Just some more tips; Genuine emails from paypal/ebay/your bank etc will have "Dear Mr David Andrew" (read: your name) at the top. **NOT** "Dear Ebay user" or whatever. When I log in to a site like ebay or paypal, I **ALWAYS** "save my details" for logging in. Any site which I'm taken to which does NOT have my user name and password pre-filled, MAY NOT BE a genuine site, and warrants further investigation. (It may just be that your cookies have gone corrupt... usually not however). There are any number of ways to spot these emails... the main one being, if it asks for financial and personal details AT ALL you don't fill it in!! Some of these sites ask for US Social Security Number, UK National Insurance Number, passport nationality and reference number... we're talking FULL ON identity theft here. Don't go there ever.

Guy - they cannot use any information they glean from perusing this site as it would be a breach of the Computer Misuse Act 1990. I'm not saying that they're not looking... just that they can't use anything they find. Also, I'm sure that Dave et al know how to find the owner organisations of IP addresses, so that anyone not declared who posts (or if they get a site counter, even visits) from a bank IP address can be dealt with...

To which I should add that they may not be permitted to do this if it can be shown that it was retaliatory... see the info in the green section!

Let me just explain (for those who haven't spotted it) why this is a very odd action by Egg. In order for the Judge to even consider their counter-claim, he must have access to all of the information - the law states that they can reasonably recover their costs from a defaulter... so some of the information the Judge will need is a breakdown of their genuine costs for each type of charge being considered. They will have to be genuine; for instance if the costs for all the different types of charge added up to around £12 it would look extremely suspicious. Further to this they would have to demonstrate that each individual charge was manually dealt with; any evidence of automated processes would suggest that the charge was a standard automatic response to given account conditions as opposed to a "genuine pre-estimate of cost". Automatic responses are extremely cheap per transaction and involve (expensive) human input only when they're challenged. The reason it's unlikely to happen is that no bank has EVER released details of either it's charging process or a detailed breakdown of it's costs for dealing with default... citing their contention that it's extremely sensitive commercial information. Personally I think that's bullshine - all charging should IMO be completely transparent. So - THAT's why it's unlikely to ever come to court; their counter-claim is simply an attempt to intimidate you. I would lay odds that someone will try to call and tell you that you can avoid this "unpleasantness" by accepting . Refuse to discuss it with them except in writing, as per Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).

Calling it a "Service" or a "Charge for Services" does not change the basic nature of it as a punitive charge... in fact and in law this is substantially identical in character to the former situation. A service is something you ask for, agree a price on, pay for, and then receive... In the case of punitive charges, an event occurs which the bank then levy a charge for. The ONLY WAY for banks to meet the OFT's statement is to reduce their charges for breaches of contract to a reasonable level. edit: in my opinion

That's precisely the charges we're on about Sophie, amongst other things... have a look around at the Frequently Asked Questions, Template Letters and other information around the site...

An account number is merely an "easy-access" key for them; they should be able to find you by name and address - simply submit your Data Protection SAR without reference to account numbers; they're still legally obliged to supply the information, as long as you supply the information they need to identify you such as your full name, date of birth, address at the time the account was held etc.

*gets a huge warm feeling inside* Cheers man

I have added a little bit to the bit at the bottom of the DPA request before I sent mine, which I figured was worth the effort; I don't know if you wish to include it at all but it bears witness to the fact that banks, insurance companies, credit card providers etc set a lot of store by "the signature"... Just an idea anyway.

Thank you!!

Most of them I've come to grips with, but one (the one that'll make me feel stupid when I know) has eluded me... What's "IC"? As in "One more day and then it's IC time!"?

I pay my Argos bill manually - and sometimes real life gets in the way so I forget. Each time, they charge me £17.50 for the privilege. I intend to scrape that back off their faces so I've sent a DPA request. Here goes nothing!

We went to look at cars at YCC once before we really knew anything more about them than they would give you credit even with a bad history. We looked at some cars, we treated to the most appalling display of bad customer service, and finally they took my credit card (with which I did not intend to pay) "for identification purposes". We had NOT YET AGREED TO BUY A CAR. When the guy came back about an hour later (!!!) he had taken a £200 deposit from my card by swiping it in the machine!!! He asked me to sign the slip, I refused (because that card was not intended to be paying for any car) and informed him that unless he processed a refund that I would be calling the police with a view to prosecuting for theft. It was resolved in the end but we left after four and a half hours with no car and no refund for several days. NEVER AGAIN will I go to a company like this.

Heh!! Sutton in Ashfield here mate - thanks for the welcome.

Thank you. And thank you.

The people who run the Argos storecard charge £17.50 for every late payment of one's account - is this high enough to be unreasonable? Should I begin the process against them? Thanks in advance.

Hello folks! Just printed off my DPA Access Request for three accounts, two of which are now closed (and one of which has a large overdraft at present) and will keep you posted. Thanks very much to CAG (all two of you!) for this wonderful resource.