Full story and source:- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3521761.stm Yeah, right.

Thanks for the heads up on the BOS. I'll move it. Amazingly low limits in Scotland, then but what are the rules for costs? I hoep that you don't lose but what happens if you do? Do you want to repost or continue this in the BOS?halifax forum?

Christian This is the usual kind of story but a bit more vicious than we normally hear. Have they actually closed your account or just the Internet access? If they have closed the account then of course they are probably relying on the usual contractual terms which aparently allows them to close your account at any time, at any time at their discretion. I think that there are two issues. The recovery of your £750 charges and the reinstatement of your account to its original status. The £750 shouldn't be a problem. If the money was charged by way of penalties then it is probably taken unlawfully in that the charges far outweigh the cost to the bank of your "transgressions" You should wirte the then immediatly, explain to them that the charges are unlawful penalties and tell them that you will issue proceeding wihtin 14 days of they do not repay you in full. Don't make this threat if you don't mean it. Have look at http://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk to see how you go about it. But also come back here if there is anything you are not certain about and you will get the advice and information you need. *********************************************************** The reinstatement of your account is a little more difficult. I suppose that we have to be quite open and frank to deal with these problems. The bank retains a right to close your account at any time. in fact this is an unfair term under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999. there is ahort anaysis at http://www.journalonline.co.uk/article/1001153.aspx On the other hand, this may not be an arbitrary act by the Nationwide. You have incurred a ot of penalties over the last 18 months and if the Bank can show that you have not been conducting your account correctly over a period of time, then they could argue that they had given you time and had acted as a last resort. You and I now that they are just retaliating but it it was the court believes that counts. You might be better off leaving this one alone unless you can point to sime reasonable action by the bank. For instance if you can show that it was their charges which prevented you from sorting things out and in fact it was thier unlawful charges which kept you in difficulty and caused the incurrence of further penalties, then you probably have an argument. ************************************************************* Finally, I'd like to say that it is clear in my mind at least that as the pressure builds up on the banks as more and more people start to take action, I expect that the banks wil start getting nastier. I am sure that they will imagine that a big stick will be useful to keep everyone in place. (How can they be so wrong?) Your kind of story will become more common. My own bank has now threatened to close my account if I continue to threaten them. My reaction has been to go and open new accounts with three other banks so that I have chequebooks, internet and debit cards all ready before I start my latest process (it won't be my first). My strong advice to anyone who is going to sue their bank is to get ready while you can. Open bank accounts so that it hurts as little as possible when your bank takes retaliatory action.

Store cards:- Shoppers are being overcharged £100m a year as a result of inflated interest rates on retail store cards, the UK's competition watchdog has said. The Competition Commission said there was evidence that the store card market was uncompetitive, with interest rates far higher than they should be. The watchdog said it wanted warnings on card statements to inform consumers of interest rates and late payment fees. Full story and source:- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4244242.stm

Just a thought.

A question was put up on the BankChargesHell Yahoo group which raises interesting issues. It seems that Lloyds Bank has offered to refund some excessive charges to one of their customers on condition that the customer promised not to make any compaints or to sue about similar charges in the future.. the question was whether the courts would uphold such requirement? I responded:- You can certainly contract away your right to sue on an existing issue. Lawyers call it "forbearance to sue". On the other hand you you can't use as a contractual bargaining tool something which you are required to do anyway. Lawyers call this "an existing duty". So if it can be said that the charges are unlawful and the bank should not have taken them anyway, then the argument would be that they had an existing duty to return. To agree return the charges only after they had extracted a promise not to sue seems to me to require an unenforceable promise from the customer. Another issue is whether you can agree to sacrifice future rights to sue on as yet unknown issues. I'm not sure what the answer is to this. Maybe Bob will post his view on this question.

http://money.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,16520,1602775,00.html

http://www.wards.uk.com/News_bank.html Consumer wins case over excessive bank charges - 14th October 2005 A law student has taken national bank, Abbey to court over "excessive" charges on his current account and won. Consumer groups and banking watchdogs have welcomed this victory, which could open the floodgates for similar claims from disgruntled customers and could ultimately lead to cheaper banking fees for everyone. The student entered a claim at Plymouth County Court against Abbey National bank, after being charged £64 for bouncing a direct debit twice in one month, on the grounds that the penalty was "disproportionate" to the costs incurred by the bank. Abbey failed to submit a defence to the claim and said that they have no record of having received the claim and therefore did not have the opportunity to defend themselves. This failure lead to a default judgement and the resulting court order stated that "the defendant must pay the claimant an amount which the court will decide and costs". The issue of bank charges has been brought to the fore in recent months after it was reported that banks were making over £3 billion each year from such charges. The relationship between a bank and its customers is a contractual one and, as a matter of law, one party can only recover "liquidated" damages, that is an amount that reflects the real loss caused by the other party's breach of contract. Charges for bounced payments and late payments on credit facilities can typically be between £20 and £30. Consumer groups argue that these sums are disproportionate to the loss suffered by the financial institutions, who typically send only one computer-generated letter to advise the customer of the breach and resultant charges. Such charges would therefore seem to be a "penalty" imposed because of the breach, which are not allowed in Common Law. Excessive charges can also be in breach of the Unfair Terms of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, which state that a consumer should not pay a disproportionately high amount of compensation if he or she fails to meet an obligation. The Office of Fair Trading has recently considered this issue in respect of credit card company default charges and has taken the provisional view that the level of charges imposed need to be reduced to be "fair" in accordance with regulations. The credit card company concerned will now be given time to address the issue but if the OFT does not think enough has been done, it is empowered to bring Court action, if necessary, to protect the consumer. Elizabeth Fry, Head of the Disputes team at local solicitors, Wards, says: “Although the case was won on a technicality, it is good news for the consumer. This case, together with increased pressure from consumer groups and the recent intervention of the OFT into credit company charging practices, means that it is likely that banks will need to bow to calls to review their charging practices.” http://www.wards.uk.com/News_bank.html

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http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/ If anyone has brought any complaint to the Banking Ombudsman then we'd certainly like to hear from you. Post in "General".

Bank Charges Hell was one of the first Internet movements to start campaigning against excessive bank charges:- Their Yahoo Group:- bankchargeshell : bankchargeshell But the group is now defunct Bank charges hell

Goven Law Centre in Glascow:- http://www.bankcharges.info/ Or for the Govan Law Centre home page and contact details:- http://www.govanlc.com/

The Coop touts that it is involved in ethical banking. This is to be aplauded of course. However, they still impose excessive charges for exceeding overdraft limits or for bouncing DDs and SOs. Is it true, then, that only charity starts at home. Ethics begins somewhere else.

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Apparently this number is no longer valid Save yourselves the trouble of fighting your way up the hierarchy of the Lloyds complaints process. The number of their complaints department in Birmingham is:- 00 44 121 600 3222 This is not a number which is normally given out to the public. You may well be asked where you got the number from as this department does not normally deal directly with the public. Say that you got the number from another LLoyds department and then get on with your complaint. (This is how the number was originally obtained anyway.) You will have saved many days of grueling telephone work by using this number.

The answer is yes, I do. However, it is all so energy-sapping that I may not begin straightaway. I normally leap into action but I may ask the regulator for some help first. I'm curious as to what the regulator's reaction might be.

After a DD was bounced by the bank (£30), TMobile put their own boot in by charging £23 (admin fee) for having to represent the DD. An embarrassed TMobile staff member tried to explain in general terms how this really was what it cost to represent a direct debit but said that it wasn't their policy to provide me with a more detailed account or to put this explanation in writing.

This question has come up and no one has yet given a reply as far as I can see. I don't have access to a law library at present so I can only give a generalised and unsupported response. On the other hand this may mean that my response is more understandable. The term "Consequential loss" is used to refer to losses which are not merely direct losses. In other words if you imagine a chain of events, each one being caused by the preceding one, consequential losses are those losses are those which are not the immediate result of the original causal event. (Still with me?) For instance, your bank bounces your direct debits and charges you a penalty £30 for each one. The further debit of £30 from your account results in extra overdraft interest being levied by your bank. Next month you account is now down by £30 plus interest and so you are unable to meet you mortgage payment by £30 The bank bounces your mortgage payment (and charges you £30) You mortgagee calls in your mortgage. You are evicted from your home. Your home is sold off at auction at a reduced value. The mortgagee now sues you for replyment for the outstanding ammount of the mortgage debt etc etc This tragic chain of events is perfectly likely and probably does happen several times a year. In fact if you have look at Gerard Lohan's story (posted elasewhere on this group) you will find that this is partly what has happened to him. The rule relating to consequential loss as I understand it is that you will only be able to claim for losses which are directly caused by the bank's unlawful action. I would say that this means that you would be able to recover the unlawful excessive charges and the interest levied on them but after that the bank's liabilty would probably cease. The rules seems to be that the bank will not be liable for additional problems which but for the impecuniosity of the "victim" would not exist. Let me say that this is very different from the rule which relates to claiming damages in personal injuries which is that "you take your victim as you find him". This means that if you cause harm to someone who is vulnerable then you are still liable for all of the harm that you do. That there should be such a different attitude depending on whether you cause economic harm or physical harm seems very unfair. This difference exists because the courts have always felt that physical injuries are easily discernible and measurable whereas claims for economic losses are less measurable and more open to abuse. However, English Law develops and changes as a result of new circumstances and new arguments being presented to the courts and which satisfies the judge as being a reasonable and not contradictory posiiton to take. The existing law could be distinguished from our present problem of excessive bank charges on two grounds:- The existing rule of consqeuential economic loss presupposes a breach of contract which is not caused by some unlawful act by the defendant. However, in the case of excessive charges, it is clearly the banks who are acting unlawfully in flagrant disregard of well established rules of reasonableness of terms of contracts. Unreasonable terms are invalid. Everyone knows this. (Even the banks know it and so does the OFT) In the case such as I have given above, the customer's impecuniosity is clearly caused by the bank. The conventional rule of consequential economic loss is based on the idea that the plaintiff was already in a poor financial state and that the contractual breach merely triggered the economic problems. What should you conlcude from this? Well you can conclude that you might want to try claiming your additional losses from the bank. You have some nice sounding arguments on your side but on the other hand it will be hard work and you can be certain that the banks will want to move it up the court hieracrchy to test your arguments as fully as possible. You then become faced with the risk of costs if you lose. The banks would be very likley to fight t

am very curious to know whether bank charges are subject to VAT? I imagine that if they are just penalties and accurately reflect the losses incurred by the banks when bouncing a DD or bearing an unauthorised overdraft, then they might not be VATable. However if the charge really is the fee charged by the bank for providing a service - as some of the banks somtimes say - then surely there must be a VAT element included within the charge. If not, then why not. Why would these charges be zero rated? If they are VATable then has anyone received a properly prepared VAT invoice? The point of this question is that If the charges VATable then it is scarcely imaginable that the banks are not paying it. They don't make these kinds of mistakes. On the other hand, maybe stranger things have happened. What interests me is that if the charges are VATable then I would expect that they would be required to issue VAT receipts and at present they don't do this. To require VAT receipts would be a good way of obtaining from any Bank the entire histoory of overdraft and interest charges going back a long way without having to resort to Data Protection or having to pay for bank statements. If the charges are not VATable, could this be that the banks have represented them to C&E as being true penalties? If so then we should be entitled to know about it. If the charges are more than penalties and thereofre contribute to the profit made by the banks then why are the not VATable and surely receipts should be given. This thread needs someone knowledgeable about VAT to respond to it.

This forum is intended merely as a reference list of cases which have actually been started. If you want to discuss what is happening or you want some help then please post in one of the other forums. Please supply your claim details to one of the moderators and then check back a day or so later to see that they have been entered. Please do NOT send details to more than one Moderator. If you find that your details have not been entered after a day or two, please just send a reminder to the original recipient... Please supply your details in the form in which they are entered into this section so that we only have to cut and paste. Use your username - not your real name.. The following format would be ideal; username v Bank Name Claim number: 2QZ22222 Issued: 2.10.06 Court: MCOL** Charges: £1,234.00 Interest: £234.00 Costs: £120 Total Claim: £1588.00 **MCOL is MoneyClaim OnLine - if you start a court action 'in person' then please name the court you used If you have a progress update, please supply the link to a moderator so that we can click directly to your case. It is vital that you notify us of a settlement or Judgment as these cases can be used to help other users. Please contact admin or a moderator to bring your listing up-to-date. There is no need to post your own name here. However, you may be approached by an administrator of the Bank action Group to disclose this information privately.