Thanks sharmads Luckily for me I paid the balance in full today including the £32 charge:mad: so no more dealings with them. The loan was interest free so gonna just look at it as a bit of interest! Also will prob ignore the £39 charge with halifax. Have had good luck lately with them so will look to this charge as my last and put it down to a one off fee for all the times I've gone overdrawn etc etc. Extortianate I agree, but just gonna try and enjoy the bank holiday now.

Bump Anyone know anything about credit agreements with other finacial institutions (Hitachi Capital) and how they stand in court with regards to charges? Dont think I will ask for my £39 charge back from the bank. They refunded £69 last night so perhaps I am pushing it. What would you do?

Bump Could do with some help on this one guys. Have just had to pay a £32 charge for returned DD to Hitachi capital. I asked for a breakdown of how they came to this charge which was refused. Lady on phone said that I didn't have a leg to stand on in court as I signed a credit agreement. Is this correct? Any help greatly appreciated

I thought our sofa loan ended last month, but I got it wrong and did not leave the money in the account for them yesterday. OOps. Had a lovely £39 charge from the bank for unpaid DD and now just looking at my paperwork ahve noticed that Hitachi may do the same with £30 charge. Can they do this? Or can I say "see ya in court?"

Just took your advice at this late hour and they have refunded the full £69, Great. However there is another charge applied tomorrow for £39 so will have to call again but don't hold out much hope. Phew ! Things will finally get back to normal next month with all our debt paid off but until then its these little `poor' weeks that hold us back. 2nd Question. My final loan payment for my sofa did not go through yesterday and was not represented today (when it would have cleared), just looking at agreement and it says that they will charge me £30 for DD return even if I call them after Easter Break and pay over the phone. If they ask for it, shall I tell them to get stuffed and I'll see them in court, or can comapnies such as Hitachi Capital do this?

Looks like you will have to go through with the court claim now. I think the postal service may have let them down here and that you were meant to get that letter on or just before your deadline which would have saved you the hassle of court. I held out for another two days after my last 14 expired and sure enough the letter arrived. 1 quick call and it was sorted. Sorry that didn't happen with you, may give them a boot up the bum to get the letters out a bit quicker or otherwise it costs them more. Look on the brightside, it may be more hassle but at least you will get a few extra pennies back.

Help! Successfully claimed back £651 earlier this week but now I have more bank charges! They charged me £39 for not paying a £9.20 DD and £30 for paying a debit card payment of £22. All in all I went £22 overdrawn for approx 12 hours when I realised I had miscalulated and paid some money in. So for being overdrawn for a few hours for less than £25 I got £69 bank charges Have people claimed a second time? I'm not at all happy about this and would have expected a little bit of leniency for a few hours. But I do not want my account being closed either. Looks like another prelim letter is on its way!

On a more serious note (and from a Jock)!!!! What an eye opener ey? When they said [about bank charges] "We will automatically refund a customer with £5000 savings in his bank because he is worthy to us" it REALLY made me think. Yet again the "small man" so to speak has to pay and get ripped off. 15 yrs banking with numerous accounts and policies obviously means f*** all to the banks. I dont have £5k savings because we pay an over the top mortgage with a young baby, both work all the hours God sends, and have to scrimp and save in "rip off Britain" and dare I say it.......we are working class! Now I dont feel at all bad about claiming back my £651, because I must confess, I did slightly before. I know the show never mentioned HBOS, but I cant help thinking that they are all the same!

Settled in full with HBOS for £651 after rejecting offer of £476 by telephone. All the staff have been great in the process, very helpful and polite; and this site has been a godsend! Did not go to court as agreement reached before that. Many thanks to everyone, donation on its way. 05/01/07 SAR 14/02/07 Statements recieved (exactly 40 days) 15/02/07 Prelim letter 29/02/07 LBA 13/03/07 Offer of £476 (rejected by telephone call) 17/03/07 Offer of £651 (entire claim/accepted) Happy St Patricks day!

Hate to put a downer on you, but we lived in our overdraft of £500 and after recieving our prelim letter asking for £623 the bank withdrew our overdraft with just 24hours notice. We had to desperately beg relatives and friends to lend us the money asap which they kindly did. Then the bank retained my card even though I was in credit! They said it was an error and sent a new one but the customer service lady had already made a blip by telling me that head office had ordered it, so clearly not a mistake! Just be prepared.

Well how is this for an update! To recap in brief, Halifax gave us 24hrs to find £500 as they said they were withdrawing our overdraft facility (decision made in week when Prelim letter sent!). Managed to borrow the money putting our account back into credit. Went to cashpoint yesterday to withdraw £10 when the my card was retained! Called bank who said that it should not have happened. If I had insufficient funds then it would simply have said so. She said cards are only retained if the account is in default or managed extremely badly, which mine is not and she agreed with me. Then she noticed that there was a note on my account (she called it flagging for the second time) and said that head office had ordered the card to be retained! She spoke to a manager who agreed this was wrong and must have been a mistake:cool: so new card being sent out. I don't think so somehow! I call it dirrrrrrty tricks

Here Here!!!!! Just got another £28 charge today! Yippee:p I just don't understand why they dont listen. They keep saying if you want to discuss anything then call, we call but get met with a computer decision. Its crazy and bloody greedy! Do you know, my step daughter has just been hit with a £30 charge from Barclays for going £5.20 overdrawn. Apparantly she went 20p over the recommended £5! Shocking!

That might be a good idea, but you'll still have to pay it back!!!! My LBA goes out tomorrow with new added charges. Not sure what they are yet as the Internet Banking has been down all day, but I was overdrawn for most of the morning, so who knows? Managed to borrow some money and actually quite glad that the bloomin' overdraft has gone, just hope that they don't close my account as they have been doing according to the TV reports. I'm just shocked at how inflexible they are:evil: This all began because we were skint whilst I was on maternity! Now I'm back to work, things are fine, but the bank charges have spiralled out of control:o All we asked for was to hold off on any charges for 24hrs whilst my husbands salary was sorted out, 'the computer said no' so here we are! Claiming £623................Madness.

OH I SIGNED!!!!!

Hey ya! Nothing in writing, just a friendly voice advising otherwise! (which apparantly never happened). Let it be known that they can do this and it needs no warning or no previous promise. I tried appealing but HBOS said that my account had been flagged and that it was strongly advised my account should carry an overdraft of £0.00! Mangaged to borrow £600 off friends but not until next week. Was going to settle for £600 (Off HBOS)but now want the full £623 "MMWWHHHAAAA":lol:

We called the bank last friday to double check that our arranged overdraft of £500 would be renewed on monday, "Of course" they said "No problem, blah blah blah" Then yesterday we were told that 'Management' had requested that it be stopped with immediate effect:-x . No explanation given, but I have to find £500 to cover my Direct Debits in less than 24hrs. Help! Strange coincidence methinks that it coincides with them recieving my prelim letter asking for £623 in bank charges! So they are playing dirty eh? Quick question. I'm bound to encounter charges over the next 3 days as I just can't find this money with the click of a finger, my LBA is due to go out tomorrow. Shall I just send it and make a fresh claim for said bank charges? Or wait for charges and add these, then send LBA off later? Help!

Similar to me last year. Had a batch of about £200 last September. Nine phonecalls later and no luck, so I wrote a letter and got the lot refunded within 24hrs! Lets hope that it happens again this time. Congratulations RTS.

They have until the 5th of March, IMO this is the day you will get them or the next working day.

Identical to mine except I am two days ahead of you. I sent S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) on the 5th Jan (which was a friday), the 40 days expired yesterday and I recieved them at about 2pm! I too had the letter (mine was on 22nd Jan), I called after 10 days and spoke to a rather abrupt lady who said that I shouldn't call them until the 40 days had expired. I explained that their letter asked me to call, but she cut me off and reminded me about the 40 days. So I waited patiently and they arrived. I reckon that you will get yours tomorrow (sat) or at the very latest monday. Good luck and keep posting, interesting to see someone at the same stage as me.

I recieved my statements this afternoon after sending my SAR on January 5th. I worked out that with reasonable postage time the deadline would have been friday but it is actually 40 days today!

Right I think I've done it from an old bookmark that I saved because I couldn't find link to vampiresses spreadsheets! Ho Hum! Calmed down a bit now. Was raring to go a few weeks ago after nights upon nights of research, but the bank took exactly 40 days for statements, so I've lost my steam a bit and forgotten alot! Looks like its back to the red wine and late nights at the PC again!

:-x I just cant do the spreadsheet for initial schedule of charges. Have tried them all but my PC wont allow me to write anything in any of the cells. Can I just write out my own list on a word document please before I kill someone?

Yes there is a template that you can use. Remember that you are doing this your way, so by all means send the acceptance of partial offer but stick to your 28 days (Prelim + LBA), they will probably not pay out what they offered you anyway when you refuse it as final offer. Therefore unless the full amount has been offered before the 28 days is up, then you must proceed to the next step which is court action.

Yes that does make perfect sense. As long as it doesn't affect what i believe to be a straightforward claim!

Thank you, that was a major help. For the first time, I almost understand it (its what I guessed it was)! So hopefully no show down in court!