Suebrugge vs. NatWest

[suebrugge]

Hi all,

 

Been reading this forum for a while to get all the info before proceeding with any claims.

 

I am now at the stage where I am adding up all the charges I can claim back

 

I could use a little advise from you knowledgeable people though please....

 

I have an Advantage Gold account so accept that the fee for this is clearly not claimable. My confusion, though, is this.

 

I have numerous charges on the account which are worded in the following fashion:

 

29 Aug Charges 01AUG A/C 3622xxxx £6.00

 

It doesn't specify what the charge is actually for. In many of the cases it is £6.00 which I presume is the fee for the Advantage Gold account. However in some cases the wording is identical but the sum is different, some for £20, some £26.

 

Am I able to assume that anything above the £6 I am able to claim?? It doesn't make any mention what the charge has been applied to the account for (even for the £6 charge which I presume to be for the account itself). On the 2001 statements it separately lists the £6 as being the account fee, but by 2003 this is no longer the case.

 

Anyway, apologies for rambling, hope you understand the question and that someone can help.

 

Thanks very much in advance for your help.

[WendyB]

Thye've started liumping all the charges together at the end of the month - no doubt to make things less transparent to us!

 

At the moment the favourite is a £40 charge which is made up of £28.00 overlimit/unauth borrowing fee and 12 a/gold fee. If you take off the a/G fees and cliam the rest you should be okay.

 

There's a sticky on here called A Guide to Advantage Gold, or something like that, I'm not te chnical enoguht to do links, but you should be able to find it somewhere.

If you need more help just post back

 

Wendy

[steven4064]

Advantage gold used to cost £6, then £8 or £9, now £12 - details can be found on this thread (the one that Wendy told you about): http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/natwest-bank/27521-advantage-gold-unarranged-borrowing.html

 

You can't reclaim the advantage gold fee because it is for a 'service' that you agreed to pay for. So you need to deduct the appropriate amount each month.

 

Steven

 

If this post is helpful, please click the scales

[suebrugge]

Thanks very much for your advice there - they don't make things easy do they?!!:-|

 

I will end up making 3 claims against Natwest (Mine and hubby's sole accounts and our joint account). I am starting with the joint account as it is one with all the direct debits and the one that has been hit with the highest amount of charges.

 

My problem is this:

 

I have added up all the charges using a spreadsheet I found on here designed by Mindzai. I am claiming (initially) the compound daily interest. My confusion is that the spreadsheet gives a figure of £1.23 as a daily rate to add on until settlement of the claim. However, between finalising the spreadsheet yesterday and then opening it up today to print and post the total figure has increased by closer to £4. By testing it out and putting tomorrow's date in it increases again by around £4 rather than £1.23.

 

Surely this cannot be correct - i.e. to show £1.23 as the daily rate to add on whilst the total figure seems to be increasing by around £4 per day when I change the end date of the claim.

 

Does anyone have any ideas what I might be doing wrong here?? :confused: :confused:

 

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

 

Sue

[steven4064]

Sue

 

What have you put in for the rates on page 1?

 

Can you give me an example line from page 2 so I can check. If you don't want to publish it here, send me a PM. It may just be that the £1.23 is a notional amount but because you are charging compound interest it comes out higher. If you give/send me the info I will check it.

 

Steven

 

If this post is helpful, please click the scales

[suebrugge]

Steven,

 

Thanks for this. I don't want to trip up at the first hurdle by claiming a totally wrong figure thereby giving them the impression I'm just making up numbers at random and giving them ammunition to throw against me.

 

The rate I have used is 29.69 which I managed to find from the NatWest is the current unauthorised borrowing rate. the spreadsheet has converted this to a monthly rate of 2.19%

 

A sample couple of lines from the 2nd page of the spreadsheet would be:

 

DATE OF CHARGE PENALTY AMOUNT COMPOUND INTEREST COMBINED CHARGE & INTEREST

28/02/2002 £14.00 £40.84 £54.84

28/03/2002 £14.00 £39.76 £53.76

09/05/2002 £25.00 £68.17 £93.17

 

Is this what you need to see? I can email you the entire spreadsheet if it would be easier for you to check?

 

Thanks so so much for your help.

 

Sue

[steven4064]

Sue

 

I've checked those three and they are correct. Also 2.19% monthly is the same as 29.69% APR. I don't know what the £1.23 is but I would ignore it and go with the numbers you put in the post above.

 

Steven

 

If this post is helpful, please click the scales

[suebrugge]

Hi there,

 

A bit of an update on this.

 

Having sent off my preliminary letter, I then ended up leaving it far more than 2 weeks before sending my Letter Before Action.

 

I sent the Letter Before Action off on July 12th and today received a response offering all but around £100 of a claim of nearly £2k.

 

However...... in my initial claim I was also claiming the CI which more than doubled my claim. No reference has been made to this in their offer. I am inclined to reject and push on as I am rather annoyed (to put it politely) that they have been earning significant amounts of money over the last several years from money that was not rightfully theirs in the first place. Am I being greedy here though and should I accept the offer they have already made??? Your advise here would be very welcome.

 

Thanks

[hedgey06]

Sue,

 

I'd strongly advise you not to pursue nat west purely for the contractual interest. A precedent setting case (contractual interest) was lost recently, although some claimants are trying to find a way around this. But the general advice given is not to pursue a claim because of CI.

 

If your schedule of charges is absolutely correct (it's worth double-checking) and they've offered you an amount that's less than the full amount you're reclaiming - then you could reject their offer and pursue them for the remainder by filing at court. However, before you reject their offer check your statements and SoC again carefully - it may be that their offer is correct.

 

Let us know what happens