"Lloyds TSB has become the first bank to win a court case after being sued by a customer for imposing supposedly unfair overdraft penalty charges. District Judge Cooke, at Birmingham County Court, dismissed a claim for £2,545 from Kevin Berwick." BBC NEWS | Business | Bank's overdraft charges upheld Am I the only person that reads the news? Or is there a massive new thread somewhere I have missed stupidly? I hate to say it but if you read the case notes in the .pdf file link the judge makes his case very clear It would seem that work needs to be done to clarify 'cloaking' of charges and perhaps uncover some legal precidents in this area to strengthen our arguements. I dont think that if it was me in that situation i could have done much better, it would seem that he tried pretty much everything. Lloyds didnt even bother turning up and they won!!!

Umm I dont understand why I cant find anything on here about it but LloydsTSB WON today... the judge ruled that LloydsTSB's fees were perfectly legal... it would appear that not all are familiar with this 'cloaking' term and that LloydsTSB have an extremely strong position now, and that while this District Court judgement does not set a true precident, it is obvious that many other judges will read the very clear case notes that instantly put many of our claims in tatters I am about to start court proceedings vs LloydsTSb but with these recent developements I am less certain, as all of my arguements were raised at this hearing and were disregarded.

hmm, fair point. However I assume that it is then up to the bank to pay up or correct you on the ammount owed. Im not sure, but it seems reasonable to assume that some thought has been put into this by someone qualified. Well, I hope so at least.

Well, RoyalMail tracking say Lloyds have it now. Will probably give them a little over the 14 days so there are no arguments on that front. Anyone know if Lloyds are getting more stubborn/awkward as time goes on? Or less... First letter sent 19 April '07, and received 21 April '07 recorded delivery.

Sorry if you misunderstood, the above was only a small section of the letter, the whole letter can be found at : BBC NEWS | Business | How to claim back penalty charges I can only imagine that this letter has been put together by someone who is extremely confident and highly qualified for the BBC to publish it on their website as a template. It is because of this that I chose it over the ones posted on CAG, not that I imagine it makes any difference at all in the end.

... I hereby give you 14 days to refund the charges back on to my account. For the avoidance of doubt, if this is not done within 14 days, I will commence my claim in the courts without further warning. This action will inevitably involve you in additional costs. ... just one letter then blammy

BankFodder your post regarding Lloyds' standard defense makes interesting reading, but if it comes to court (or at least in the build up to court proceedings) is it likely that we will need to argue that point? Or is it simply the case that eventually some poor person will be picked on and they will have to go head to head properly? I am happy to ignore the standard responses but at some point i assume I may have to 'prove' that these charges are penalties, so does anyone know of a formally constructed legal argument ready for this scenario? Or are these implications from OFT etc enough? Sorry to be a little vague but its late and i never went to many Law lectures

It begins. Hello all, looking forward to wiping some grins off of Lloyds' collective faces . One of my friends used one of those sites that do it for you and keep i think it was 15% but i want to do this myself so here goes: Have drafted an initial letter based on the template posted on the BBC's website. Just a 'fill-in-the-blanks' job and its not too strongly worded. I hope they cave nice and quickly in time for the summer . The nice thing about the BBC's letter is that it pretty much stops stalling methods