I had problems with Capital One, four years ago, resulting in them calling in a DCA called Newman & Co, (a particularly nasty bunch of .....!) After much harrassment, I managed to reduce the amount owing to about £1400, at which point Capital One agreed to accept 70% in short settlement.This I paid, although my credit file shows the default as partially settled. Accordingly, in February, I wrote to Capital One with the Library letter, requesting a refund of penalty charges and DPA request. Last week I received a reply from Lee Powell, Executive Office Manager, saying:" ....we add an automatic late payment fee of £20 to your account if your payment hasn't reached us by the date we give on your statement. We also add an overlimit fee if your account goes over your agreed credit limit. Our fees are in line with other banks and financial institutions and I'm afraid when you signed your credit agreement, you agreed to them.............. unfortunately, the fees we've added are correct and I'm afraid I won't be refunding them to you. However, as your account is partially settled (so far as I was concerned, it was FULLY settled ), you don't need to pay back the remaining balance." He goes on to suggest I send my DPA request and £10 to a Katherine Blunt and finishes by saying,".....Once again, I'm sorry you feel our fees are unfair. However, I hope I've explained things clearly and you can now put this behind you," On Monday, the following should hit his desk: Thank you for your patronising reply to my recent letter, in which I sought re-imbursement of the unlawful and punitive charges applied to the above account, It interested me to note that you seem unable to justify the level of your charges, other than by comparison with other banks. I feel sure that, should I suffer the misfortune of being robbed in the street, the mugger would justify his actions by declaring them to be in line with those of other thieves. You are, of course, correct, in that I did sign your credit agreement, and I accept that, in making late payments and going over my credit limit I was in breach of contract. I can only quote from my original letter: "these charges are punitive in nature, not a genuine pre-estimate of cost and not intended to re-imburse your losses for a breach of contract occuring. There are numerous cases in law that prove that punitive charges are UNENFORCEABLE at English Law." Thank you also for reminding me of the default showing on my credit file. I shall, of course, request that the court sanction the removal of this with immediate effect. As suggested, I have written to Ms Blunt with my request for DPA information, and, when I receive this, I am sure you will not mind if I write to you again with a letter before action, in which I shall be able to quote the actual amount I will be seeking in re-imbursement. I know this isn't the answer you were looking for, but since you have clearly failed to explain the justification for your bank's unfair penalty charges, I will only be able to "put it behind me", when I receive full re-payment. Yours etc....... i][/i]

Thanks, Money. I've now written to Stuart Johnson along the lines suggested by Nightmare, but I'd be most interested to know the outcome of your telephone conversation.

Thanks, Nightmare. (hope I'm not being presumptious!) I quite like the thought of writing to Mr Johnson, particularly since I don't want them to think they are frightening or fobbing me off, and I lack the courage to speak to them, plus, of course, I would be keeping the dialogue on my terms and maintaining the initiative. I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks Bookworm, I'll take your advice!

Used the Library letter and Dpa request in respect of my Visa and Mastercard accounts with the above. Received the following letter today from Rachel Nixon (Customer Advocate Officer): "Thank you for your recent letter, please accept my apologies for the delay in responding (to) you. We are currently investigating your complaint and will respond in full before 29th March 2006. However, it is my utmost intention to resolve this matter to your satisfaction and I would appreciate if you could telephone my colleague Stuart Johnson, Customer Assistance Manager on the above telephone number between 8am and 5pm, Monday to Friday." I wondered if anyone else had spoken to Mr Johnson, or had any advice to offer?

Received a letter, this morning, from an un-named individual at "Collections and Recoveries Concerns"................ "I was most concerned to learn of your complaint following your recent communication. (Library letter and DPA request) I've arranged for a member of my Customer Concerns team to carry out an immediate investigation, so that you will receive a full response from us.Because of the issues you've raised,, it may take a little time to gather all the information together, but we will respond to you within 15 days." On Monday, I intend to send the following reply: I appreciate your concerns, but would respectfully suggest that, were they as grave and well-founded as mine, you would acquiesce to an immediate refund of all the penalty charges arbitrarily imposed on my account within the last six years, as per my original demand. I notice that you have made no mention of my request, under the Data Protection Act, for an exhaustive list of all charges applied to this account over the past six years. In addition, and under the terms of the same Act, I would like to request a list of all occasions when manual intervention has been used to apply or cancel charges to my account. If no such manual intervention has taken place, then please confirm this, in writing. Also, again under the terms of the DPA, I would like to request a copy of the original contract between the TSB, as it then was, and myself, made, I believe in 1983 or thereabouts. Have I missed anything out? Is there anything else I should do,or just wait until they send me the statements, etc.?

That would be fine! Please let me know their response, and, if appropriate, address details,etc.

Gentlemen, you are doing the work of Heroes, and if buying you some Law books means that I, myself, won't need to spend time trying to digest them, I think it is the very least the rest of us could do. However, (there's always a catch!), as you suggested, some of us don"t have credit cards, debit cards or even Cheque books, so purchasing Amazon vouchers is impossible. Is there any other means of getting financial help to you? As a gesture of thanks for the renewed sense of optimism you have given me, plus the knowledge that I am not the only victim of the Bank's profiteering and intransigence, I feel deeply indebted to you. ( More than I do to the Banks, anyway!)

Thank you waynus for reminding me how fortunate I am, am I not. I probably won't sleep tonight thinking how unfairly I am treating the banks. Seriously, (I assume you ARE joking) your comments have already been answered far more succinctly than ever I could, by dave and dammam under the very apposite topic, "Am I stupid or just missing the point". Thanks Guys.

[Have you got access to your orignal contract? Did you ask for it in your DPA request?quote] No on both counts. I'm about to send a letter asking for a copy as a DPA request. Not sure that I understand the significance of having this.

[Have you got access to your orignal contract? Did you ask for it in your DPA request?quote] No on both counts. I'm about to send a letter asking for a copy as a DPA request. Not sure that I understand the significance of having this.

Spent the last few days going through literally hundreds of statements and bank letters, and guess what? Over the last six years I seem to have incurred penalty charges and\or admin. fees from: Alliance & Leicester HSBC Capital One Halifax MBNA Accordingly I have sent off the downloaded letter and DPA request by recorded delivery to each one. If I have to issue Court proceedings against each or all of them, is it possible\adviseable\preferable to do this individually or collectively? (I am assuming the total will be less than £5000.) Once again, thanks for the support.

Spent the last few days going through literally hundreds of statements and bank letters, and guess what? Over the last six years I seem to have incurred penalty charges and\or admin. fees from: Alliance & Leicester HSBC Capital One Halifax MBNA Accordingly I have sent off the downloaded letter and DPA request by recorded delivery to each one. If I have to issue Court proceedings against each or all of them, is it possible\adviseable\preferable to do this individually or collectively? (I am assuming the total will be less than £5000.) Once again, thanks for the support.

What!!!!!!!!!! Be able to claim back unfair penalties over 23 years????????? If only it were possible! Can you imagine the time Lloyds would have to spend digging out all those microfiches? Can you imagine the cost of posting all those statements? Can you imagine how much it would cost them in repaying all that taken money?('')('')('') It's almost enough to make me feel sorry for them. (not really!) It's so long since I opened my account, I'm not sure what my original contract would look like to find it. Unfortunately, in common with many people, my filing skills are not very highly developed,which is probably how I came to have so much trouble with the bank in the first place. I always trusted them to get things right and to operate ethically and correctly. (WHAT A FOOL!!!) If it is important, perhaps I could ask the bank for a copy of the original by quoting the Data Protection Act at them? Any chance, do you think?

What!!!!!!!!!! Be able to claim back unfair penalties over 23 years????????? If only it were possible! Can you imagine the time Lloyds would have to spend digging out all those microfiches? Can you imagine the cost of posting all those statements? Can you imagine how much it would cost them in repaying all that (edit)money?('')('')('') It's almost enough to make me feel sorry for them. (not really!) It's so long since I opened my account, I'm not sure what my original contract would look like to find it. Unfortunately, in common with many people, my filing skills are not very highly developed,which is probably how I came to have so much trouble with the bank in the first place. I always trusted them to get things right and to operate ethically and correctly. (WHAT A FOOL!!!) If it is important, perhaps I could ask the bank for a copy of the original by quoting the Data Protection Act at them? Any chance, do you think?

At last!! Having found your site I feel as though I've come home! I've been a "customer" of Lloyds TSB for 23 years, and for most of that time I've been made to feel like a naughty schoolboy, or a cretin who was incapable of coping with the simple task of his own financial management. My problems with TSB (as it then was) began when I was working out of the country for a six month period, having set up an additional standing order to cover payments to a further advance on my Mortgage (with Alliance & Leicester). In my absence the bank paid the second standing order, but cancelled the first, rather than paying the two in tandem. On my return, I discovered that I had been served a repossession order by the Building Society and that my instructions to my then partner to feel free to spend whatever money was left in the current account at the end of the month had been obeyed to the letter! Needless to say on reproaching TSB, I was told that I should have made sure there was enough money left in the account to cover the payments which were not made. This was in 1988, ( you remember, 15% interest rates et al.) Thus began a 15 year struggle to fight repeated threats of repossession and enough letters from the bank to paper the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (and Buckingham Palace, etc.) Why do I stay with them??? Because, of course, as a consequence of a poor credit rating I've been unable to open another bank account. However, even a worm can turn, and ,having read your forum, I've decided the time for action has arrived. I've prepared a letter (copied from your library) which will be posted tomorrow, and though I feel terrified at the prospect, I'm determined to go through with this to the bitter end. I'm not sure how it will be possible to manage if they make me close my account but my anger is such that it is a risk that I am prepared to take. May I thank you and all your correspondents for providing the inspiration to do something about a situation which has caused me despair for many, many years

At last!! Having found your site I feel as though I've come home! I've been a "customer" of Lloyds TSB for 23 years, and for most of that time I've been made to feel like a naughty schoolboy, or a cretin who was incapable of coping with the simple task of his own financial management. My problems with TSB (as it then was) began when I was working out of the country for a six month period, having set up an additional standing order to cover payments to a further advance on my Mortgage (with Alliance & Leicester). In my absence the bank paid the second standing order, but cancelled the first, rather than paying the two in tandem. On my return, I discovered that I had been served a repossession order by the Building Society and that my instructions to my then partner to feel free to spend whatever money was left in the current account at the end of the month had been obeyed to the letter! Needless to say on reproaching TSB, I was told that I should have made sure there was enough money left in the account to cover the payments which were not made. This was in 1988, ( you remember, 15% interest rates et al.) Thus began a 15 year struggle to fight repeated threats of repossession and enough letters from the bank to paper the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (and Buckingham Palace, etc.) Why do I stay with them??? Because, of course, as a consequence of a poor credit rating I've been unable to open another bank account. However, even a worm can turn, and ,having read your forum, I've decided the time for action has arrived. I've prepared a letter (copied from your library) which will be posted tomorrow, and though I feel terrified at the prospect, I'm determined to go through with this to the bitter end. I'm not sure how it will be possible to manage if they make me close my account but my anger is such that it is a risk that I am prepared to take. May I thank you and all your correspondents for providing the inspiration to do something about a situation which has caused me despair for many, many years