Correct. So do the EU regs not apply to these calls?

Yes I understand that but is calling another EU member state from your home country considered roaming? That is what I am doing here.

I'm talking here about calls overseas whilst in the UK not roaming. I just made a 25 minute phone call to Belgium from London and have been charged £25 for it! That's £1 per minute - extortionate! Do the new EU regs not apply to cross border calls from your home country? Seems odd to limit roaming charges whilst abroad and then let the phone cos charge what they like when you are at home. The irony is I travel a lot and have the Eurotraveller service enabled. When I call this number from abroad I get charged nothing under Eurotraveller - apart from the usual daily fee which covers all calls. So I am in the absurd situation of paying several times more for calls in the UK than when I am roaming!

Interesting to see others have had similar problems. This is not a cost issue for me. I have unlimited minutes so I am not charged for the calls in question. It's a security issue. Anyway I have a new SIM now and there have been no calls to the phantom number range this month yet so I will monitor it closely and see what happens. No explanation on where the calls originated from but I guess I'll never get one. The most important thing is that they stop. It's ironic to hear the comments about EE. I left EE for Vodafone because they screwed up my account and the customer service was so bad!

As far as I can tell the IFA is the firm. Or at least the head partner. I don't think complaining to him will do much. I'll get a bit of activity for a brief period and then we will be back into the cycle of me chasing him all the time. This is the pattern our communication has taken before. I was under the impression that the pension was locked to the IFA for the life of the pension as they get a rolling commission out of it. If I changed IFA would that go to the new or old IFA? If the new the old IFA would complain I'm sure and if the old IFA continued to get it I doubt the new IFA would want to take it on. Maybe I'm wrong on that point. I will speak to the pension co.

I took a private pension out in 2003 and the service I have been getting from my IFA varies from non existent to diabolical. I was promised regular pension reviews but I have never been contacted once. I finally managed to set up a review in 2011 at my instigation after several weeks of hassling him for an appointment. He then took several more weeks to implement the fund switch we discussed at the review again, only after I kept chasing it. I am in the same situation now about another pension I am trying to switch (admittedly not one he sold me). I have been chasing him for almost year about switching. Quite frankly I am fed up chasing him and wish to switch to another IFA. Am I stuck with this IFA for my existing pension until I retire or can I ask for the management the pension to be switched to a different IFA? Who should I complain to in the first instance, the pension company or the industry regulator?

Hi Lee. I already raised incident 7826427 and I was told that I must have made the calls and that it must have been family or friends using my phone or numbers dialled accidentally whilst my phone was unlocked in my pocket or bag. Neither of these suggestions explains the reasons for the pattern of calls above. However I was simply told I was mistaken and I made the calls without any further explanation or option to take it further. Hence the reason I'm posting on here. If I don't get any other suggestions I will take it to the ombudsman next. I would appreciate it if you could take a look another at 7826427.

Hi all, thanks for the feedback. The numbers are not random. They are all identical except the last three digits (see list below). This is what makes me think they are SPAM calls made using my SIM details. I have tried a couple and they went to voice mail. Google just returns a load of hits for phone number lookup sites (such as who called me) without any info on the number. They look like private mobile numbers to me. The only thing I have been able to ascertain is that they are from the O2 network. 447748890103 447748890082 447748890390 447748890673 447748890726 447748890148 447748890406 447748890338 447748890128 447748890361 447748890334 447748890333 447748890134 447748890788 447748890171 447748890023

Not sure what's gone wrong with the formatting here but all the carriage returns are missing from the post above and it's impossible to read. I didn't look like that when I typed it out. Have tried editing it but the carriage returns don't save.

I am getting calls I didn’t make on my Vodafone bill for the last three months. The calls are all in the same number range. Only the last three digits are different. They are not in my call history and I do not recognise any of the numbers. I download my itemised bills into Excel every month and cross reference them to a list of numbers I keep updated in another Excel spread sheet. I can identify every number on my bills except for these ones. I have reported the issue to Vodafone several times, have spoken to several people about it and gone through all the escalation channels. They say the itemised call data comes directly from my SIM so I must have made the calls. They have given me several excuses none of which explain this: The SIM could have been used in another phone – it hasn’t, the SIM has not been removed from the phone since I bought it The calls could have been made by friends or family – they weren’t, I am single, live alone and never give my phone to anyone, apart from which, they would be in the call history The calls could have been made by accident whilst the phone was unlocked in my pocket or a bag – almost impossible that it could accidentally dial several different, valid phone numbers, multiple times, over three months, whilst in my pocket or a bag and then, the calls not be in the call history The call, history entries could have been manually deleted – they weren’t, I have never touched the call history and no other calls are missing I pointed out the flaws in their excuses to all the people I have escalated this to and they just stone walled me with the catch all statement that the itemised call data comes directly from my SIM. So I must have made the calls and there is nothing more they can do. I think my SIM has been hacked and someone is using my SIM details to make SPAM calls from another handset. Either that or an app is dialling up these numbers but I do not know of any app that makes calls and does not put them in your call history. Perhaps I have some malware on my phone? It’s a Nokia Lumia 1020. Since Vodafone have point blank refused to investigate the issue and are adamant I made the calls, where do I go from here?

Hi all, I’ve just paid off a car finance agreement early and I’ve been hit with a £250 interest charge. I asked the bank for a breakdown and, the final interest charge is for the period 26/5/08 to 26/6/08 but I settled the loan on 2/6/08, seven days into the aforementioned interest period. So I have been charged 24 days interest on money I didn’t owe – equivalent to £194. The bank is refusing to give me a rebate. Is this legal?

One housekeeping question. What do I do about the outstanding court claim now that FD have paid up? When I look online and try to enter a judgement I get the following message: "You are unable to take any further action online on this claim. The Defendant disputes the whole amount you have claimed. Your claim cannot proceed online and will be transferred to the appropriate court for continuation. You will receive confirmation to where the claim has been transferred to shortly." I also got a letter from the court saying if I did not complete some questionaire within 7 days my claim would be struck off and I would be liable for all the defendants charges. So what do I need to do to shut this case down?

Just got 2,770 quid credited to my First Direct account today. I crossed out the confidentiality clause on the settlement letter so can discuss it here. That’s a full settlement for all charges plus interest. The only thing I didn’t get was the court fee back but on balance I’m happy with the result. I used the templates from the bank template library and followed the step by step instructions in the FAQ exactly so thanks to consumeractiongroup.co.uk for that. I’m going after MBNA, RBS and Capital One now

Sent a preliminary approach letter to RBS on 21st August giving 14 days grace, so the deadline to reply is 4th September. Received a letter from them dated 29th August saying they are looking into it and will reply within 10 days, i.e. 8th September. So I do send the letter before action on the 4th (assuming they haven’t replied by then) or wait until the 8th?

After issuing a claim I have been offered a partial settlement by my bank’s solicitors (about half that claimed for). I am not going to accept this but press for the full amount. Furthermore they are saying the amount offered covers all the charges levied. I don’t know where they get the number from because it bears no relation to any figures I’ve compiled. Do I reject it by writing to the banks solicitors or is there something I need to do on the moneyclaim website as well? Should I ask them to clarify the point about their offer covering all charges or should I just reject it out of hand and press for the amount I am claiming? What should I say in the letter to the solicitors? I was thinking something like this: “Dear xxxx Further to your letter dated xxxx I do not accept the sum of xxxx as full settlement of the claim. As you will be aware from the claim form the amount being claimed is xxxx. I will only accept this amount as full settlement of the claim. I enclose a schedule of charges being claimed together with interested incurred for your perusal. Yours sincerely xxxx”

How do you find out when you claim was deemed to have been served? ALl I can see on the website is the issue date.

All I’m chasing First Direct for my excess overdraft fees: Schedule so far: Preliminary approach letter – 25th April Letter before action – 20th May Court claim issued – 18th July I’ve received nothing through the post from them since issuing the claim. Am I right in thinking if I’ve heard nothing by Tuesday I enter a judgment though moneyclaim online and then they will just pay me the money?

I've posted an example file here: http://www.aptitude-limited.com/overdraft_example.xls I would not recommend anyone use this to calculate interest with respect to an actual claim until it has been discussed on this forum and it is agreed that it is coming up with the right numbers. I don't accept responsibility for anyone who uses this and then looses a claim because they made a false calculation on interest owed.

I know a lot of people have said that you cannot accurately work out what proportion of interest charged is applicable to the actual overdraft and what is applicable to fees but I have tried to do exactly this. I have compiled a spreadsheet with the following columns for each charge I have incurred Charge Date incurred Balance at date incurred OD limit at date incurred Regular interest rate at date incurred Penalty interest rate at date incurred The first 3 are easy to get but the last 3 are tricky. In fact for the last 2 I have applied a later rate to pre February 2002 transactions since my bank only lists past rates back to that date. I then added the following formula columns: Running balance of charges (running balance from previous line plus current charge) Applicable rate (if account is in credit use zero, if account balance is above OD limit use penalty rate, otherwise use regular rate) Days accrued (number of days since previous charge) ** Interest accrued (running balance from previous line x applicable rate from previous line/365 x days accrued from current line) Interest balance (running balance of Interest accrued column) The number at the end of the interest balance column is the total interest charged on the fees. ** This is the crucial formula here. It is working out the interest accrued on the total charges, at the interest rate applicable when the last charge was made, for the period since the last charge, up to the current charge. The reason why I broke the interest accrued down into periods between charges is that the accumulated charges would attract interest at different rates depending on the account balance at any given time. From what I can see this has one limitation, and that is, if you go above or below your overdraft limit (or, heaven forbid, the account goes into credit!) in the period between two charges, the interest rate will change, whereas the above calculates the accrued interest at a fixed rate for a period between two charges. However, I think this is about as accurate as you are going to get unless you are a mathematician – or a bank! I’d appreciate any comments on this as to whether you think this is accurate or not. I can send a sample spreadsheet to anyone who wants to see it.

Can you elaborate on the process you used? I have all of my interest and overdraft fees in Excel in date order but am not sure where to go from here.

Thanks for the info

Yes. I'm in mainland Europe so getting back to the UK on a budget airline would not be a big deal. I could just go ahead and use my UK address and not mention the non residencey issue but my bank has my Europe address (it's where they send my statements) so they may bring it up as a spoiler if it got that far.

I am a British citizen but I have been non UK resident since June 2002. However, I still use First Direct in the UK as my main bank. I have incurred excessive bank charges both before and after I became non resident. As a non resident can I use the county court system to: a) Claim all the excessive charges back b) Just the charges before June 2002 c) Nothing because I am non resident I have a UK correspondence address I can use.