Tom Brennan v NatWest - This is a must-read!!!

[PPMAN159]

Maybe after hearing Toms case the judge has gone away to prepare his own claim!

[delboytrotter]

Do you think a judge has ever needed to reclaim charges? i dont! it is normally the poorer people that get walloped with charges etc......and usually when they are skint...remember the old saying ROB THE POOR TO FEED THE RICH, it is changing slowly but it will change. Robin Hood tried a long time ago we have just picked up where he left off!

[Shoestring]

Do you think a judge has ever needed to reclaim charges? i dont! it is normally the poorer people that get walloped with charges etc......and usually when they are skint...remember the old saying ROB THE POOR TO FEED THE RICH, it is changing slowly but it will change. Robin Hood tried a long time ago we have just picked up where he left off!

 

The spirit of Robin Hood is one thing and is an admirable mythos in the extreme, but the Hooded man's corporeal reality is sadly less fixed in facts.

 

Otherwise I agree entirely with your sentiments although I still - thirty years and more later - still chuckle at the Monty Python Hood refrain:

 

"Steals from the poor,

Gives to the rich,

-- silly bitch..."

 

And yes, the poor and less well off are so disenfranchised that they are hunted with relative impunity. Has it ever not been so?

 

Shoestring

[delboytrotter]

Very well put, Shoestring. I dont think i could have said it better,

Most Consumer Action Groupies will agree.

 

Monty Python did a lot of comedy but not as much as the "bankers", although i found Eric and his friends a lot funnier.....

[HighgateLad]

It is great to see so many individuals winning against the greedy banks. The thing is though the banks will not really get hit unless many, many more people start to claim. My guess is that the majority of customers will not bother or be too intimidated to begin the whole process.

It would be great if CAG began a class action! That would force the banks into repaying all the money that they have no right to have taken. The Swiss banks in the 1990s lost a class action and had to repay many millions to relatives of Holacaust victims after shamefully using delaying tactics for years. It can be done!

[Sparkie1723]

The Solicitor who has been giving me little bits of help and hints in my claim against the RBOS, has now put in a claim..... believe it or not to reclaim HIS Bank Charges.....I told him good on him!!!!

 

sparkie

[calvi36]

The Solicitor who has been giving me little bits of help and hints in my claim against the RBOS, has now put in a claim..... believe it or not to reclaim HIS Bank Charges.....I told him good on him!!!!

 

sparkie

 

 

I hope you charged him accordingly for the advice you gave lol.

[Sparkie1723]

Yeah calvi36....told him to knock it off my bill, he said I was B......y expensive

Told him to knock a percentage say 10% of his charges he gets back

 

sparkie:D

[calvi36]

lol sparkie, I would have haggled my arse off in that one. You could have responded the only difference between lawyers bankers and crooks is that the crooks normally wear ski masks!

[meagain]

It would be great if CAG began a class action! [...] It can be done!

 

Not in the UK, it can't. As far as I am aware (ICBW), in general we don't have class actions in this country - a handful of test cases are put forward, played out to a judgment, if they match a precedent is set and the result passed on to everyone else. Therein lies the problem.

[Shoestring]

Not in the UK, it can't. As far as I am aware (ICBW), in general we don't have class actions in this country - a handful of test cases are put forward, played out to a judgment, if they match a precedent is set and the result passed on to everyone else. Therein lies the problem.

 

The class action is not always the remedy it appears. For it to work fairly you need a leading lawfirm that is honest and trustworthy. In the US there have been numerous cases where class action lawfirms have negotiated a deal satisfactory to the defendant and then sold that deal to their class litigants. The lawfirm walk away multi millionaires and the class themselves can now afford to buy a new dishwasher... and the defendant whistles on his way to the bank to authorise the payment.

 

Shoestring

[setmefree]

Couple recover £25,000 from bank

A couple whose hotel business collapsed due to the foot and mouth outbreak six years ago have recovered £25,000 in overdraft charges from NatWest. Alan Abrahams and his partner Valerie Knight-Gibbons were in the red for four years as they struggled to keep their hotel going on the North York Moors.

An appeal to the Financial Ombudsman Service failed, so they sued instead.

Now they have banked the second of two cheques, to join thousands of other successful bank charge claimants.

"We are very elated, there is some justice in this world," said Alan.

Slow death

The couple's eight bedroom Moorlands Hotel was in Castleton, not far from Whitby in the North York Moors national park.

We always thought tomorrow would be better but it never happened

 

 

Alan Abrahams

 

When foot and mouth disease hit the country in 2001, their business just dried up.

"It died a slow death," said Alan.

"People abandoned bookings, the following year's bookings never came through - and our debts were rising," he said.

They continued trying to stay afloat, courtesy of their overdraft with the NatWest.

"We always thought tomorrow would be better but it never happened," said Alan.

"All the time the bank was gorging itself on the account with the charges; never once did they question if we could carry on in business."

Setback

Alan described that experience as "four years of hell", especially as a repayment claim to the Financial Ombudsman in 2003 ended in failure.

 

NatWest successfully appealed against an initial award of £35,000.

The hotel finally closed in January 2005 and the couple decided to become property developers, obtaining planning permission to convert it into luxury apartments.

They have now done this and have paid off their bank debts.

In the meantime they started writing to NatWest, again asking for their money back.

They were prompted by the Office of Fair Trading's statement last year that it thought that bank overdraft charges should be reined in, just like default fees for credit cards.

Settlement

NatWest claimed that Alan and Valerie had no chance of winning in court.

It's not the money, it's the sense of achievement, getting something back that was taken from you

 

 

Alan Abrahams

 

"The bank would throw everything in our path to put us off," said Alan.

But as with so many other claimants it eventually settled before a court hearing.

It said it would be uneconomical to contest the case and it offered the money, just £2,000 short of the full claim, as a gesture of goodwill.

A cheque for £5,126 was paid last November and another for £20,198 came last week.

"It's greatly important," said Alan.

"It's not the money, it's the sense of achievement, getting something back that was taken from you. I'm so happy."

[Parkvale]

That is me folks. So ihope it can be an inspiration to everyone to continue their claims with some confidence and claim what is rightfully yours

[smashedbobo]

Congratulations. And yes it is an inspiration. And interestingly a point made in an earlier posting as to whether judges would be claiming. And the solicitor yes a solicitor claiming. Well the judge maybe not. But the solicitor i can well see that. My sister is a barrister working through the family courts. And her debts are huge. And so are bank charges. Tom will probably understand the way barristers are paid if not doing private work. They have to wait months and month for there money to be paid. I would imagine there are more barristers claiming than we actually think. My sister has been near to bankruptcy on more than one occasion.

[ymb]

who knows what happend with tom brennan case?

[noomill060]

As far as I know the judge has gone on his holidays and will give judgement on his return from Bangkok or Ibiza or where ever he's gone to soak up the rays.

[freakyleaky]

this thread has gone quiet to Thank you for all you support

[crfx250]

It could be anytime now. He'll get the judgement by post - he must keep it strictly to himself - then all parties will appear in court for the full judgement to be heard

[TideTurner]

Come on Tommy

[ymb]

thank you for the information.

[crfx250]

The J is ''still working'' on the case, we'll just have to patient. But an appeal from the losing side is inevitable.

 

It appears the lad is preparing to go ''toe to toe'' with another foe which

by all accounts ''should be fun''.

 

Dontcha just luv im?

[kennythecelt]

Anyone heard anything?

 

Thanks:)

[crfx250]

Nope. It's been so long I think even TB himself has forgotten about it!

But in the meantime he's been keeping himself busy lining up his next opponent(s) and has taken to treading the boards (edit) if you fancy going to watch the lad in action.

[calvi36]

crfx, why did u post that link? Not helpful at all! TB has already stated, awaiting judgement, once judge has had time ro recover from his hols, judgement will be given, there is no rush. We hav e had decades of banks and their charges so hey ho captain jack, a few more weeks will not matter.

[crfx250]

Sorry I should have said, he's on the stage in the spoof Eurovision production this week.

 

But I'm struggling to understand the point of the remainder of your post.

M'learned clearly led both parties to believe a judgement would be made

in ''a couple of weeks''. After that time had elapsed he then decided to

swan off on holiday, return and we're still waiting. It's hardly surprising

then that posts appear on this thread asking ''Anyone heard anything

yet'' and ''who knows what happend with tom brennan case?''.

 

Your assertion that ''there is no rush. We hav e had decades of banks and their charges so hey ho captain jack, a few more weeks will not matter'' lies in stark

contrast with an earlier post that excitedly pronounced ''I so cannot wait to see how they respond in court'' made by one calvi36.

 

Any delay can only work in the bank's favour.

 

And I would suggest that when you've got your tackle and career on the line, a few weeks probably does matter.