Wow! Have just finished reading your thread from beginning to end! Totally inspirational. Fantastic. So absolutely delighted for you that you won and beat the buggers in the end. Well done. Congratulations. Was, as others have said, like a really good read/book and I found myself wanting to cheat and read the last page to see how it all ended! Am new to site and will certainly be referring time and time again to your fantastic letters and just to be inspired to keep going! Your journey has already brought up questions I never thought about/knew but they will have to wait till tomorrow. It's 3.00 in the morning! Totally mad-been reading this for hours but I just couldn't 'put it down'. Once again congratulations to you both and good luck with next claim. I love a story with a happy and morally just ending.

Many thanks Dar£n.

:DLOL Many thanks MoneyKing. Think I could well be glued to this website for some time to come. You don't know how right you are when you say I have a lot on! Just finished with Employment Tribunal over the payment issue that started all this in first place. Now dealing with a claim for someone else through the Employment Tribunal who wasn't paid her bonus after she left even though she had earned it and was promised on leaving that they would pay it after 3 months. Now they are claiming it was discretionary and she's not entitled to it. She's scarred silly they will win and she'll end up with thousands in court costs. AND if that isn't enough had been working on starting my own business and 9 mths ago my very EX business partner ran off with all the money and a load of my personal property that I lent him. So off to see a solicitor on Tuesday to try and sort that out too. Know none of this relevant to this particular site but at times I wish 2006 had never happened! Sometimes my head feels like its been shoved on a spin cycle!

Many thanks everyone so far. You are all so kind and so helpful. Very grateful. Sorry Trucker would press your button re being of help but haven't worked that one out yet. Ohh! Think that may have come out a bit wrong. :o Sure you know what I mean though.

Many thanks Dar£n will do. Really is reassuring to be able to talk to others and double check what you are doing is right.

I asked the Woolwich for T&C's on Thursday. Was very specific that I wanted them from 03 thru to present so I was completely aware of everything regarding my account from beginning. They sent them out immediately! Great? No. They sent the new version only-the one Barclays have set up to try to get around all this! Not stupid they can't hold me to new T&C's right back to 03 so will write them a nice little letter tomorrow outlining my disappointment at their continued inefficiency and request someone somewhere in their establishment digs out the appropriate T&C's I need as a matter of urgency. Will give them 7 days and tell them if they don't get them to me in time I will view it as another ploy by them in delaying tactics and will state all this in my claim, or when I am asked for document bundle. Not sure which I should put this in but really want to get the point over to the court that bank have been totally obstructive. Question. I read here that you can claim costs. I understand the concept that you can claim reasonable costs for the time it has cost you to prepare the case (same as a solicitor would put in his charges). But, can you also claim for other costs in your original claim? IE: because I stopped using my account (I'm just using savings a/c at mo with instant access card it was such a problem and palava trying to get money out of the Woolwich a/c once it hit o/d status) I now have to pay all my utitility bills etc by cash and run around and they charge me £5 a month for not paying by DD and it costs me time and petrol. Just a thought.

Hi Dar£n Many thanks for your help and assurance. Haven't got a spreadsheet that up dates interest daily. Martin's just did it to day and time I filled it in. I assume the spread sheet on this site is a little bit more super duper and will do that for me? If so will have to sit down in next couple of days and put everything on the new spread sheet. Oh boy am I looking forward to that! Still has to be done-no reward without a bit of hard work. Must also sit down and read all the processes for court process so have it in my head prior to actually doing it. I'm so worried that if I make one slip the buggers will get me on a technicality.

Wow got there-that is managed to find my way around website to start new thread. Think all this litigation and argument is doing my brain in! Okay as Julie Andrews said lets start at beginning. 22 May 06 it all started when Woolwich took a DD from my account for £365 to someone which I had given no authority for and was totally unaware of! Made complaint about that because that took me overdrawn for the day till they returned it and made other DD's bounce. They also managed to block my internet and telephone access code in that period! So couldn't check my balance unless I went out to do so. Then told me I had to go to branch with birth certificate and other forms of ID to get a new access code! Felt like they were having a personal vendetta against me. Aparrently this info WAS wrong but they didn't admit to that until a letter dated 18 Aug 06 when they apologised and refunded £175 in 'administration charges'. July 06 employer didn't pay salary into a/c via bacs as usual, didn't realise till after all the DD's etc had gone out and got letter from bank. Well there was no indication from employer anything was wrong (they kept very quiet!) and so didn't bother to check-why should I, you just don't expect to not get paid!?!?!? And cos I had no access code was bloody pain in neck. Anyway phoned Woolwich explained what had happened (that was joke with no access code too!) and asked if they would refund charges as it wasn't my fault and totally beyond my control. Woolwich basically told me tough, very sorry for my situation but there was nothing they could do about it. So I made official complaint. 1 Aug 06 got letter from Woolwich acknowledging complaint, usual stuff and saying they would aim to resolve matter by 30th Aug. 31 Oct 06 got two letters from Woolwich. One thanking for my time and trouble in telling them about my dissatisfaction and how sorry they were blah blah, that they were investigating and aimed to resolve the matter by 28.11.06. Second one was a Termination Notice! Yeah thanks Woolwich I thought, made phone calls got that sorted and waited for result of complaints procedure. 2 Nov 06 Got letter saying they had reviewed the charges were satisfied that they had been correctly applied but had arranged as a gesture of goodwill a one-off refund of £160! Wow big shakes their charges for the problem in August had resulted in my being near on £800 overdrawn! Wrote back saying this was not at all satisfactory as it was beyond my control especially bearing in mind the press coverage about these charges being unlawful anyway and also the right mess they made of my account in May over the unauthorised DD and charges that although they eventually had refunded had had a snowball affect on my account that put me out of pocket. The interest they had chucked on top of the charges had also increased the overdraft so I phoned told them I didn't find that acceptable wanted the overdraft wiped out. Also taking into account that they had told me that whilst the complaint was going on I was entitled to draw on the full salary I was depositing into the account but I wouldn't be able to use my card once I hit the overdraft line because it was unauthorised and therefore the card would not function. Okay I thought can live with that so long as I can use my whole salary and pay DD's etc and I'll just write cheque rather than pay by card. WRONG!!!! They bounced every cheque and DD and so escalated the overdraft even higher with the charges. They told me there was absolutely no chance of them wiping the whole overdraft out. So I finally snapped and said fine you want to be like that then I want all my bank charges back and wrote a letter to them stating this. 3 Jan 07 Woolwich wrote acknowledging receipt of my letter. 17 Jan 07 Woolwich wrote saying further to their letter of 3 Jan due to the nature of my complaint it had been escalated to their Head Office Customer Relations Unit (IE Barclays). 22 Jan 07 Barclays wrote saying they would endeavour to respond within 8 weeks blah blah with full report or update on progress. 27 Jan 07 Barclays wrote offering me £1,000 good will blah blah. I refused this by telephone stating that it was an insult bearing in mind the account hadn't been used since Dec and yet the overdraft had now gone up to £1300 due to the interest they kept chucking on it. I asked for my bank statements from inception and told them why I wanted them and that I fully intended to claim the whole of my charges back. [i remember thinking at the time, this is stupid cos if they had wrote off the charges in the first instant as a matter of good will it would've cost them somewhere in the region of £800 but because they wanted to be bloody minded and greedy they had to eventually come in with an offer of £1000 and by that time they had increased the overdraft so much that that figure wouldn't even cover it!!!!!!] Then came the great ordeal over trying to get the bank statements! Phone call after phone call (all logged and dated). Also had to phone Woolwich because they kept sending letters of default from their Collections Dept. Apparently they don't know what is happening on the Barclays side and neither can correspond with each other or even phone to let them know!!!!!!:o I have to phone Woolwich every month for them to hold the account and not take action on it or put extra charges of £3 per day on it. April 07 eventually got bank statements, but then only got half and had to phone for rest which took another two weeks. Soon as I had all the statements did calculations using Martinsmoneyexpert calculator. The total sum for the charges from Feb 03 (when I first opened the account) to 3 April 07 (last date on the bank statements) was £5,650.99 (with interest at 8% of £667.15 the total sum came to £6318.14) I sent letter off requesting a full refund of £6318.14 (breaking it down into the two separate figures) and included a print off of from Martin's calculator. I stated I required a response within 14 days and didn't get it so telephoned several times, got fobbed off about them being busy, letter hadn't been forwarded blah blah. 11 May 07 got phone call from Richard Coote who offered me £4200 over the phone. I stated I wouldn't be drawn into any decision over the phone and wanted the offer in writing. This was duly sent the same day. 17 May 07 I wrote back saying I couldn't accept their offer but was prepared to accept it if they also wrote off the outstanding overdraft of £1167.46 and the £23.25 due to be charged on 22 May. I pointed out that this would bring the settlement figure to £5390.71 which was below the sum I would be entitled to claim through the county court. I gave them 7 days to reply. Surprisingly they didn't reply. I phoned three times last week in May. 7 June 07 I sent a final letter saying I was dismayed and dissapointed by their non-responses and so was prepared to accept their offer of £4200 in part settlement of the money they owe me, but I was NOT prepared to accept it in full and final settlement and would be pursuing the rest through the county court. I then gave them 7 calendar day to respond and if I had not heard from them by then I would start the process of suing them without any further notice. AND THAT IS THE STORY OF WAR AND PEACE SO FAR AND UP TO DATE!!!! Now am getting myself up to speed with the great help from this website and hopefully some help and pointers in the right direction from you all. Know I have to start actioning the court proceedings and that's the hard bit. My claim is over £5,000 so as far as I can ascertain I can't do it through small claims online have to go county court route and it will cost me an initial £120. Is that right? Also have read lots of people talking about document bundles etc. What do I have to include in this and when do I need it to be completed by? Sorry about asking lots of questions but feel totally exhausted already. It's been 11 months in all lot of stress and worry-feel like I've done 20 rounds with Muhammad Ali already and now comes the scarry bit when you really have to have your wits about you and get it exactly right!

Yeah know that one! Mum on Virgin signal kept failing and she had no phone for two days. I complained when they said she would just have to wait nothing they could do and they threw the kitchen sink at her-especially when I asked them what the hell they thought they were playing at and that they had just recently lost sky one etc and were still charging same price. Silly thing is I have sky in the lounge, separate BT phone and internet so can afford to be really stroppy with them. Just boiling up the energy to have good lengthy argument with them-specially as BT phoned me this weekend and have offered me a deal on the Broadband to increase the package and drop the price! Used to be real quite soul but recently have got very argumentative with big guns. Only problem is I don't seem to have enough time in the day to deal with all the different complaints aparrently when I'm in full swing I don't give up so seems every relative friend and neighbour is getting me to sort our their problems .

MoneyKing Many thanks for your reply. Yes guess my description was a little garbled. In truth do have all the times, dates etc etc down in very large file with copies of letters, dates and times of phone calls etc. Just a little too much info to put in 1st message when I knew I was in wrong messaging section. Would like to start my own thread but don't know how to do it-sorry not a complete blond bimbo but new to message sites like this and so get a little lost sometimes in what 'buttons' to press to get somewhere! TideTurner I did calculations on MartinsMoneyExpert website. Have complete figure for charges from date I first opened a/c in 2003 up to and including April 07. Know I have to add a few on cos they are still charging me in region of £25 pm interest on the overdraft these charges have created on my a/c. Also have the statutory 8% interest rate charges calculated up to April 07, but again realise I will have to recalculate these before putting in a claim to court because they will have altered due to timescale. However, I have not heard of the unauthorised rate at 19%-40%. Would be grateful if you could enlighten me further re this. I'll be honest I haven't looked at the calculator on this site yet (didn't think there was a need as I was just going to use the one on MartinsMoneyExpert site to do recalculations). If someone can direct me on how to start my own thread I'll dig out the file and put the exact correct figures and dates in chronological order so others can make sense of it. MoneyKing is right I am at stage where I need issue court proceedings against them. My last letter stated that I was disappointed at their lack of response and that if I did not hear from them within 7 calendar days I would start proceedings without giving them further notification. So I really need to get my act together now, also get the figurework totally right, totally up to date, and most importantly get the legal wording etc and paperwork for my court bundles correct. I certainly do not want to make the slightest error to give them any chance of finding a loophole in my argument. Anyway if either you or MoneyKing could give me advice on how to start my own thread I would be most grateful and as I said before will relay my whole story there. Then when I win!!!!! I will be in a position to help others through this process too.

Even if bp's friend did answer the phone Virgin are in breach of the data protection act (don't know which section) if they discuss the account with anyone other than the account holder. Further to do that they have to verify who they are speaking to and should ask for a password that is logged with the account. No way should they leave messages of a private and confidential nature on a answerphone whether it be the account holder's or not and especially not another person's telephone answering machine. The only way they can speak to another person is if the account holder has given express permission and this will be logged somewhere on Virgin's data or if bp has written in giving permission. They just can not do things like that without the permission of the account holder.

Hi Frantic Actually yes I have. last month I had £18 of pay-per-view films. Blamed my son as have just had v boxes put in bedrooms (Thats another bone of contention I will cover after!). So thought right will put an end to this and phoned Virgin to change the pin number (only I now know it-no one else in the household has the faintest what it is!). Had this month's bill in and now have a further £28 pay-per-view film charges. Asked my son what the heck he thought he was doing and how did he manage it when I had changed the pin number and he just said he didn't think he had watched that many (did offer to pay me back) but also said he has only ever used the old pin number. So my question now after reading your message is has he watched all these films? Did he watch several the month before and doesn't realise these are for the next month or have Virgin not taken action at my request to change the pin? Will have to sit down with son and work out whether he did watch all these films and when. On the subject of the v boxes cos have two adult children in house thought it would be good idea to save arguments to have boxes put in their rooms. However, wanted to check costs before going ahead and so on ringing was told 'oh you've rang at the right time we have special discount on at mo so to have two extra boxes will be this less this discount and you will get an upgrade to our L package and the whole thing will cost you £10 per month extra. Lovely I thought, bargain, I'll have that and arranged installation. When first bill came in the cost for the 2 new v boxes came to £19 after discount and I'm being charged £10 something extra for the further channels! Meantime, my mum decided to have 2 v boxes put in her bedrooms (one never to be outdone my mum!) She asked me how much etc and then rang up Virgin to confirm price (was same as I was quoted) and went ahead with installation. Her bill comes in and she gets exactly what she was quoted an extra £10 on her bill!!!!!!! I phoned Virgin to tell them I thought they had made a mistake (even gave them chance of benefit of doubt that I might have misread it or that I'd been charged extra for partial month or something). Oh no I was told, my charges are right I have to pay £19 per month for exactly the same service that my mum pays £10 for. When I told them it must be a mistake because there was no way I would have got the figure wrong, then passed the info onto my mum and she got exactly what I said it would be, I was told I would have to write into their complaints dept-nothing they could do. I most certainly will be writing in. Most gauling thing and I can't see how they can openly say this either, sure there must be some law against it. The woman from Virgin said 'all customers were different and all customers were charged different rates'!?!?!?! When I queried this she said that was just the facts. I said yes I could understand if there were special promotional incentives running but surely at the end of the day all customers are or have to pay the same eventually. Otherwise what she was saying was prejudicial-like saying because I had blond hair I had to pay more than the woman down the road who had brown hair! She replied well no, but all customers pay different rates for different things that's just the way it is. When I asked her how she could justify my paying £51.50 standard charges for less services than my mum who pays £52.75 and has additions of call unlimited and XL television package she refused to answer and told me to take it up with the complaints department in writing. So Virgin Media? Very bad wouldn't trust them if my life depended on it.

Many thanks but unfortunately I haven't had my account with the Woolwich that long - opened it in 2003, so expect they may have changed their terms and conditions by then, also because it is Woolwich and not Barclays (although I know Woolwich is now owned by Barclays) the wording could be slightly different and so open to a different interpretation. Slippery little buggers!!!!! I actually rang the Woolwich, after I posted my message on here, asked them for copy of terms and conditions for open plan account from 2003 and any copies of any changes since then up to the current date. Funny they put me on hold for ages!!! Eventually came back and said they were in the post to me. So I'm back to waiting for the postman again. If they do not arrive within a couple of days I will write a letter and either send it via email or by recorded post. Know shouldn't send by email but it's darn sight quicker and they always acknowledge receipt within a couple of hours. Don't actually reply to my letters within the given time though! I started a complaint against some individual charges they put on my account back in August 2006 because employer didn't put salary into account as usual and so all the DD's went out (well bounced with loads of charges) without my knowing anything about it. Found out after the fact, also found out that employer had gone bust so had no money to pay salaries! They mucked around said they were very sorry, understood my situation etc but couldn't help blah blah and so I made official complaint and they eventually offered me £1,000 in January 2007. Problem is by then the charges had escalated above that because they messed around told me I could still have access to my money (when new salary from new job went in) even though it would take me overdrawn without an agreed overdraft because I had made a complaint. Then when I wrote cheques out and the direct debits were due they bounced them saying that I could only have the extra money if I called them first and arranged to withdraw it from the local branch and then I had to phone the local bank to ensure they had the available cash if it was over a certain amount (what were they saying the bank might run out of readies in the branch!?!?!?!?). So I ended up with even more charges and stopped using the account but they still keep chucking interest on every month at rate of approx £25. I explained all this to them and said I couldn't accept their offer due to the fact that they had misinformed and mislead me causing even more charges to be added to my account. They refused to budge so I told them okay fine in that case send me all my bank statements from inception because if you are going to take that attitude then I will sue you for the whole amount I'm entitled to. That took them until April to send out. It took them till May 10th to reply (despite many telephone calls to them) and eventually they offered me £4,200. The charges amount to £5,650.99 (with interest £6318.14). I wrote back to them saying I couldn't accept the £4,200 but would be prepared to accept it if they included the sum outstanding on my overdraft which would be around £5,300. I also pointed out that this was still lower than the actual figure they owed me and even lower than the sum I would be claiming once the interest was added on if I took them to court. Gave them 7 days to reply. Heard nothing rang them after that 3 times in 2 days end of last week and still heard nothing. So wrote another letter to them yesterday saying I was extremely disappointed with their lack of response and as a result I was prepared to accept the £4,200 originally offered as part payment-definitely NOT in full and final settlement and that I would be suing them for the rest. Also told them I would give them 7 calendar days in which to reply and if I did not hear from them within that time then I would start proceedings in the court against them without further notice. Just worked it out this has been going on for over 10mths-6 of which have been direct request for all my charges back. Time to empower myself. Time to make a stand. Also I'm stubborn bugger so won't cave in and will see it through to bitter end win or lose. Husband getting very arsy with me because he thinks I should have just accepted the £4,200 especially in light of the Lloyds tsb judgement last month. Think he had already spent the money in his mind anyway and was very miffed when I got stubborn and stuck my foot down. He's not really helping because it does take a lot of will power to carry on and not just cave in. It does make me wonder am I just being stubborn for the sake of what is right and cutting my nose off to spite my face. But then I think 'no that's what bank wants me to do and in way they would've won if I had accepted'. So here I am stuck in it for the long haul with all my fingers and toes crossed and hoping to goodness I get the legal side totally right so I don't bugger it up. By the way if I do get the T&C's from them I would be more than willing to give you copies for the library. You'll just have to give me directions on how I can get it to you. Not bad on lots of things but IT not my strong point!

I am new to site and am currently in very lengthy not good negotiations with Barclays (actually bank with the Woolwich but Barclays has to deal with it!!?!?!?!?) Anyway I would like to start a new tread on this in the appropriate area but don't know how. Regarding the T&C - thought I would be clever and go to Woolwich web site see if they were on there. Oh yes they are! But they have changed the wording for new accounts when it comes to charging for being overdrawn - very clever. Guess it must be in more detail for actual bank account holders but the T&C in general for new customers is very vague. Guess I'll have to start digging in dusty places too for my own originals - fingers crossed. In meantime can anyone help me start my own thread as I think I'm going to need some help and support from now on. Many thanks.