Surfer01 vs Nationwide- ***Hardship application***

[Surfer01]

I have sent off the first of probably many letters requesting a refund of all charges to my account over the past 6 years. In addition, I sent then a second letter requesting that they squash any charges that will be made on my account at the end of this month. Normally I am a fairly good boy but with the wife on SSP we got hit rather hard everything went wrong. Will keep you updated and once again thanks for all the good advice.

[Guest Lueeze]

Good Luck!

 

Louise

[coffindodger]

Good luck with your claim and don't forget to keep us updated

Brian

[Surfer01]

I incurred charges of approximately £310 in April due to personal issues. I sent 3 letters off to Nationwide using templates found on this forum but got no response and the money was deducted. Today I phoned them for the first time to complain about it as I had no response and before I could utter two words I was told that they would be refunding the charges and they should be back in my bank by tomorrow.

Hooray now for the rest of my dosh which although I have been mainly a good boy over the past six years is still my dosh. Time for a donation to this site.

 

 

THREADS MERGED.

[Surfer01]

I received all my statements and have tallied up all the charges but not the interest charges. As the account is mostly in overdraft should these charges be included. Monthly an average of less than £0.50 over 6 years.

Additionally interest charges where I have exceeded my overdraft limit are minimal, probably less than £20 over 6 years and are a bit of a hassle to work out as they are included in the overall interest charge. Hopefully I am looking at it from the correct perspective.

I now want to request a refund of £1055 in various charges over 6 years but am unsure about whether to include interest charges now also or just to ignore them for now but impose them should they refuse and decide to wait for a summons.

[Guest Lueeze]

Its up to you, you can only claim a % of the interest charge...

 

Use Vampiress spreadsheet if you wish to work it out!

 

Good Luck

 

Lou x

[Surfer01]

Can any one suggest an alternative account should Nationwide decide to close my account because I am taking them to court I would prefer an account that does direct debits and a cash card and doesn't require heavy credit checks etc. I can use my credit card for any purchases.

[Bovvered]

NatWest Step account does all that...and you can apply online - I got mine inside a week

[barracad]

Natwest do a basic account called a 'Step Account' - a lot of users are using this as it is pretty easy to set up online, and you can use it for Direct Debits and it also comes with a Solo Debit Card.

 

Other banks do similar accounts.

[callumsgran]

co-op do a cashminder a/c which is good if you do a lot of online banking! nat west is limited in this area, also co-op give you a visa electron card

[andyace]

I would agree the step account, it took me a week to get the card,no credit check and all on line. I just signed the form and sent it back.

But I do have my double top secret IF account that i have had for 3 years, no money in it but I just opened it to see if I would get it back then. But now it might work because of the cheque book and visa debit, but my my wife wants me to use the natwest cos of lack of overdraft.

After i have got my £1500 back from A&L i will be needing one of these me thinks,good luck with your claim.

 

cheers

andyace

 

( 5% of what you didn't have before is not a lot)

[Surfer01]

Done the preliminary for a refund of £1112 plus interest and got the standard fob off letter. Now sending the LBA and wait their reponse. Initially I will be using the FOS route due to funds being in short supply. Although I have used the small claims court previously it was in another country and a compensation case. I won at the time as I was able to present all the evidence. When the guy never paid up, I attached his Jaguary XJ. Got the money within 24 hours.

[Surfer01]

As we are short of funds, we are using the FOS but now according to Nationwide's website the FOS is putting everything on hold and this could be for a year or longer. Is this right and should I now consider scraping together the monery to go via the courts?

[Bookworm]

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/general/108091-oft-banks-dont-panic.html#post1043487

[Surfer01]

My spouse and myself earn a reasonable income of approximately £1800 per month but have lots of debt which we are busy paying off and are currently living in a touring caravan on a caravan site. Unfortunately the damp weatehr has a negative effect on my rheumatoid arthritis and we reallyu need to start looking for a brick and mortar home.

As we have paid off some debts recently we are now in a position to pay the court charges and start claiming back bank charges. However in their infinite wisdom Nationwide have now decided co-incidentally to start reducing our overdraft which is currently £2000. Although they state they sent us a letter notifying us that our overdraft was being reduced from £2000 to £1400 virtually overnight, we genuinely never received this letter and the first we knew about the overdraft being reduced was when we tried to draw money just after my wife's wages had been paid into the account and we were not able to so.

I then phoned Nationwide and was told the good news about the overdraft being reduced. Eventually after much pleading and hanging on I was told that nationwide would re-instate the overdraft to £2000 but start reducing it by £60 per month. Not so bad if they had left it for another 6 months as a few more debts would have been paid off freeing up approximatley £200.

This will create a "hardship" situation for us as we have been living on the edge of our overdraft for awhile due because my wife was involved in an industrial accident and in the past 18 months has been off work all together 6 months. At this point in time we cannot afford to rent a house at £500 per month plus and also council tax and utility costs.

Although we earn what I suppose is a reasonale income per month, do you think that our case could be regarded as a hardship case. A third of our weekly income goes on commuting which is about £70 per week. Our claim is for approximately £1200 in charges over the last 6 years. We submitted thsi to Nationwide as per a preliminary letter but got the standard rejection however we coudl nto purseu itr any further due to lack of funds to pay court fees. This would obviously help reduce the overdraft subnstantially. We have not gone over the limit for several months.

We also have the opportunity of claiming back nearly £450 on an issue not related to bank charges but it is having the funds to initially pay the court fees. Can any one advise whether we coudl be considered a hardship case. Secondly is there anything we can say to Nationwide to stop them reducing the overdraft and holding ti at its current level for another 6 months. After that we should be reasonably okay although there will still be some long term debts around.

NEVER EVER CONSOLIDATE DEBTS WITH PEOPLE LIKE "FIRSTPLUS" AS YOU WILL END UP IN MORE DEBT THAN BEFORE!

[Surfer01]

Bump!

[MilkTrayMan]

Hi Surfer01!

...Can any one advise whether we coudl be considered a hardship case. Secondly is there anything we can say to Nationwide to stop them reducing the overdraft and holding ti at its current level for another 6 months...

However hard + unfair a 'Reducing' O/D seems, it is at least more favourable than having your O/D cancelled completely, without notice!

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/show-post/post-766429.html

 

U could always open a 'parachute' current account at another bank + have your incomes paid directly into that?!

This will ensure that Nationwide can NOT gain leverage over your finances whilst things are tight for U personally.

 

In effect, Nationwide would just become a non-priority Debtor + wouldn't have 1st call on your money each month, as they do at the moment!

 

Any Nationwide O/D balance +/or subsequently imposed unlawful Charges could be dealt with when U eventually Re-claim.

Ideally though, it would be easier on the nerves for U to have NO outstanding O/D balance when U start the Re-claiming process.

 

 

ALTERNATIVELY...

 

 

U could choose to 'rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul' for the next 6 months?!

Making sure that U PRIORITISE being within the NEW Nationwide O/D limit each month.

...Even if this means neglecting some of your other non-priority debts!

 

A small word of caution...

 

Should U exceed the reducing O/D limit, by even a penny or so (...even when unexpected unlawful penalty charges are debited!), U will find that your Flexaccount will become 'Flagged' automatically + your Flexaccount will lose even the 'Reducing' O/D facility!!!

[Surfer01]

Actually we were not advised that the o/d was to be cancelled. Nationwide cancelled it without notifying us and I suspect it is because we sent a preliminary followed by a LBA and we then handed it over to the FOS but a few days later a stay was introduced.

As the o/d had a few months to run, at the time they could not cancel it but when it came up for review, whalop, without notification overdraft cancelled.

I had to beg and plea with them before they would re-instate it. If it was left another 6 months a number of debts would have been paid and we could then start seriously repaying the overdraft. The annoying bit is that at least £1200 of the overdraft is because of charges!

I am considering contacting the FOS as I feel this is discriminatory practice and very sneaky especially in view of the letter I received from them which re-iterates what you have mentioned.

[Lula]

OK, what you need to do is collect all your statements, do you have them? if not send then an SAR, and collate all charges in a spreadsheet, next thing you do is to is to send a letter to your bank stating that you beleive the charges are unlawful and you wish to place your account in dispute. The letters and the spreadsheet can be obtained from http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bank-templates-library/

 

i would advise you to open up a parachute account IMMEDIATELY and free up some of your money. MTM has advised you well, so I would listen to him also. At some point I will have this moved to the Halifax bank forum so that you can see how other people have managed their claims against them, actually I would advise to to start reading, it is highly addictive and very empowering. So good luck and if you have any questions, we are here to help you.

[Surfer01]

We have done the prelim and LBA and approached FOS but then everything went on hold. As we used the FOS I am not sure if we can really say that the account is in dispute.

I opened an account in my name only with A & L but Nationwide would not let me transfer the DDs as they stated the account was in a joint names. However all DDS were authrised by myself, not my wife.

The idea was to have both accounts operating side by side with all the DDs on the one account whilst my wife's wages kept the Nationwide account ticking over. When I tried to add my wife to the A & L account, another nightmare began.

As the nearest A & L branch was about 20 miles away and in the middle of a city that we were unfamilar with we were reluctant to travel there and obviously with the postal system the way it is reluctant to post original documents.

Looks like I am now forced to look at other options although i am not sure of the options. I am not sure whether I can raise the overdraft issue with the FOS as ithe action by Nationwide reducing our overdraft seems a bit vindictive. I have had an overdraft with Nationwide for several years with no problem and only recently increased it to £2000 due to my wife being off work due to an industrial accident.

[MilkTrayMan]

MTM has advised you well, so I would listen to him also.

Why thank U Lula, your endorsement is most encouraging!...

 

 

At some point I will have this moved to the Halifax bank forum so that you can see how other people have managed their claims against them

lol...Methinks too much vino last night eh Lula??...pmsl...

Perhaps a transfer to the Nationwide Forum may be more appropriate?!...

 

 

Surfer01 is familiar with the Nationwide Forum + has, no doubt, also read many Threads within it...

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/nationwide/6885-starting-my-claim-today.html

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/nationwide/9167-now-next-step.html

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/nationwide/105162-surfer01-nationwide.html

 

Methinks that Surfer01 is also very aware of how Nationwide have acted towards past Claimants i.e. Flexaccount closures +/or O/D cancellations...

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/nationwide/10448-alternative-account.html

...+ is perhaps hoping, against hope, that by posting a query in the General Forum, someone may come up with an answer that gives mileage to a possible Claim against Nationwide for taking Retaliatory Action, just cos Surfer01 has sought to Re-claim unlawful Charges etc.

 

FWIW...Surfer01 has previously indicated that they have gone down the non-Court route of the Re-claiming process...

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/nationwide/90141-another-win-cuddles-nationwdie-2.html

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/show-post/post-1012514.html

[MilkTrayMan]

Hi Surfer01!

...I am not sure whether I can raise the overdraft issue with the FOS as ithe action by Nationwide reducing our overdraft seems a bit vindictive. I have had an overdraft with Nationwide for several years with no problem and only recently increased it to £2000 due to my wife being off work due to an industrial accident.

Unfortunately...An O/D is deemed to be a 'Service' + as such, does NOT have to be provided by a Bank.

If it has been provided, the T&C's of its provision make it quite clear that it is repayable on demand.

Nationwide have often used this tactic to deter potential Claimants.

Some have NOT even been given the respite of a 'Reducing' O/D + have had Default Notices issued by the Nationwide in-house DCA with corresponding legal recovery threatened, even if Nationwide had unlawfully debited the Claimants Flexaccount far more than what the immediately repayable O/D balance was!!!

It is difficult to successfully argue against the Nationwide action to unilateraly curtail your O/D facility on the grounds of it being retaliatory, however spiteful it may seem to U + to most other reasonable people.

Although to be fair to Nationwide, the possible reduction in income going into your Flexaccount due to your wife's accident, may also have been a contributory factor??!

[Lula]

Why thank U Lula, your endorsement is most encouraging!...

 

 

lol...Methinks too much vino last night eh Lula??...pmsl...

Perhaps a transfer to the Nationwide Forum may be more appropriate?!...

 

Mea Culpa!!! but believe it or not , I was stone cold sober LOL

 

 

[MilkTrayMan]

Mea Culpa!!! but believe it or not , I was stone cold sober LOL

At 23.07 on a Sat night one has to ask the question as to WHY???...pmsl...

[Lula]

Because, contrary to popular belief, I dont really drink much lol