Well, court dates not for two months but judge agreed with the draft order for directions as taken from the new strategy for allocation questionnaires and this seems to have helped cut down the timescales for settlement. I've spent the last two days preparing documents for court and have a solid statement of evidence referencing the T&Cs today and 11 years ago when I opened the account. Sent an e-mail to litigation department to let them know i'm going to file documents on Mon and they then have 14 days to submitt information on how charges are calculated. They settled for the whole amount. Case closed. I've won.

Called and spoke to Paul Quinn in Litigation. He seems an alright bloke, cut me short of explaining the situation and said he's dealing with loads of these and would look up my case, told me one of his collegues is dealing with it and I said I'd send an e-mail. At this point he acknowledged I must me a member of CAG becasue I didn't ask fo the e-mail address.

Called the courts as its been almost a month since I submitted the AQ. The court manager told me a hearing date has been set for 22nd Aug 07 at 14:00 and that I will get a letter from them tomorrow confirming this. I'm now considering whether to contact Barclays litigation to offer them another opportunity to settle, or wait for the directions and send them the court bundle, which I have almost finished compiling.

Brilliant! thanks will PM my e-mail address for a copy

I don’t believe the banks can argue that their charges in any way reflect a recovery of actual or liquidated losses in relation to a customers breach of their overdraft limit and do not have to attempt to do so if they can prove the charge was an agreed fee for service stated in the account T&Cs which the customer agreed to when opening the account. Are the charges a penalty or a fee for service? The latest Barclays T&Cs now claim charges are a fee for service; it’s more difficult to argue in court that a fee for service is unlawful. The amount they charge wouldn’t have to have any correlation to their costs for losses sustained due to your breech of contract. And as such why would they be ordered to disclose how costs are calculated? I’m aware that the majority of banks are settling out of court once a date has been set, but that’s by no means a forgone conclusion. I don’t think the Banks want to end up in court against their customers but if Judges start deciding that the charges are not penalties and throwing cases which are hinged on that out of court, this could give the banks confidence to show up in court to test the legal argument, submitting a defence now seems routine and was perhaps not so when people first started claiming. My account was opened in the early 1980’s when I was a child, I continued to bank with Barclays through the 1990’s and when I went to university in 1996 Barclays converted my account to a Student account, when I left university in 2000 it became a Graduate account and a regular current account around 2002. Although I sure I received updated T&Cs over the years, I haven’t ever signed anything , so I guess keeping the account open is an acceptance of this non negotiated T&C contract. Charges have gone from £5 to £25 to £30 over the years. I’m conscious that the written historical T&Cs are a pivotal part of my case which I hadn’t considered at the start. To rely on the legal argument that the charges are a penalty and as such have to reflect true costs of a breach of contract under UTCC 1999 Law, a contract has to exist and you have to have broken it and I guess the contract has to imply the charges are some form of compensation. I now need to go through the T&C, which were in place in 1996 when my account became a Student account and the number changed to the one I have today. Does anyone have these? However the charges I’m claiming for are all in the period 2001-2007. Do I need T&Cs for 2001? _____________________________________________________________________________ Claim History 30th Jan 2007 - Went through personal statement archives from last 6 years and highlighted charges 31st Jan 2007 - Sent Letter to Barclays Head Office Customer Relations requesting refund of £1765.00 along with highlighted statements and schedule of charges sheet, and demanding refund within 14 days. 5th Feb 2007 - Letter Received from Barclays Head Office Customer Relations, asking for 8 weeks to consider the “complaint” 9th Feb 2007 - LBA sent to Barclays Head Office Customer Relations, informing only 7 days left and providing updated schedule of charges showing £1810.00. Highlighted interest would amount to £439.27 if awarded by a court. 13th Feb 2007 - Letter received from Barclays Customer Relations Swansea with £950 “Goodwill” offer. 15th Feb 2007 - Response to Settlement Offer sent to Barclays, Swansea declining offer and again demanding refund of £1810.00, copied to Barclays Head office with schedule of charges. 22nd Feb 2007 - Letter Received from Barclays, Swansea again offering £950.00 and recognising we have failed to reach a mutually acceptable resolution if I did not accept. 28th Feb 2007 - Filed Particulars of Claim through MCOL, sent letter to Court Manager with schedule of charges 20th Mar 2007 - Claim acknowledged by Barclays Bank 3rd Apr 2007 - Barclays defence submitted 4th Apr 2007 - Claim transferred to local court and Allocation Questionnaire dispensed 9th Apr 2007 - Visited local branch to dispute a new charge, told charges were applied automatically, got them to write a letter on headed paper stating no manual intervention had occurred (for the court bundle later) 20th Apr 2007 - Letter sent to court with proposed Draft Order for directions and summary of legal arguments (as per section G of AQ) in lieu of the questionnaire 20th Apr 2007 - Letter sent to Adrian St. John (Barclays Litigation) highlighting no AQ requirement and offering an opportunity to settle. Updated schedule of charges re-sent. 28th Apr 2007 - Letter received from court requesting both parties complete an AQ by 14th May 2007 2nd May 2007 - Latest T&Cs leaflet received, charges stated to be a fee for services and automatically applied to the account. 11th May 2007 - Submitted AQ with proposed Draft Order (requesting disclosure) 5th June 2007 - Called courts, no date of hearing set yet.