LTSB give away money voluntarily!

[elsinore]

I received this from LTSB yesterday. It is referenced to my, now closed, business account.

 

From Business Banking

Colmore Row.

 

Dear Elsinore,

We recently wrote to you concerning a refund of charges and notice that we do not yet appear to have received a reply.

 

We have identified that, unfortunately, some customers were incorrectly charged an unauthorised borrowing fee when their account went overdrawn or above their overdraft limit without prior arrangement. Our policy is that we do not charge in such situations when the amount involved is £50 or less.

 

Please accept our sincere apologies for this error.

 

In calculating your refund we have reviewed our system records which date back to September 2001. On this basis your refund amount has been calculated as £20.00

 

In addition, we will be adding interest calculated at 12% P/A gross, from the date of the incorrect charge, to arrive at a total amount due which will be confirmed on payment.

 

To allow us to send the refund to you, please complete the attached payment instruction form and return it to us in the enclosed pre-paid envelope.

 

You will appreciate that we may need to make additional background checks to ensure that the refund is paid to the correct business.

 

If you have any other queries or concerns, please telephone 08345 603 7259 between 9am and 5pm.

 

We aim to provide the highest level of customer service possible. However, if you experience a problem we will always seek to resolve this as quickly and efficiently as possible. A copy of our ‘How to voice your concerns’ leaflet can be obtained by contacting us. The complaint procedures are also on our website www.lloydstsb.com/business/contactus.

 

Once again, please accept our apologies for this error.

 

Yours sincerely

Gary McConnell

Senior Manager – Customer Support

 

Has anbody else received one of these? In my case it's only £20, but I imagine there will be a lot of business account holders being offered significantly greater sums. The payment instruction form referred to in the letter is quite innocuous and contains no 'conditions'.

 

How odd!

 

Els

[GaryH]

Huh??!!:-?

 

Some mistake, surely!!

[elsinore]

That was my first reaction, Gary.

 

However, this morning I got another one! An exact duplication of the first letter, which implies that it is a template letter, which in turn suggests that it's going out to others.

 

Anyway, I'm returning the payment instruction form, so we'll see what happens!

 

Els

[RedDeath]

Push for CI, push for CI!!!

[elsinore]

Push for CI, push for CI!!!

 

:lol:

 

Els

[bobcatman]

hi all ,i got one one of them letter's sent to me after i lerft lloyds i was offered 50+interest which amounted to 84 quid, i took it, 2 may is my court preliminary hearing for allmost 3k inc interest +costs

[passivenomore]

Hi Els!!

 

I received one of these letters back in september 2006. It amounted to 7 x £10.00 charegs plus £48.40 interest (tot £118.40).

 

I have two thoughts on this:

 

1) Maybe it was intended as a sweetener so I wouldn't go attempt to reclaim any other charges?

 

2) Could they have been starting with the lowest charge amounts and then work thier way upwards ( ie. £10, then £20, then £25, etc...) all the way to the £60 they charged me on several occaisions (including one particular day that they charged me £60 TWICE!!!!

 

Suffice to say, I heard no more!!!

[elsinore]

Suffice to say, I heard no more!!!

 

You mean they didn't pay up?

 

Els

[passivenomore]

Yes Els... they did pay up, directly into my account.

 

What I meant was that they weren't starting with the lower charge amounts and working thier way up through the escalating charge scale!!

 

Funny that!

[elsinore]

Ha ha! Got this today!

 

"Dear Els,

 

Thank you for returning the completed form as requested.

 

In repect of the refund of unauthorised borrowing fees we have

calculated the amount due and enclose a cheque as follows:

 

Refund of unauthorised borroowing fee £20.00

Plus interest from the date of the unauthorised borrowing fee

until 5 days after the date of this letter calculated at 12% P/A

gross £12.24

Total Amount £32.24

 

If you have any futher queries, etc; etc"

 

Thank you, LTSB. That'll buy a case of six bottles of Els's favourite

tipple!

 

Els

[TeamD]

I'm currently investigating this phenomenon and would ask for the assistance of any of you who have received one of these letters.

 

Please could you let me know roughly what the UB sequence number of your letter is? (No need to be too specific, nearest 100 or 1000 would suffice).

 

eg. Mine is around 12290.

 

Thanks,

Steve

[passivenomore]

Hi Steve...

 

Thanks for the PM. I have PM'd you back. For what it's worth, my ref no. began U0... not UB.

 

Also, it's an interesting line of thought on your thread and may be worth anyone who's had one of these letters having a read through.

 

Look forward to your thoughts.

 

pass

[passivenomore]

For those who are interested, here's Steve's thread:

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/lloyds-bank/32358-teamd-lloyds-tsb-business.html

 

[bobcatman]

I HAD A REFUND FROM THAT same template letter mine came to £58, they sent letter soon after i started my claim for 3k, i won chek my thread

[elsinore]

Replied to your PM TeamD.

 

Els

[TeamD]

I HAD A REFUND FROM THAT same template letter mine came to £58, they sent letter soon after i started my claim for 3k, i won chek my thread

 

Thanks for the PM replies folks.

 

Bobcatman, did you utilise the fact that what they were attempting to refund wasn't your losses amounted to as a result of their error in your court action?

[TeamD]

For what it's worth, my ref no. began U0... not UB.

 

Just checked, my mistake, I didn't have a copy in front of me. Mine starts U0 too (although god help them if they have to use the most significant digit!!!!!)

 

Has anyone received one of these for a personal account? I get the feeling that it seems to be restricted to business accounts at present. But that's probably not surprising in that they use different computer systems for personal and business accounts (as my account manager explained to me.)

[passivenomore]

Steve...

 

Just a thought. Maybe worth putting a link on here:

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/general/68191-claiming-business-account-lets.html

[passivenomore]

Steve, do you have any new develpments on this?

 

I'm still intrigued!!!!

[TeamD]

Have recently received a letter offering an increased sum in respect of this issue and interest at 30%! No confidentiality clause or other conditions. Lot's of waffle about stuff that just doesn't fit with the fact that they have effectively admitted that I am correct and that they have misrepresented the extent of losses incurred by their unauthorised borrowing from our account.

 

Not sure where to go from here, the amount is not really the issue (now circa £150 + £150 compensation) but the principle is that I believe that they should now (in the knowledge that they have got their sums wrong) fix everyone elses losses in respect of this matter. So far they have not offered to do this so I am loath to let it lie since it would appear that this has affected at least 30,000 accounts.

[TeamD]

Does anyone have any suggestions about how best to make others who have been duped by these kind of letters aware of the fact?