Something that has been bothering me for some years now is the thought that it is not the Labour government or the Conservative government that are running this country, but the financial government. The BANK party, the bigger picture.

Sorry just another couple of thoughts on your meeting, the benifits road is a rocky one for the banks and bad publicity for them. The unfair terms and conditions is another regarding bank charges, it could be argued that profit generating charges are no better than loan shark interest rates, when agreeng to such terms and conditions we are all under the impression they are fair and reasonable and that the bank will not be making massive profit from them, they are still hiding this fact from the terms and conditions.

Obviously the banks lawyers have been franticaly looking for a loophole in the consumer credit act to get around the bank charges issue and it looks like they may take this avenue. However th OFT repot in April highlighting the high default charges on creditcards seems to contradict Mr Hoons' argument, unless such charges are not mentioned in your creditcard agreement, which I'm sure they are. Nice one any way, gives us an indication on what way the banks are going to go on trying to wriggle out of it. Regards bish.

Hi everybody First timer to the shAbby forum so be gentle, been reading for couple of weeks now and glad to see not the only person ripped off by the shabby to the tune of £7000.00. Quick history for every one. Withdrew our overdraft facility 10/04/06, 5 days after OFT report, coincidence I am sure. Agreed to pay off overdraft with wifes mobility allowance, unscrupulouse Ba***rds, angry now.Check last six years statements, over £7000.00 in charges and interest, realy angry now. See media reports and find this site, absolutly Bl**dy fuming. Carry on reading this site and download letters etc, calm down a bit. Sent data protection letter June 2006, don't need it as self employed and have last 10 years statements, but give them something to do, and hope they make a mistake. Opened parachute account and changing DD's etc, about to move wifes DLA hope that gives them a bad day, feeling cool.Sent first letter requesting repayment of charges and interest on 18/06/06 received telphone call from shabby offering £50.00, me left speachles ,then offered £55.00, me still speachless ,end conversation. Received bog standard reply with brush off on 25/06/05, quite quick I thought, blood boiling again though. Sent second letter dated 05/07/06 giving 14 days to reply or would take further action, although refrained from legal action threat, thought I would go down the FOS, and OFT road first just to see their reaction and because dont have the Money to start court proceedings yet, but stay posted, will have it soon. Sorry for the long thread and good luck to you all in your fight for justice. My appologies to StoneLaughter for thinking that nobody out there was fighting the corner for joe public, hope it went well today Sir.

I received copy statements last week for last 12 months or so, they showed all transactions but no details as to how much the charges were as detailed on the original statements. Glad I have all the last six years statements saves me working out all those charges one by one. Seems a bit odd that the copies do not match the originals.

I have been reading as much as I can on this site for some weeks now and have taken the steps recomended to recover over £7000.00 in charges from the Abbey on my current account in the last six years. Although the recovery of such a large amount of money would certainly solve our financial difficulties at the moment I can not help but think that everyone is missing the bigger picture here. We are all so concerned with re-claiming this money that we are avoiding the main issue, the banks have for at least six years been ripping off their customers to the tune of billions of pounds. The OFT have been ignoring this, and are still giving them time too sort things out. Licences are issued to the banks and credit card companies without any checks on wether they are actualy abiding by the consumer credit act.What is the point of the consumer credit act if no one actualy checks to see if those penalty charges are a true reflection of costs. It's like issuing a driving licence on the say so of the driver.I urge every one what ever their circumstances to complain to the OFT about these charges. We will take this to court if necessary to claim back these unfair charges, However there are many people out there that do not have the means to do this or the knowledge to even know that they have been ripped off, it is our duty to help every one who have been ripped off by the banks. The Abbey are not satisfied with taking £7000.00 in penalty charges and interest they have now decided to, as of 10/04/06, to take £130.00 per month from my wifes mobility allowance to pay off our overdraft. Truly unscrupulouse Ba***rds.