In the Red v Abbey. ***WON!!!***

[In the Red]

Hi everyone,

I have recently been charged a total of £415 by Abbey for making Direct debit payments, and paying Debit card transactions whilst I was over my overdraft limit, will I still be able to make a claim even though the bank has made the payments for me when the money wasn't in the account?

[In the Red]

Sorry, I haven't explained myself very well there, I am not totally irresponsible with my debit cards, but I thought that if there wasn't enough funds in my account the card would be rejected at point of sale, so when I got my Jauary/February statement I was really shocked to see each transaction, eg, shopping and petrol was listed as being paid whilst being over my overdraft.

what really cheesed me off, is that when the charges were applied to my account, I was then short of funds for two more DD's so I expect another £60 in charges to come for those aswell.

[nino]

You are not alone to be a victims of this action.

Abbey have paid 5 or six of my d/debits and other payments (including one with instructions passed by telephone when I could have been told by the person at the end of the line that there were no funds !!) and charged me £30 for each transation.

What is irritating is that the transactions were mostly b/ween £6.00 or £12.00 each so the mark up is...huuuuuge for Abbey.

Why should they tell customers they have no clear funds in their account when they can make this sort of profit on the back of it !!

 

Can these fees be challenged ?

 

Regards

NINO

[ariel]

Welcome both of you! Looks to me like a good rummage round the FAQs will benefit you both. I'd also recommend that, after reading the FAQs, any posts should be run as 2 separate threads as dealing with two people's concerns in one thread gets very confusing!!

[In the Red]

Hi everyone, I am about to start preparing my case to reclaim my charges from the Abbey, I have been looking back over my statements(I still have them from March 2001, anorak or what), on some of them I have a small charge for 'interest whist overdrawn', I have an overdraft, do I include this in my total claim or do I ignore these?

 

Have to say I am very nervous about doing this but feel it has to be done, I am not the sharpest tool in the box and fear being tied in knots by all the legalities.

Thanks anyway. :?

[BankFodder]

If it is standard overdraft interest and not related to charges then you ignore it. That is an agreed rate for borrowing their money. not a problem.

[In the Red]

Ok ,thanks very much, for that, so if I had a charge for going over my overdraft I should just include that.

[BankFodder]

On the basis that some kind of charge might be reasonable, you probably shouldn't include that. merely interest on charges. consumer forums

consumerforums

[In the Red]

I'm finally going to take on Abbey to reclaim the charges that have been applied to my account over the years, but who do I ask for regarding a record of all my charges over the last five years, is it to my local branch manager or is it to the Abbey head office,if it is the head office is there an adress for them.

thanks ever so much in anticipation of your help,

 

I.T.R

[MARTIN3030]

I'm finally going to take on Abbey to reclaim the charges that have been applied to my account over the years, but who do I ask for regarding a record of all my charges over the last five years, is it to my local branch manager or is it to the Abbey head office,if it is the head office is there an adress for them.

thanks ever so much in anticipation of your help,

 

I.T.R

 

There is nothing to lose by asking your branch but experience tells us thats not the best way with this bank.

Have a look in the bank forums and look at Abbey thread then go to contacts......this will give you the info.

 

Take some time to read the faqs too.

[In the Red]

Hi everyone, if I back date my claim for charges to six years what do I do if it came to over £5000, do I claim for the lot or should I claim just the £5000 so as to keep it a 'Small Claim'.

Thanks,

In the Red.

[In the Red]

Hi everyone, I have looked at the contact details for Abbey in the Library, but do I send my S.A.R. letter to the head office in London or to Ms Hoyle in Milton Keynes, (Customer services dept.)

[lesser1010]

i've sent all mine to the triton square address

[In the Red]

Thanks very much.

[Michael Browne]

Or here:

 

Data Protection Manager

Data Protection Team

Regulatory Compliance

Abbey House

201 Graftons Gate East

Milton Keynes

MK9 1AN

[Glenn UK]

Red

 

Its up to you really. What is the value of your claim?

 

If its only a few quid over £5K you can still apply to the court and request its dealt with in the SCC.

 

If its significantly over £5K then it might be best to consider what options you have.

 

Perhaps post a precise of the claim so far and people can give you a view.

 

HTH

 

Glenn

[In the Red]

Thanks for your help mate, not recieved my details yet but i was seriously ill five years back and got into terrible financial difficulty after being off work for ten months and paid a hell of a lot of chages during this time and subsequently because of taking long periods off work since.

[In the Red]

Hi everyone, sent my SAR off on the 4th October, recieved a reply on Friday(20th) stating that they are unable to supply a list of charges applied to my account for the past six years because 'we do not store this information seperately from other transaction data but we can supply a list of transactions which include any charges applied'.

It goes on to say that arrangements have been made to send me the past fourteen months of transactions in the form of duplicate statements however most transactional info between 2000 and 2005 has been archived to microfiche and is not available on our computer system.

 

I have however, found nearly all my bank statements after a major clean up of my cupboards at home so Ive two questions here....

 

1. Am I in a stronger position now if abbey say that they have no records of charges from 2000 to 2005 but I have got the info on the statements I have found?

ie. they cant really dispute the amount of charges applied to my account.

 

2 Should I still reply, and demand copies of my account statements as planned, or get straight to the nitty gtritty of working out the total of charges applied and get the premliminary letter sent out?

[callumsgran]

Hi, if you have all your statements dont bother arguing with them just get on with your claim, you'll get your money quicker that way.

Good luck!

[In the Red]

Will keep you informed, thanks.

[Armsoft]

In the Red,

It would also be a worthwhile exercise of progressing through obtaining the data from their magical `microfiche` system, and compare the data against what you have on your statements as a number of people are receiving their microfiche data and finding them free of charges (or sometimes a lot less charges than expected) so if there was evidence to this effect it would be quite powerful!

 

Comments made are only my opinin, but if you find them helpful Please click my scales.

[In the Red]

Thanks Armsoft, that was what I was thinking, if they dispute the amount of charges but I have it already in black and white that would put me in a better position.

I T R

[In the Red]

Hi everyone, sent off my SAR letter on 6th october, have recieved a reply stating that they will send me the past fourteen months worth of statements blah blah, and said it is not possible to provide me with a computer printout of transactions before that, but they can send me a list of 'archived transactions' between 2000 and 2005 under seperate cover.

Is this the info I need or do I send the letter about complaining to the data information commissioner.

Hope you can help, cheers, In the Red.

[Lula]

Hi and welcome ITR, yes this is the information that you require, the archive is the microfiched statements that we have so much fun getting LOL

[In the Red]

Thank you for replying Lula, I was just wondering, do the Abbey have another 40 days to come up with this info or is it still 40 days from my first SAR letter, cos times running out if it is.

ITR