Barneybubble Vs RBOS (2) £12430.00

[hedgey06]

Reading the previous replies I have followed the advice to change the POCs to a recognisable form and printed 3 copies (N1, N244, spreadsheet). I will write to the court requesting the stay be lifted and if it is that my POCs are changed.

 

Does this sound OK?

 

This definitely sounds OK barney - particularly with the defence that you've received from Cobbetts as they've obviously picked up the limited PoC from when you initially filed the claim. In all honesty, I don't think you have any other option but to do the amendment with the new PoC to allow your claim every chance of proceeding.

 

I'll check about the part 18 request for the T&C's and get back to you asap. x

[hedgey06]

Just an additional update from above barney, I've checked about the part 18 request and you can hold off on this for the moment.

 

However, from the defence filed by Cobbetts, you will need to make a couple of additions to your new PoC (sorry - more printer ink!) to take into account that they've picked up on some pre-six year charges.

 

Re-do the N1 to add in the following (you may need to attach an additional sheet to the N1 as there may not be enough space to fit everything on):

 

5. Limitations

 

a). In so far as any charges relating to the period before xx/xx/xxxx, the Claimant wishes to invoke s.32 (1) (b) of the Limitation Act 1980 in that the Defendant deliberately concealed the true cost of administering the contractual breaches committed by the Claimant and thus essential facts relevant to the Claimant's right of action have been concealed and continue to be concealed by the Defendant.

 

b). Alternatively, the Claimant seeks to rely upon s.32(1)© of the Limitation Act. The Claimant paid the charges in the belief that they reflected the true cost of administering the contractual breaches. The Claimant has now discovered, following revelations relating to a similar organisation, that the true costs are much lower and that the belief held by Claimant was in fact mistaken.

 

This then covers you at a later date should Cobbetts attempt to have the pre-six year charges struck out from your claim. x:)

[barneybubble]

Hi Hedgey, thanks again. Will amemd as directed. Do you know whether I can do the changes even before the stay is lifted?

[hedgey06]

Go for it barney - have everything ready and in place ready for the DJ to consider.

[lancasterchelsea]

Barney......... how far have you got with your RBS business claim

 

is you stay lifted yet..... mine has been lifted and court on jan 3rd

[barneybubble]

Hi Lancasterchelsea, my stay was lifted yesterday so now am awaiting the defence. (Sorry for not updating earlier, especially to Hedgey, sort of been waiting). As soon as I hear anything else I will post it. Thanks for patience

[hedgey06]

Hi barney, that's great news about the stay being lifted.

 

Did you manage to get your amended PoC into the court?

 

Nice to see you back by the way.

[lancasterchelsea]

excellent news at your stay lifted

I got letter from Cobblers about my compounded interest so things are stirring after a long silence

cheers

[barneybubble]

Hi barney, that's great news about the stay being lifted.

 

Did you manage to get your amended PoC into the court?

 

Nice to see you back by the way.

 

Its good to be back too! I have waited until the stay was lifted (probably nieve) to change the PoC but have filed with the court today and paid the fee. Awaiting decision from DJ, then send off to Cobbetts. Hear soon (hopefully). It will then be time to make sure I have the correct pack ready, and will really be looking for help!

[hedgey06]

That's excellent barney - and I don't blame you for waiting! At least you've paid the fee knowing for sure that the case is proceeding. I'm sure the DJ will approve the amendments, so fingers crossed that we see some forward movement on this for you soon. x

[barneybubble]

Ah Hello Barney. Thanks for your support over this. I should ask and it probably will seem stupid, but at the time of my initial request for payment all of the charges were within the six year period. Now that time has passed the older charges are older than six years and I now have more charges. I assume that the charges that are NOW over six months old will be Ok as Im made my request along time ago, BUT should I be thinking about the latest charges being added to this claim or put one to bed first and then take them to task again?? What do you think. By the way good luck Lancasterchelsea!

[barneybubble]

OOOPs, Sorry Hedgey. I'm calling you Barney, that me! what chance.....

[hedgey06]

I've never been called barney before........... makes a change from hedgey though!!!

 

Don't worry about the charges that are older than six years in this claim as they've been addressed in your new PoC. Plus, when you start to put your court bundle together, you'll 'cover' the older charges anyway. With regards to the charges that they've recently added on though............... they're claim number two! x

[barneybubble]

OK today received an offer from Cobbettts. Hedgey if you could have a look at this it would be great.

 

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

 

Dear Mr *****

 

Our Client: Thr Royal Bank of Scotland

Claim No: *********

 

We refer to the above matter and your claim brought in relation to business account number ******* and sort code ******.

 

1. Business Account Charges, Overdraft, Overdraft Arrangement Fees, Bankers Draft Fees and Online Banking User Fees ("Servicde Fees")

 

You allege in your Particulars of Claim that the various charges outlined in your schedule of charges amount to an unenforceable penalty under the common law. In order for such a legal argument to be successful, you must plead and provide proof that you defaulted under the Terms and Conditions ("the Terms and Conditions") relating to your account, and the result of that default was that charges were payable by you.

 

With reference to the above, we wish to point out that the business account fees in the sum of £****.** applies to your ******* Account during the period 17 April 2001 to 14 March 2007 were properly applied in accordance with the terms and conditions and not pusuant to a purported breach of the terms by you. These business account charges are applied to your account on a monthly basis in consideration for the Bank providing transactional services on your Account. This is evidenced by the documents in your bank file.

 

This is also the case in rewspect of account fees in your schedule in the sum of £****.**, which were applied to your account for using online business banking services, or Royline as it is known. When registering in 2001, you agreed to the terms and conditions, including the payment of fees for the transactional services used, such as CHAPS payments. We have a copy of your billing report indicating the transactions for which the charges were levied.

 

Similary, the overdraft arrangement fees of £***.** applied during the same period were also properly applied in accordance with the terms and conditions on your account. These fees were debited from your account in response to either a request by you, or an offer by our client, for the provision or renewal of an overdraft facility. These arrangements are evidenced in documents provided to us by the bank from your bank file. At no time were these charges applied to your account in response to a breach in your terms and conditions by you.

 

The same argument outlined above applies to the imposition of fees for the provision of banker's drafts and for stopping the payment of cheques. These services were provided at your request, and not in relation to a purported breach of the Terms and Conditions.

 

In light of the above, our client believes that your allegation that the Service Fees applied to your account are unenforceable penalty charges would not be successful in Court. These fees were not applied as a result of a breach of contract on your part but in consideration for the provision of various services to your by our client. It is these reasons that the Services Fees you have sought to be recovered have not been included in our client's goodwill offer to you.

 

2. Unpaid Item Fees, Paid Referal Fees & Higher Rate of Interest Applied to Charges ("Overdraft Charges")

 

However, as a gesture of goodwill, our client is prepared to settle the elements of your claim relating to Overdraft Charges on a non-admission as to liability basis and offer you the amount of £****.** in full and final settlement of that part of your cliam.

 

This settlement offer has been calculated according to the following:

 

**ACOUNT NAME**

a. Overdraft Charges £****.**

b. Statutory Interest (8%) £***.**

c. Court fee £250.00

 

Should you accept our clients goodwill payment, it will be strictly on the basis that:

 

1 you agree not to disclose to any third party the fact of, or any detials relating to, this payment;

 

2 you write to the Court withdrawing this element of your claim.

 

Please note that any Overdraft Charges that properly accrue in the future will be applied to your account in line with our clients published tariff and in accordance with your agreement with our client.

 

On confirmation of acceptance, we will arrange for cheques in the settlement figures to be forwarded to you by special delivery. The cheques should be received one or two days after notification of your acceptance.

 

We look forward to receiving your response...........

 

 

 

 

The offer is approximately 20% of the total amount claimed.

I would be really appreciative of your advice.

[lancasterchelsea]

Hi Barney the offer seems very low

 

I am at a similar stage to you with Cobblers/RBS

I have just changed my POC's from the very short MCOL one to a more normal N1 variety... cost has gone up from £35 to £40

 

My preliminary court appearance is on Jan 3rd

 

I now have to wait 'til get reply from Court re changed POC... it might mean the date gets put back

[hedgey06]

Hi Barney, I agree with lancasterchelsea, their offer is incredibly low.

 

I'm a little worried about some of the contents of the letter you've received though. Certain 'charges' can't be reclaimed on a business account as they're legitimate fees for services provided to business customer (e.g., if you request that a cheque is stopped, this would incur a legitimate service charge, as would overdraft arrangement fees, account maintenance fees, etc).

 

Before I can advise you any further on their offer, could you post up exactly which types of charges you've listed in your claim please? I'll be back online around 7ish tonight so I'll take another look at your thread later. x

[lancasterchelsea]

Referral charge75.00Referral charge100.00Referral charge25.00Referral charge50.00Referral charge100.00Referral charge100.00Referral charge100.00unpaid items30.00unpaid items30.00unpaid items60.00Referral charge75.00unpaid items30.00unpaid items30.00unpaid items30.00unpaid items30.00Referral charge50.00Referral charge25.00Referral charge30.00

Barney if it's any help..... this is what I have claimed for..... see above

 

referral charges are where there is insufficent money to cover dd or cheque, but they pay it and charge you a £25 fee per occasion the following month

 

unpaid item is where they sent the cheque back to the issuer ("bounced")

and charge you £30 per occasion

 

I didn't claim any fees such as renewing the overdraft, cost per cheque etc.... Even if these are extortionate they are part of the "contract" with the bank

[lancasterchelsea]

did your referral fees and unpaid fees (plus interest) only amount to 20% of your claim?

Were the "service" charges 80%

 

Have they paid in full for referral plus unpaid plus interest ?

 

cheers

[barneybubble]

Thank you both for your replies. I am now sitting down going through my business statements and schedule of charges. Could be a while, but not going anywhere

[hedgey06]

We're right here when you're ready barney. x

[barneybubble]

Right here is the news. Its seems that those charges for REF and UNPAID total £1400 plus interest. The other £9k is made up of approx 70% for online banking and 30% for monthly charges. All on an occount with only £1k overdraft facility! Your thoughts are really needed now!

[hedgey06]

Barney, my first thoughts are that I'm a bit worried about some of the charges you're trying to reclaim. Firstly, when you say 'monthly charges', do you mean things such as the monthly account maintenance fees, clearing fees (e.g., small amounts for cheques clearing), etc.???

 

Also, you seem to be paying an awful lot of money for online banking. Are these charges purely for using the online banking system or are they actual penalty charges such as:

 

Excess borrowing fee

Unpaid DD fee

Referral Fee

Cheque Return fee

Unpaid cheque

Unpaid S.O fee, etc

[lancasterchelsea]

I pay £10/month with RBS because the account is hardly used (it's the minimum)....... with online banking there is a charge per transaction

at present it is...

 

 

cheques and other debits 59p each

manual credits 69p each

cash paid into branches 57p per £100

also each year they charge me £150 to renew the overdraft

every 3 months thay charge interest on the overdraft (£8k)

 

I claimed for none of these.... because they are agreed transactional charges/fees not penalties

 

The referrals and unpaid fees are penalties/punishments which are way beyond their actual cost. They can only charge for these at actual cost.... a few pence

 

My charges come to about £1,000 plus interest

I am trying for the same interest they have charged me accumulating compounded every month..... interest adds up to about £1,500

 

If the judge doesn't like my interest calculations I will offer simple 8% interest as an alternative

[barneybubble]

My banking is direct dial "royline" that I dial directly into the bank not through the internet. It seems that every time I pay a CHAPS (by pressing the send button on the computer I am charged £10. Excesive? It is something that I use a lot. Wages etc.

I have now added up the REFERAL and UNPAID charges on the personal account and these add upto £4600 PLUS interest.

I have taken out the monthly charges to both accounts on the quoted figures. Were to from here. The personal account is stayed,but the business account I am awaiting the defence. Do I settle on the Business now that I ave taken out the "online" charges and monthly fees?

[hedgey06]

Are they offering to refund all penalty charges barney? If they are, I'd recommend settling the claim with them (which has the bonus of 8% interest on it) and forgetting about the other fees.

 

However, if they're not offering to settle all of the penalty charges in full, it could be time to start some negotiation with them.