You bet it does!

That is not correct. To save anyone some time, they are yet to be published.

Err, you could try talking to them? ''Please feel free to flag the Q&As and our website generally to others and we would be pleased to receive feedback on these.'' OFT 10 March 2008

The OFT have announced that they do not expect judgement to be handed before the end of July.

I think that's a tad misleading. To be fair, Martin Lewis picked up most of the bill.

Huge congratulations to Tom who is starting his new job on Monday. He quit his previous position some time ago to concentrate on his case with Natwest and losing it didn't help his employment prospects one bit. He'll be an employed barrister with FSI, a large London law firm who I suspect are not entirely unfamiliar to CAG.

Bang

It wasn't the Master of the Rolls but the Deputy Head of Civil Justice - The Right Hon Justice Moore-Bick. This is his response to colleague who wrote to him on the subject. 15 Nov 2007 Dear Sir Bank penalty charges - credit card accounts I am afraid your understanding is not entirely correct. Following the commencement of procceedings by the Office of Fair Trading in the High Court I informed the Designated Civil Judges around the country of the existence of those procceedings and invited them and the judges in their areas to consider whether in any particular case it would be sensible in the interests of justice to stay further procceedings until an authoritive decision had been made. As I made clear at the time. however, it is for the judge in each case to decide what course to take in the light of the issues in the case and the circumstance as a whole. I do not know whether or to what extent any of the credit card cases raises issues which are the same as , or similar to, those which arise in the OFT case and I have not expressed a view one way or another as to whether consideration might usefully be given to imposing a stay in such cases. Again, it is for the judge who deals with each case to decide what course to take in the light of the evidence before the court. However, I imagine that one thing that judges will wish to take into account ia the existence of the OFT procceedongs.

Justice Smith and both parties have now given permission for the full transcripts of the hearing to be released.

Really? I don't think so. ''With regards to the PCA investigation, we are continuing to request and analyse information from the banks and we therefore will not be concluding the investigation until after the judgment. The market study is expected to be published pre-judgment however this depends, to a certain degree, on when judgment is handed down.'' Kate Farrow Office of Fair Trading 11/02/08

The official reason for the closure was ''The thread was closed my one of my fellow moderators as it had gone too far off topic as per the forum rules''. Believe that and you're half way to being sectioned. That's not to say that the test case threads have not slipped off topic. One particular repeat offender did this countless times but still had the gaul to censure others for doing exactly that: ''So would your employers. Then again...'' ''Recruited 3 more today - DD's manager (she'd asked me to come talk to him, he was going to pay his SOLICITOR to do it! ), and the 2 chaps at Virgin Mobile when I went to sort out my SIM card.'' ''Trust Dave to lower the tone even further.'' ''In my experience, every time I have heard someone using that sentence, it was because they had no form of wit at all.'' ''....I'm sorry, the relevance of this to the upcoming case and its location is... ? ''I'll ask again: What does that have to do with the court case and the size of the courts? It seems to me some people are intent on dragging this thread away from its topic and for the life of me, I can't understand why.'' Obadiah, his servants. There shall, in that time, be rumours of things going astray, erm, and there shall be a great confusion as to where things really are, and nobody will really know where lieth those little things wi-- with the sort of raffia work base that has an attachment. At this time, a friend shall lose his friend's hammer and the young shall not know where lieth the things possessed by their fathers that their fathers put there only just the night before, about eight o'clock. Yea, it is written in the book of Cyril that, in that time, shall the third one... ''You'd be wrong, as we speak, I have half a wild salmon with coconut milk, lime juice, pepper, chilli pepper, ginger, garlic, tomatoes in the oven, should be ready in about 10 mns. First time I am trying the recipe. (Now we're REALLY off the OFT case topic! )'' And just who was it habitually flouting forums rules that officially led to the closure of the thread? Step forward, Consumer Action Group 'super' moderator, Bookworm. So, no breath-taking hypocrisy there then.

How is the transfer of procceedings to Scotland relevent to ATM charges?

So let me get this right: You want to stop ATM operators being able to withdraw charges? Not really a goer in my opinion.

There's a poppet

I'd like to help you mate but I can't and I think your questions will be best answered by a moderator, I'm sure one'll come along before the test case is resolved. They get well busy here of course - just since yesterday they've somehow managed answer 55 posts in one forum alone. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bear-garden/

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/consumer-forums-website-questions/126507-too-many-posts-going.html

Looks like he's busy anyway and is currently presiding over other cases COURT 76 Before MR JUSTICE ANDREW SMITH Friday 22 February 2008 At 10:00 2008-134 Calais Shipholding Co v Bronwen Trading Ltd & Anr At 14:00 2007-1439 David Harris & 50 Others v The Society Of Lloyds

THE FICTION 1.The contention that the OFT ‘didn’t consult consumer groups’ in the run up to the test case is an uninformed myth. Four consumer groups were consulted including Which? and the NCC. Due to disclosure restraints, only ‘designated’ consumer groups could legally have been involved. 2. The Office of Fair Trading worked with the court service to accommodate public provision at the hearing and were directly responsible for securing the 75 feed room places, the vast majority of which were unused. 3. In the past year the OFT have put significantly more resources into the department handling bank charges and have moved more senior personnel on to the case. 4. To the horror of the British Banking Association ,late last year Chief Executive John Fingleton went on national television to describe bank charges as ‘’tricks’’. 5. The OFT publishes a newsletter to update stakeholders on the progress of their fight against bank charges, of which this site is a recipient. 6. Although it is not in the OFT’s remit to help individual consumers with complaints, it does use complaints to build cases against firms and it’s the volume of complaints that determines if an investigation should proceed. In the year before the OFT began it’s investigation into bank charges it received just 500. THE FACTS 1. Contrary to popular belief, the OFT were not consulted about the test case agreement but were simply informed about it 24 hours before the announcement in letter on Barclays headed notepaper which gave a list of instructions on what to say. 2. The video feed room actually showed a mock up of the hearing which was performed by actors, many of which have appeared in bit parts Casualty and Eastenders. 3. The OFT department that handles bank charges has an annual budget of £10.50 and is run by a Lithuanian plumbing student on YTS. 4. John Fingleton, the OFT’s Chief Executive, is a puppet installed by the UK banking industry and is controlled from the basement of NatWest’s head office. If you look very carefully you can just make out the fine titanium wires that control the moving parts of his body. 5. The OFT’s stakeholder newsletter is a cynical ploy to give the impression that it somehow cares about consumers. The content is actually produced by the BBA and includes the odd word in Lithuanian to give it credibility. 6. All complaints that the OFT receives about banks are shredded and pulped onsite. There is a weekly pick-up from a recycling firm to dispose of it.

The slatings of other sites is not a concept that does not exist on this site and you need to wander no further from this thread to realise that. And they were not legal 'threats', they were formal requests to remove material and for an acknowledgement. And the fact that you complied with every single one of them doesn't suggest that the requests were unjustfied.

Keep your hair on luv, he was just asking a question. He wasn't asking what you thought he may be aware of, or am I missing something here?

This is an extraordinary statement and one that highlights a government sized commercialy driven policy u-turn of the highest order. I'm sure I don't need to remind you what your policy was to commercial sites. They were painted as moral outcasts, unprincipled and dishonourable and by your own standards you will become all these things and more. Defending accusations of 'hypocrites' are going to be difficult to say the least.

You might as well go into hibernation. There is no way judgement will be handed down in a few weeks and I'm astonished that the moderator dosn't realise this.

That's right he wasn't very precise. Most estimates are for May, so I'm not sure what your 'several weeks' is based on. I'd say that was wildly optimistic. My guess would be 6 months

That's not correct, all perspectives were covered. It wouldn't be wise to base your opinion of the OFT's case on strength of quotes from the BBC. If you want to know exactly what was said during the hearing, transcripts are available through Merril Legal Solutions in hardcopy or PDF format