Thanks!

I got £1600 back from alliance and Leicester in under two months without even filing for court - in the end it just took a strongly worded letter to make them cave!

Hi, That's a standard A&L letter, i received three of them, before I sent my letter and they gave in - bear with it, follow the instructions on CAG and you WILL WIN!

One last thing... I want to thank everyone at CAG for their sound advice and excellent resources (and for making me aware that this could be done!). My fiancé has been writing letters at the exact same time as me for her bank charges to A&L and they settled hers as well! We're putting the cash towards our wedding this summer, now we can afford that big swing band we always wanted!

PS... I sent this letter on the 13th of this month, received a reply stating we're looking into it 3 days later, and this 10 days after the above letter. I can't put into words how happy I am!

This is what I wrote in the letter: Dear Sir/Madam, ACCOUNT NUMBER: XXXXXXXXX Thank you for replying to my previous letter. I am sad to hear that you are still refusing to refund the unfair and illegal bank charges that have been placed on my account over the last six years. Please accept this letter as notification that I will be beginning legal proceedings against Alliance and Leicester to reclaim the full amount as laid out in my previous schedule of charges plus interest and any incurred legal costs if I do not receive a full refund of the charges (or notification of your intention to issue a full refund of the charges) on my ac- count within the next 14 days. I’m sure you are aware that every previous case of this kind has resulted in the full amount being returned to the claimant. I therefore, respectfully request that you save us both a lot of time and effort and refund the charges to me directly without court intervention. I look forward to your response. Kind Regards

YAY! A&L have settled the FULL amount without having to go to court! I used the standard letters and didn't get anywhere, so I composed a final letter before court action of my own, worded in a frank and straightforward manner and they've sent me an agreement to pay on the condition that I don't raise any more charges against them (which I won't because I'm moving my account to HSBC as they do instant account transfers!). My letter basically said: "you know you can't win this, all other cases have been won by the claimant, save us all a lot of time and settle now". AND THEY DID! I'll upload my letter here in a minute - feel free to use it in the library for other people - it worked for me, it could work for you too! Complete and full refund in under a month - how good is that? :D

I would like to know this as well... I'm in the process of claiming back my charges and could do with knowing if I can claim this back (I have 6 years of £5 a month charges as I basically live in my overdraft). I'm not sure if this is a service charge for using the service or a 'fine' for being overdrawn. Could someone please clarify?

I've just had my statements through and have calculated that A&L owe me over £1.5k! It's not a huge claim compared to some but certainly worth the effort! Putting my claim in the post today.

Well... I've started the procedure. I got a fairly quick response to my letter asking for details of bank charges for the last year - a standard response with a form asking for a £10 fee. I sent off the fee on January the 9th, but despite checking, never got it signed for. I rang Royal Mail and they said the letter was 'lost' which I found hard to believe as my fiance is doing the same thing and her letter was also 'lost'. Today I rang Royal Mail to check if the postal order had been cashed and lo and behold - it had - by Alliance and Leicester no less! (I'm kinda annoyed about this as I paid Royal Mail for the signature and despite it being delivered, never got one - however since they say it's 'lost' I'm tempted to claim for the lost delivery of two £10 postal orders ) Anyway... I'm waiting for my last six years of statements so I can work out how much I'm due - hopefully if it's as much as I think it is, It'll pay a big chunk towards our impending wedding! (September). Thanks everyone for your stories and all the articles - it's very appreciated. I'll be writing about my story soon on my blog and of course, posting updates here. I'll certainly be linking up the CAG in my first post on the matter!

Hi everyone - I'm currently in the process of reclaiming my charges from A&L I started the process at the start of the month and A&L don't seem in any rush to get going I'm not in any rush though, especially after finding out that my friend who started in October has only just got his charges back today! :o Thanks for the great info - it's going to be a whole world of help!