So... have you been charged by your bank? I don't mean interest and mortgage set-up fees and stuff... things like paying an £11.00 direct debit which takes you over your overdraft limit and then charging your £30.00 for doing it. Well now you can get your money back... for the past 6 years!
First go to this link from Martin Lewis and have a good read - then get empowered... don't worry if you are a bit scared, it's easy and the banks are on the back foot for two reasons:
I have it on very good authority that the most expensive thing a bank deals with in this case is a bounced cheque... This is because a droid has to get a physical piece of paper on their desk, stamp it "Refer to Drawer" and put it back in the system. This costs a monumental £4.50... so being generous, a bounced cheque should see you with a charge of, say, £6.00. Now I don't bounce cheques, but I have gone over my overdraft limit on occasion. I have (had) online banking with Halifax and when they send me a letter to tell me they are going to charge me, they don't even have the expense of an envelope, let alone a stamp! I get an email telling me to log in to OLB and there it is. In the quantity Halifax are dealing with, I bet they aren't even paying a penny-a-mail for email. So... £30? Time to get back what has been wrongly taken from us.
Here is my particular solution, based heavily of template letters from Martin Lewis and others - links all at the bottom of the page.
First step. Write to your manager (not their head office) and detail the charges and then ask for them back - nicely and politely - don't waffle - put what you want and ask for it.
Stick to your guns on this one... 14 days - make a note of it.
They didn't reply so I sent this letter. This letter is a lot less friendly in tone and clearly states my intentions to sue and the law that I intend to use plus a few bits and bobs that I also want from them -
namely the removal of credit rating "black marks" - YES! Were you aware you get one each time they charge you like this?!
Now they had replied but obviously quite slowly and the day after I sent the above letter, I recieved this in the post
So I (foolishly) decided to let them have their four weeks which put us at 19th January. On the 19th January, I recieved the following.
This seemed to be a reply to my second letter and had crossed in the post, but I flipped at the extra month they wanted and was annoyed that I had departed from my original
timescales.
In response to this second letter from Halifax, I sent the following.
The tone of this letter is quite determined and forceful - no point pulling punches now, I hold all the aces and they are messing me about time-wise - the courts will take a dim
view of this and it makes them look like imcompetant fools.
As this is my final warning of court action, there are some "magic" phrases you have to use from here on in.
"Without Prejudice" is important and puts them on official notice and "Time is of the essence" tells them not to hang around.
Without these two phrases
the bank might be able to argue that they had not been given adequate time to reply or notice of court action.
Don't forget these two phrases - it certainly makes them sit up and listen!
So I hear nothing and one week later I make good my threat. I begin court proceedings against them. Here is the letter I recieved from the courts saying they had accepted my case and would serve papers on Halifax plc
and then a copy of the paperwork Halifax got (from the moneyclaim website)
So then on 2nd February, I recieve this letter
Well look at that! Halifax have caved in and offered me my £277 - the whole lot of charges! Of course this is wrapped in the obligatory good will gesture which
basically gets them out of admitting liability. Ask yourself; if the banks thought they were on solid ground and that money was
legally, defencibly theirs... why would they want to refund sucha large amount. It's not a token but the full amount.
Now. Had this turned up mid january when it should have,
I would have accepted it and we could have avoided al this badnes... hell, if they had offered me £200 I would have taken it.
But now, things were different... the court case was rolling and I was another £30
out of pocket plus the interest which I was now claiming because of their tardiness. So after careful consideration of the offer,
I penned the below letter.
On 16th Feb, Halifax acknowledged my claim against them - the day before I would have got judgement by default. They have an additional 14 days (28 days total from the serving of papers which the court says I could assume was 3rd Feb.)
Today (21st Feb) I get a copy of the papers from the courst, the first page simply states that the claim has been acknowledged...
... the second page gives the details of the acknowledgement.
Standard bank procedure - they inted to contest the entire claim. Seems we may have our day in court. I am not too worried about this as I am ceratin on the two points at the top of this article, but I don't want to get flippant about things. I imagine there is an office that is absolutely snowed under with this work at most banks and this is delaying tactic. I wonder how they can contest when they have already offered to pay - the point of contest must be the admission of liability. I'll wait and see how the court feels.
So now we are looking at the 3rd March. If the defence comes in by then I take the next step and go for a court appearance, if no defence is forthcoming I will ask for judgement by default.
Then on 23rd Feb, I get the following letter...
Well that is the end of the story... total capitulation, costs, charges + interest. Still no admission of liabilty but what do I care? I have my money back and am a very happy bunny.
I'd like to thank Martin Lewis and the Consumer Action Group for the excellent articles and template letters from their sites and the general impression of "go get 'em, you can't lose"... needs to be tempered with a cool head and reasonableness, but the upshot is I have another £300 that I didn't have back at the beginning of December.
H