Is it OK to send the standard LBA template letter to their template response or should the LBA address the points they raise in their letter? A friend of mine got the following reply to her Preliminary letter - Thank you for getting in touch with us. I am sorry you are unhappy about your account charges. Like any business, we do make a charge for some of our extra services. When customers don't have enough in their accounts to cover a payment, this always means extra work-abd it has to happen very quickly. We have to agree to make the payment by setting up or increasing an overdraft, or tell customers we can't agree it. We feel it's fair to charge for this service. Of course it's only fair too, that we're completely open about any charged for services before you might need them. That's why we take care to give every new customer the latest guide to our charges. You can also get up to date details about fees and borrowing rates at all our branches, through out helpline and on our website. Just as importantly, we do everything we can to help our customers avoid these charges. You can get an up-to-date balance at any of our cash machines, over the phone, online and by weekly text to your mobile. If you know a payment is going to take you over your agreed limit, you're welcome to see if there's anything we can do. The Office of Fair Trading has published new guidelines on credit card defuault charges. We're still talking it through with them, but the important point is that the guidelines are about 'default' charges that people pay when they break an agreement with us. This doesn't apply to your charges as these were for dealing with your request to go over your agreed overdraft limit. They are not default charges because you haven't broken your agreement. They are prices for the service we provide in these situations. I understand that you may also have some concerns about us sharing information about your relationship with us with the credit reference agencies we use. I'd like to reassure you that this does not apply to bank charges; we only share what is known as white data, which is information about payments to your credit card, loan or mortgage accounts. I do hope you can see that we make our charging system as fair as possible-and why I can't agree to cancel your charges. I hope this fully answers the points you raised with us. Please let me know if there is anything else i can do to help. If we cannot come to an agreement, I will provide you with the details of the Financial Omsbudsman Service so they can consider your complait independently. If you are happy with the way I have dealt with your complaint, there is no need for you to reply to my letter. If I have not heard from you by the 29 May 2007 I will close my file, though of course I will re-open it should you come back at any point afterwards Yours sincerely Alan Groves Customer Service Recovery Centre Andover Would this reply be OK? - Dear Mr. Groves, ACCOUNT NUMBER: xxxxxxxx I write in response to your letter dated xx xx xxxx. I’m afraid I don’t agree that the charges are for a service you provide and still maintain that they are ‘default charges’ which are unlawful at Common Law, Statute and recent Consumer regulations. It is my belief that you are attempting to disguise these charges; a practice that the OFT report addresses in s4.21 of their report. I would draw your attention to the terms of the contract which you agreed to at the time that I opened my account. It is an implied term of that contract that you would conduct yourselves lawfully and in a manner which complies with UK law. I am frankly shocked that you have operated my account in this way as I had always reposed confidence in your integrity and expertise as my fiduciary. I calculate that you have now taken £xxxx. I am enclosing an updated copy of the schedule of the charges which I am claiming. I am also claiming back the £10.00 Data Protection Act Subject Access Request fee. This brings the total to £xxxx I require repayment in full of this money. If you do not comply fully within 14 days then I shall begin a claim against you for the full amount plus interest plus my costs and without further notice. Yours sincerely,

Just adding to say that I know the next step would normally be to issue an LBA, but I notice this is only usually done if they've offered a part settlement. As all my charges are £16 (no £20 charges), there's no difference to offer. Should I send them a letter asking for a full breakdown of their estimate, and how they arrive at £16? I'd really appreciate some advice here, thanks

Anyone, please?

Had this reply from Egg today after sending a request for repayment and a schedule of charges - Re: Request for repayment of charges — Account number... Thank you for your letter dated 16 April 2007. 1. Your Credit Card agreement (‘the Agreement”) with Egg Banking plc (“Egg”) clearly states that charges will be added to your account if you exceed your Credit Limit or fail to make your contractual payments. In accordance with condition 7 of the Agreement, a charge of £20 (or since August 2006, a reduced charge of £16) has been added to your account each time you exceeded your Credit Limit or failed to make a payment. 2. Egg does not believe that the terms and conditions of the Agreement are in any way unlawful or unfair. Egg recognises that customers sometimes exceed their Credit Limit and/or fail to make a payment and has systems and proccesses in place to deal with this. These include the use of computer systems, staff and necessary costs. The charges set out in condition 7 of the Agreement are calculated by taking risks into account the costs incurred by Egg in maintaining these systems and proccesses and dividing the sum by the estimated number of customers who will exceed their Credit limit or fail to make payments. These charges therefore represent a genuine pre-estimate of the loss caused to Egg by customers who break the terms of their Agreement. 3. Egg takes steps to help you avoid incurring charges. For example, the Agreement requires you to maintain a direct debit to make your monthly payment so that you won't miss a payment accidentally. You can avoid inadvertently going over your credit limit by checking your account on egg.com at any time. 4. If you have any concerns relating to information held about you by a Credit Reference Agency you should contact the agency directly. Egg uses the following agencies: a) Equifax (Equifax File Centre, P0 Box 1140, Bradford, BD1 5US) b) Experian (P0 Box 8000, Nottingham, NG1 5EX) c) Call Credit (1 Park Lane, Leeds, LS3 1EP) If there is anything in this letter that you wish to discuss or needs further explanation, please don’t hesitate to contact me using the contact details at the side of this letter. Alternatively my direct number is 08007 834 393 ext 6156. You now have six months from the date of our resolution to take your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service — further details are available on www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk. A copy of their leaflet is available, so please contact us if you would like one sent to you. Yours sincerely Ema Clayton Customer Relations Adviser Egg plc The amount I'm claiming back is only £100 so I'd expected them to pay up pretty easily. Does anyone have any advice as to what I should do next? Send them an LBA? Would appreciate any advice.

Just a quick question - would appreciate any help. I'm helping someone reclaim their charges and noticed they have lots of charges for stopping a cheque. The charge is only £10 but they'd amount to a couple of hundred I think. Would they be able to claim these back? I noticed that the bank have refunded a couple of them already.

Thank you. I felt sure it was 40 days from the date it was received, but just wanted to check that to be double sure! Non-compliance letter in the post tomorrow...

I've just come off the phone from Barclaycard for exactly the same reason. I sent a request on Feb 13th and it was received by them on the 14th which means that their 40 days is over. The girl I just spoke to told me that the 40 days counts from when my request was processed. Apparently, they didnt start dealing with it until March 1st, so she says it'll be 40 days from then. I told her I didn't think this was correct, but could someone please confirm. Is it 40 days from when the letter was received, or 40 days from when they start dealing with it? Any advice would be much appreciated.

I'm in Carmarthen. It's not too far from Barmouth. Used to holiday there every year as a child. A week in a tent with a bucket to scoop out the rain as it came in!

Thank you dickeggsy. I'll get that off in the morning

Settled in full The money's now cleared in my account. Could someone please give me some advice on what to say in the letter to the court to tell them Barclays have settled? I've seen links to a template but can't find them now that I need it.

Well, I'm not celebrating just yet. I'll wait until the money's clear in my account first Just a quick question. Hope someone can advise me. Someone I know who's claiming back her bank charges, and has just sent the Prelim letter has since had a pile of charges applied to her account. Is she able to alter the figure at the next stage (presuming they don't settle right away, the next stage would be to start court proceedings), or would she have to start a new case for these latest charges? I would have thought that as the court isn't involved yet, that she'd be able to alter the amount so early into the process. No?

Yes, I included the schedule of charges. I've spoken to them again and pointed out that although I hadn't included the interest in the total cost of the claim, it was stated in my POC, and they've now agreed to pay the whole lot They'd also sent a settlement offer to my partner minus the interest, so I pointed that out and they said they'd alter that too.

Barclays legal department phoned a little while ago, and it looks like I messed up! They're willing to pay the costs, which total £935, but they say they won't pay the interest as I hadn't included it in my total for the claim. I did however state that I'd be claiming interest in the POC (and how much it was on the day the claim was made), but only put the actual costs in the total. I thought that was the right thing to do as the interest would be changing daily. Where do I stand on this? I'd rather not lose the £350 interest! Should I keep on until they pay the whole lot with interest, or do I not have a leg to stand on, and just accept the charges and costs alone?

Ah OK. I'm just going by my experience with Barclays, who have been pretty good this week when I called them to discuss settlemen. they seemed more than happy to talk. Thanks for all the advice - I think I'll just get her to sign the letters and see how we go. Thanks again x

Thanks for the replies. I'm aware that most cases don't make it as far as court, and the only reason I'd want permission to act on her behalf is in case there was any need to speak to the bank at any time (e.g. to sort settlement over the phone). She'd crumble if she had to do that!