft is a little inflated right now in comparison to your income then it might well be recuced. Trouble is no one can really tell what they are going to do?

 

If you could clarify point 1 I could give you a more defining answer. Excuse the questions - you may have a full understanding of what you are doing but more often than not newcomers tend to do the wrong thing on the back of advice from other sites so I' mjust double checking.

[PKea]

Another point is that if £6500 is not including the 8%, then this claim will not be in the Small Claims court

[isidore]

Another point is that if £6500 is not including the 8%, then this claim will not be in the Small Claims court

Yeah agreed which is why I'm trying to establish what the £6500 is made up of.

[ttl2004]

Hi guys,

 

Thanks for your replies,

 

The £6500 includes £888 of overdraft interest charged to my account, i have not included the 8% as per instructions in this forum.

 

I have to say being within £1,000 (excluding interest charged) seems a fairly reasonable offer considering it's their first. Is this the norm for claims of this size, or is their no way of knowing what the norm is?

[isidore]

Not sure about the norm.

 

In which case, they have offered you 1800 less than what you are entitled too. Basically it is entirely up to you. If you accept this as partial settlement you can proceed to court, file your claim, add 8% interest and costs and claim back a hell of a lot more than £1800. However, you will be fasttracked and could be exposed to the banks costs if the court decides against. HOWEVER, providing you do everything by the instructions on this forum, the bank will settle for the full amount before it reaches court.

 

You could however, think yourself lucky and accept the £4700.

 

If it were my choice, I would certainly go to court for the rest BUT it is not my decision to make.

 

What I would suggest is wait the weekend, have a read through the successful claims forum, see how successful some people have been and make your decision come Monday. You're offer isn't going to go anywhere...

[ttl2004]

One more point i should have mentioned at the beginning is that i made a slight cock up at the beginning of my claim by sending the wrong shedule of charges (had the 8% column still on) and asked for the wrong amount in the prelim letter. Once i had fully researched the matter i corrected the shedule and asked for the outstanding charges plus the overdraft interest. the difference between the two was around £200, from my understanding this failure to get the process right first time can jeopardise a succesfull court case, is this correct and if so would you recommend i settle now.

 

thanks again for the advice.

 

regards

 

ttl2004

[isidore]

If you corrected this in the LBA and told them you corrected it, I'm not sure it will make a difference

[ttl2004]

hmmmm, theres the sticky part, i corrected all the data and the figures were correct but i didn't make mention of it, the lba letter just pointed out the new figures and what they were for and the shedule had all the correct data on it.

 

 

Any thoughts ?

 

Oh and one more thing you may find amusing is that they stated , we refer to your letter of 8th december 2007 (damn they can see into the future), should have been 8th march.

[Bigmac versus]

I would say you would be fine however to keep matters clear i would send a short letter basically saying that the LBA that was recently sent which included a new schedule of charges supercedes any previous schedule of charges that you had sent.