I am also trying to reclaim PPI from Barclays. First wrote on 19 January, they replied they would investigate and reply by 18 February, they replied letter dated 18 Feb saying they needed to carry out further investigation and would reply by 18 March. Letter arrived dated 18 March saying further investigation needed and would reply by 8 April. It's deliberate delaying tactics in the hope that we'll give up or go to the FOS. Read in last Sunday's papers that the FOS is dealing with so many cases that its causing several months delay on decision. This is what Barclays are hoping for, creating months of their own delay and if we don't give up and go to FOS another several months delay and Barclays get to hold on to our money for a bit longer. The letters are all very polite and always invite you to phone and discuss if you wish - so what do we do? Write a strong letter and maybe put them against you or wait it out? What has anyone else decided to do? Cheers lurcherlady

Sorry! I did mean to say that you could cancel anytime after the first 12 months. It's over three years since we signed the agreement.

Thanks for the replies. As I said, it was in the agreement we signed. The reason I'm raising the question is that since we signed it the whole issue of unlawful penalty charges has come up and I'm wondering if this would be regarded as such. I am going to write to them asking them for an itemised account of exactly what this charge is for. If they can't answer satisfactorily I'm inclined to put it in the 'unlawful penalty charge' category. I just wanted other opinions before writing to them. Also I think it sounds rather excessive in amount? Thanks

Has anybody got an opinion on the following: Alongside our day jobs we run a small network marketing business. A few years ago it became apparent that selling product at shows or mail order over the phone was becoming near impossible if the customer couldn't pay by credit card. In 2004 we had a credit card terminal from Cardsave and became, what they call, a member of the Cardsave organisation. We no no longer need this credit card terminal and have cancelled our account and returned the equipment. There is a cancellation charge of £121 plus VAT, which is of course in the Agreement that we signed. Since taking out this agreement in 2004 we've all become aware of the unlawful penalty charges and I'm wondering if this canellation charge might be regarded as a penalty charge. It seems an excessive amount to me - they're only taking my name off the list of members, receiving back the equipment, which they tell me they will use again. I intend writing to them and asking for an itemised breakdown of what exactly the £121 is used for and if they can't account for every penny I'm inclined to think its just a penalty charge. Apart from the usual percentage taken on each transaction, which is expected and accepted, we had to pay a quarterly membership fee of £84.42 - I don't know for what - so I can't see why there should be an extra charge to end the agreement. I'd be grateful to hear anyone's opinion. Thanks

Why not get someone like Martin Lewis to look at it - get it exposed in the papers, TV etc.

Hi jonni2bad Thanks for reply. Answers to questions as follows: At the start date of the 'managed loan', what were the level of charges you had already incurred? My agreed overdraft limit was £500 and I my balance was £1158.76 How much was the loan for? Loan was for £1200 plus £383.89 interest 12.1%. It was arranged in June and first payment was 20 July 2006 - so have only made one payment so far. Since taking out the loan, how much extra in charges have you incurred? None. They stopped the charges that would have been added for June/July. Have you been able to assess the overdraft interest caused solely by the charges, and if so, what were they at the loan start date and since then? I didn't include the interest in my claim due to difficulty in correct calculation. In terms of the letters you have already sent, what reference did they make to the loan? Can you copy and paste for us? I attached some notes to the schedule of charges as follows: NOTES 1. I have not included interest on penalty charges due to the complexity of correct calculation. 2. Having obtained my statements for the last 6 years and on looking through them I notice that my overdraft limit was £150 up to February 2004. In March 2004 it was increased to £300. In September 2004, quite inexplicably and without consultation or my knowledge or agreement, and unfortunately un-noticed by myself at the time, it was put back down to £150 until June 2005 when it was raised to £500. 3. My statements run from the 3rd of the month to the 3rd of next month. My closing balance on 3rd September 2004 was £260.21 overdrawn but within the limit of the £300 agreed overdraft. My opening balance on the next statement at 3rd September 2004 was £260.21 overdrawn with the overdraft limit at the top of the statement being shown as £150 therefore overnight I went from being within my overdraft limit to £110.21 above the shown overdraft limit thus giving cause for penalty charges being applied. This has caused me some hardship making it a struggle to catch up, and to stay caught up, and has contributed to my being forced, last month, to convert my overdraft into a Managed Loan, the first payment being due 20th of this month, and which, of course, is made up largely of a proportion of the penalty charges on the attached schedule. You may like to consider the question of this Managed Loan. To recap, my claim is for £1422.50 and have been offered £1250 - not a bad offer but only if they cancel out all or most of the Managed Loan. There is also the question of the mistake they made in note 3 above by altering the overdraft limit (must have been some kind of typo mistake) without my knowledge or agreement which put me overnight from being within my overdraft limit to above the limit and in the position of incurring penalty charges. My LBA dated 1 August crossed with Colin Langdale's offer letter, also dated 1 August giving me 10 working days to accept the offer (fast running out). I wrote back to Colin Langdale on 3 August - extract of this letter in my previous post - but to date no word. Should I e-mail and ask please respond? Should I ring? Is he going to stall until the 10 days is up and then take the offer off the table? If he does that my LBA is already with him and days counting down to issuing court action. Look forward to your opinion. Many thanks Lurcherlady

Thanks, mjanet, look forward to hearing Lurcherlady

BUMP! BUMP! BUMP! Repeating my message of yesterday so that someone can please, please advise how to handle accepting the offer and negotiating reduction/cancellation of the Managed Loan because I'm certainly not going to pay back the charges in the Managed Loan with the money they refund for the very same charges. Yesterday's message repeated below: Hi All I really need the benefit of all your collective experience and knowledge Prelim letter sent 13 July, claiming £1422.50 - no word at all from HSBC so sent LBA dated 1 August which crossed in post in post with letter from Colin Langdale also of 1 August offering £1250 - not a bad offer except he totally ignored the notes attached to my schedule regarding Managed Loan I was 'persuaded' into in June - only made one payment so far - so most of it is penalty charges the bank are now agreeing to refund to me. I have written back to Colin Langdale and I set out below extract from that letter as it sets out position: Thank you for your letter of 1 August (which has crossed with my Letter Before Action also of 1 August) offering me £1250 refund of bank charges against my claim of £1422.50. Whilst I appreciate this offer I am inclined to pursue the full claim, but before accepting or rejecting it, I would like to make the following points and ask for your comment. In June 2006 my overdraft limit was £500 and my balance at 3 June 2006 was £1158.76 overdrawn. Since July 2005, the last time a statement showed a closing balance within my overdraft limit, the penalty charges added to my account amount to £830. In June 2006 I was 'persuaded' to convert the overdraft into a Managed Loan of £1200 plus £383.89 interest. The majority of this loan is made up of penalty charges that you have agreed to refund. This Managed Loan will obviously have to be re-thought and I would not like to accept or reject any offer until this matter is addressed. I would like to draw your attention to the notes that accompanied my schedule of charges, and to which you haven't referred, detailing the mistake the bank made on my statement in September 2004, as follows: My statements run from 3rd of the month to 3rd of next mont Closing balance on 3rd September was £261.21 overdrawn but within the limit of the £300 agreed overdraft My opening balance on the next statement at 3rd September 2004 was £261.21 overdrawn but the overdraft limit at the top of the statement was shown as £150, therefore overnight I went from being within my overdraft limit to £110.21 above the shown overdraft limit thus putting me in the position of incurring penalty charges. This was done without consultation or my knowledge or agreement and was unfortunately un-noticed by myself at the time. This continued until June 2005 when I increased the limit to £500. This mistake directly contributed to the very high penalty charges being applied to my account and preventing me from catching up and staying within the agreed limit. I'm wondering if he will take any notice of this letter. Will he stall so that the 10 days he's given me to accept the offer runs out, and he'll hope I won't proceed to court action? Should I e-mail or ring and ask, have you received and what about it, or what? Hope someone will tell me best thing to do. Cheers

Hi All I really need the benefit of all your collective experience and knowledge Prelim letter sent 13 July, claiming £1422.50 - no word at all from HSBC so sent LBA dated 1 August which crossed in post in post with letter from Colin Langdale also of 1 August offering £1250 - not a bad offer except he totally ignored the notes attached to my schedule regarding Managed Loan I was 'persuaded' into in June - only made one payment so far - so most of it is penalty charges the bank are now agreeing to refund to me. I have written back to Colin Langdale and I set out below extract from that letter as it sets out position: Thank you for your letter of 1 August (which has crossed with my Letter Before Action also of 1 August) offering me £1250 refund of bank charges against my claim of £1422.50. Whilst I appreciate this offer I am inclined to pursue the full claim, but before accepting or rejecting it, I would like to make the following points and ask for your comment. In June 2006 my overdraft limit was £500 and my balance at 3 June 2006 was £1158.76 overdrawn. Since July 2005, the last time a statement showed a closing balance within my overdraft limit, the penalty charges added to my account amount to £830. In June 2006 I was 'persuaded' to convert the overdraft into a Managed Loan of £1200 plus £383.89 interest. The majority of this loan is made up of penalty charges that you have agreed to refund. This Managed Loan will obviously have to be re-thought and I would not like to accept or reject any offer until this matter is addressed. I would like to draw your attention to the notes that accompanied my schedule of charges, and to which you haven't referred, detailing the mistake the bank made on my statement in September 2004, as follows: My statements run from 3rd of the month to 3rd of next mont Closing balance on 3rd September was £261.21 overdrawn but within the limit of the £300 agreed overdraft My opening balance on the next statement at 3rd September 2004 was £261.21 overdrawn but the overdraft limit at the top of the statement was shown as £150, therefore overnight I went from being within my overdraft limit to £110.21 above the shown overdraft limit thus putting me in the position of incurring penalty charges. This was done without consultation or my knowledge or agreement and was unfortunately un-noticed by myself at the time. This continued until June 2005 when I increased the limit to £500. This mistake directly contributed to the very high penalty charges being applied to my account and preventing me from catching up and staying within the agreed limit. I'm wondering if he will take any notice of this letter. Will he stall so that the 10 days he's given me to accept the offer runs out, and he'll hope I won't proceed to court action? Should I e-mail or ring and ask, have you received and what about it, or what? Hope someone will tell me best thing to do. Cheers

Hi Lisa I'm too hoping they can't close down other accounts. I do have my own thread - how do I paste it into a message when I'm replying or commenting on other threads??? I'm not as proficient at this lark as most others on this board are! Cheers

I'm getting a little worried about the bank closing accounts and maybe calling in overdrafts. I am claiming charges on my own personal account. Sent prelim 13 July, no response whatsoever from HSBC so about to send LBA. I don't have an overdraft anymore as forced into Managed Loan last month, just made first payment. I've opened Step account with NatWest so OK there. But we have a joint business account with an agreed overdraft limit of £3000 which we unfortunately have to use although we manage to stay within the limit, fairly regular amounts get paid in and certain times of year bigger chunks get paid in but stuff gets paid out too so we never completely clear the overdraft. My question is could they get spiteful and close this account and call in the overdraft, would they be allowed to do that as my husband's name is also on this business account and he is not part of my claim against HSBC? Anyone have any thoughts or experience of this? Cheers

At last, finally got it together to send prelim letter yesterday! On line confirmation it has been delivered. Claiming £1422.50. Will also be taking up the question of the Managed Loan they made me convert my overdraft into just before I discovered I could claim back charges - first payment on Managed Loan is due 20th of this month. Having 6 years statements all together I noticed something that, unfortunately, I didn't notice at the time. Up to Feb 2004 my overdraft limit was £150, in March I increased it to £300, In September 2004, without consultation or my knowledge or agreement, it was put back down to £150 (probably some stupid typo) but it resulted in my being within the £300 overdraft limit at closing balance Sept 04 and way over the £150 overdraft limit overnight at opening balance on next statement. It stayed at £150 (stupidly without my noticing it) until June 05 when I increased it to £500!!!!! I pointed this out to them very strongly stating I believe this has directly contributed to today's situation of being forced to convert overdraft to Managed Loan. So we'll see what the rotters have to say!! Will keep you posted.

Just before I discovered we could claim back unlawful charges the bank made me covert my overdraft of £1158 to a managed loan of £1200 plus interest of £383.89. I am just finishing my schedule of charges and will send my prelim letter this week. The first payment on the managed loan is due 20 July ( in other words I haven't made a payment yet. I'm trying to track back thru statements as most of this loan will be made up of penalty charges (my overdraft limit was £500) so when they pay me back I shall be negotiating to get this loan vastly reduced. I am thinking that I will offer to pay them £500 - the amount of my overdraft facility because, after all, I did use the full overdraft facility. What does anyone think? Any advice on how to go about this?

Thanks to all for replies, I will bear all advice in mind to keep all money in my pocket. Thanks to moderators for putting me right on list etiquette. Let you know what happens.

Thanks, lookinforinfo, for advice about paying by cheque. I might just do that as we also have a joint business account with an overdraft facility and I wouldn't want them to think they could take my refund for that!!

Thanks for the replies. I'll bear in mind asking for refund as a cheque. What to pay back is going to be tricky as over the past 6 years my overdraft limit has been £150 then £300 then £500 and during this time I have been in and out of overdraft, sometimes within the limit sometimes over the agreed limit and sometimes even in credit - and sometimes for two or three straight months, not just the beginning of the month after getting paid! They wouldn't agree to isolate the overdraft amount with no interest so I could pay it back they had to make it into a loan and add £383 interest!! I know this is a bit previous as I haven't put in my claim yet but I want to be prepared. Should I go back through my statements to the last one where I ended the month within my overdraft limit and from then on add the excess penalty charges and take them away from the loan amount (less the interest figure) and tell them I'll pay only that amount back? What do you think. Any thoughts/opinions gratefully received. Thanks

Hi I'm surprised no-one had an opinion on my question (repeated below) or experience of similar situation. Please somebody chip in, I really need benefit of your experience. I've gathered my info and am doing my schedule of charges to claim but just before I learnt I could do this I had to come to an arrangement with the bank to convert my overdraft to a managed loan whereby I pay a set amount each month with a facility to pay more as and when I can afford to. I had to do this so that I could use the account without the money I put in being swallowed up into the overdraft. When I finally get the excess overdraft penalty charges paid back by the bank will they just take it before I can get to it to pay off the overdraft/loan? My claim will be for around £1600 and the overdraft/laon is for £1200 and I would estimate that around half of this is made up of excess overdraft penalty charges (£475 in just the last 4 months!!). When I get the money back I've no intention of paying off the whole of this overdraft/loan and most of it is penalty charges but it might be tricky tracking back to see when it first went over the agreed limit but I'll have to negotiate a sum to pay back because I certainly used the overdraft facility exceeded the limit in the first place to generate the penalty charges. I'd be grateful if anybody has got any advice/experience/opinion to offer on best course of action to take. Many thanks

I've gathered my info and am doing my schedule of charges to claim but just before I learnt I could do this I had to come to an arrangement with the bank to convert my overdraft to a managed loan whereby I pay a set amount each month with a facility to pay more as and when I can afford to. I had to do this so that I could use the account without the money I put in being swallowed up into the overdraft. When I finally get the excess overdraft penalty charges paid back by the bank will they just take it before I can get to it to pay off the overdraft/loan? My claim will be for around £1600 and the overdraft/laon is for £1200 and I would estimate that around half of this is made up of excess overdraft penalty charges (£475 in just the last 4 months!!). When I get the money back I've no intention of paying off the whole of this overdraft/loan and most of it is penalty charges but it might be tricky tracking back to see when it first went over the agreed limit but I'll have to negotiate a sum to pay back because I certainly used the overdraft facility exceeded the limit in the first place to generate the penalty charges. I'd be grateful if anybody has got any advice/experience/opinion to offer on best course of action to take. Thanks Lurcherlady