Thanks! 8-)

... and so do all other banks. That doesn't make what they are doing legal though.

Not sure why none of the links work for me and just take me back to the main forum page? (I am logged on by the way) Also, doesn't it make far more sense just to state section 187 of the Social Security Administrations Act 1992, which makes it illegal for the banks to withhold benefit money, rather than having to go through the complicated process of making a hardship claim, having to disclose my complete financial situation, etc.? Or is that law no longer valid?

I'll definitely try to open another account asap & will check the thread about it beforehand. Q: Is there any way I can access the documents on the Bank Charges Templates page? (your link above) I get a link next to them saying 'Register to read more...' and then get taken to a log in page, from where I get redirected to the main CAG forum page again. It seems to be a mirror of the page on consumerforums dot com, which I found earlier on and which is broken, as Bankfodder pointed out to me as I mentioned having difficulties with it. However on this (sub-)site the links don't seem to be working correctly either, except for the first two. I did find the thread about banks taking benefit money though, and I am determined to read through all 56 pages before next week, so I know exactly what to expect when I confront my bank referring to section 187 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992, and so I am prepared for the methods they'll most likely be using to try and fob me off.

From what I can tell I have to possible options: (1) Last year I left a letter with my bank and got a signature to confirm it had been received, in order to claim my right of appropriation for a payment which I was expecting. However as the payment arrived, the bank ignored my demand and the payment was not being made available to me. It was a very stressful situation at the time because not only have I been suffering from mental health problems since my childhood, but at the time I was also physically ill. In the past I have had a car accident which resulted in my spleen being removed, so I also have a weakend immune system and I made the bank aware of the fact that ignoring my request was seriously putting my health at risk. Each time I visited the bank I was told that there was nobody available to deal with my case, as I had set up a business account a few years earlier (which I have never used because the business which I had planned to establish had never worked out) and because of that only the manager of this business account would be able to deal with my request. Despite repeatedly trying to get hold of him under different numbers which I was given, I never managed to get him on the phone and my calls were never returned. At some point I was so angry that I said I would refuse to leave the bank building until I had spoken to him, as by that time my health had seriously deteriorated (in the past I had to be hospitalised twice for over a week because of the same condition which I was experiencing at the time). This resulted in me being informed that £76 (two previous Unpaid Items fees) would be refunded later that day, so that part of the payment which I had received would be available to me. A few hours later I received a phone call from my business account manager who confirmed that the money had been refunded. I no longer have a copy of the letter which I sent but will check my hard drive to see whether it is still somewhere in a zip file. However my online statement shows the date of the refund. In my opinion the bank should have had the obligation to check why my account went overdrawn nearly every month, and why payments regularly had to be returned. I was suffering from severe anxiety and depression at the time, and a lot of the time I was unable to even make the most important phone calls. It wasn't until my physical health was seriously at risk, that I was able to take action for the first time. The only money which I have been receiving into my account has been my DLA. During the worst month, the bank charged me almost £350 - far more than is ever paid in during one month. (2) The other approach which I could take would be to make a hardship claim. My expenses exceed my benefit money, especially since I have been seeing a therapist on a weekly basis, whom I have to pay privately. I am not sure which approach would be better, or whether I should combine the two?

Ok done, thanks. Also saw the info as I flagged it about avoiding potentially libellous content and noticed I used the words 'gangsters' and 'thieves' - can that be changed retrospectively?

Thanks for clarifying that, BankFodder. I thought maybe it was me going mad ... Not sure what you mean by flagging up my post? It's the thread 277717-FFV-vs.-The-NatWest-Gangsters which I started to document my progress, but I'm stuck at calculating the total amount. Think I've probably got it right but not completely sure, so it would be nice to have it confirmed whether I am doing things the right way. Thanks!

Sorry, it just takes me back to the main forum page (the one with forum slash forum dot php).

I keep getting completely lost on here ... and haven't had a reply yet to my thread posted several days ago in the NatWest forum If it was easier I'd even be able to help with the PHP programming, but I'm lost just using this site as a user - don't know how messy it must look on the 'other side of the fence'! Also, on the page 626-faq-the-new-bank-charges-position on the consumerforums dot com site it asks users to send a scanned copy of any correspondance they have, in which banks claim that their charges are fair. I couldn't find an email address though (or does the copy need to be sent to the postal address?), and couldn't post a question either because I was told on that page that I had to log in to reply - which isn't possible, see my problem mentioned in my other thread. Sorry for moaning but I'm usually known for getting the hang of things very quickly. This place however just confuses me.

Hi, I wanted to access the spreadsheets via the link in the "Nat-West-Claimants-New-and-or-unsure-Please-read-this" thread. If I do so, I get taken to a page on the consumerforums dot com domain. I am told on that page that I need to register in order to read more. So I log in, using the form on the left hand side of the page. I briefly get a message saying 'Thanks for logging in', and an address from the consumeractiongroup domain gets displayed. Then I am redirected to the original page, which tells me I need to register to read more. If however I click on the link which says 'Register to read more', I get another log in page and then I am taken to the main page of this forum again! It is driving me insane that I keep going around in circles. I previously downloaded some spreadsheets to calculate the compound interest from here which didn't work in OpenOffice (error messages in some of the fields with formulae, which were locked) so I was hoping that the link mentioned in my first paragraph would take me to a version that worked. I've enabled all scripts for both domains, so I don't know what I am doing wrong or if it's a bug in the system? Thanks for helping.

So, this is my second day on this forum and after having read as much information as possible, I'm ready to get the ball rolling. NatWest have taken over £1,000 from me during the last 5 years. I originally thought it was over £1,200, but some of the more recent charges might be legit, so I'll have to check that. However it is still a substantial amount for me, as I receive health-related benefits and have no income apart from what the DWP pay me. Just trying to figure out the total that they owe me, including compound interest. As I didn't get on with the spreadsheets that I've checked (error messages in certain fields), I decided to do some of the calculations myself. There are lots of online calculators for compound interest, which however only calculate the interest for one figure, so I believe I can calculate the total compound interest by adding up the compound interests for the individual months, i.e. CI(MONTH_1) for (TOTAL_DURATION) + CI(Month_2) for (TOTAL_DURATION - 1) + CI(Month_3) for (TOTAL_DURATION - 2) etc. with CI being compound interest, and TOTAL_DURATION being the number of months since the first charge, and do this calculation both for the unfair charges, as well as for the interest on those charges. Please can someone tell me if this is correct. or if I have made a logical error. Thanks in advance for any help.

Thanks, I came across the first link yesterday and downloaded the spreadsheets, but I get errors in some of the fields with formulae in them, so maybe it's an Excel/OpenOffice incompatibility (I use the latter). I think though that I've now figured out myself how to calculate the CI - sometimes I just lack faith in myself and tend to panic, until I realise that things aren't that difficult as I initially think ... Not going off-topic anymore though, but will be starting my own thread instead. With regards to the CAG toolbar I've got to say though that the only functions that seem to be working are 'Links' (and not all of them - some of them are dead links) and the two 'Web Search' buttons / drop down (which both direct me to Google, which is exactly the same as my start page button already does anyway). My password that I enter under 'Options' gets replaced each time with a much longer one (so 'New messages' presumably doesn't work without being logged in correctly) and the 'Thread' and 'News' drop down menus as well as the long one without a description don't do anything either. Am I the only one experiencing those problems? Cheers.

Not sure why it would cost money to send out an email? I used to work for a large PC manufacturer and did the selections to send out the newsletter to about 100,000 customers at a time via a program called Mail King, and it didn't cost a penny ... Was planning to donate once I have over £1,000 worth of charges back that the bank has taken from me over the last 5 years, but the whole process seems so complex that I'm not sure if I'll ever manage to figure it out (e.g. how to calculate the compound interest, which seems to make far more sense than just the standard 8%). I've downloaded the toolbar though if that helps, will have to see how I get on with it.

Thanks. I did send them a letter once asking for my right of appropriation with regards to a payment that I was expecting, but they ignored it at the time so I was p***ed off and didn't bother making any more claims after that. Unfortunately I recently found the letter as I was going through all my paperwork and threw it away so I have no proof. However I will send them a letter as described in your link just in case I ever go overdrawn again. Maybe I should also write in my claim that the fees were taken from my benefits which were intended to cover my costs of living, and therefore should have been appropriated anyway. Calculating the interest is probably very difficult unless I find out the historical APRs, as they seem to have changed at least twice since I've had my bank account. I'll probably use an average of 19%, citing that the actual overall percentage is probably higher than that but that as a gesture of goodwill I am willing to waive any amount above that Dec 2005 - Apr 2008 = ? for 28 mths Apr 2008 - Aug 2010 = 19.24% for 28 mths Aug 2010 - now = 19.89% for 1 mth, so I'm probably fairly accurate with my calculation, although maybe the bank can tell me what their APR was before Apr 2008 so I have the exact figure. I'll be starting a new thread to write about my progress. Meanwhile thanks for the support.

Hi, I've copied & pasted all my transactions into a spreadsheet. However I'm now stuck with trying to find out past APRs for overdrafts. According to their website, the current EAR (which I assume is the same as APR) has been 19.89% since 2nd August 2010. The previous EAR is stated as 19.24% from 28th April 2008. I have downloaded the spreadsheet (CompoundSheet_v1.8.xls - not sure if that is the up-to-date version?) to calculate what the bank owes me. However I can't figure out which percentage to use. There is a field at the top of the sheet for the APR, however it seems that it is changed every year or so, so I am clueless as to what figure to use, especially as I don't have the figures for the period before April '08. I have checked the forum for information on this but haven't had any success. Over the last 5 years since I have had the account, the bank has taken over £1,200 from me and as I am on benefits due to my disability, this is a huge amount of money to me! Thanks for any help with helping me to reclaim those fees.