Quickest cave-in EVER?! I am actually shaking... Notice of Issue arrived in the post today - claim issued on 22nd September , deemed to be served 24th, they have until 9th October to reply. IN THE SAME BATCH OF POST a letter from Halifax "without admission of liability" blah-di-blah willing to reimburse... the lot. All £1,311 bank charges, the £146 interest I laboriously calculated, and the £120 court fee, which as I applied for remission I presume I will have to give to the court. And they've promised to credit it within the next five working days. Revenge is sweet, and not fattening There will be a Christmas this year! I will let you all know if they are true to their word and send the money, but that really was rapid. I was expecting them to put up at least a token fight, but I presume they're just getting so many now they're not even bothering. "Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans..." One very happy Desideratist

Maybe so, but even if they had been left on a table somewhere, someone else who found them would have gone "oh, a stray set of notes I'd better put them back in file". Notes don't stay on desks for long - not enough desk space.

OK the forms are in. Applied for Remission also. We'll see what happens.

I'm not sure I'd want an overdraft any more, to be honest. I used to be with Lloyds, many moons ago when they were just Lloyds - nice understanding bank manager who knew I temped for a living (at the time) and therefore knew that some weeks I was working and some weeks I didn't - and only got paid when I worked - so needed to be "tided over" every now and then. He rang me the day after my birthday when I was on holiday in Bavaria, I remember it well; he was all apologetic. Turned out some bigwig from head office had decided I was too underpaid for a £500 overdraft facility and took it away then and there. Immediate repayment. Nice bank manager left Lloyds soon after that, and so did I.

I think the problem is that most hospital outgoing calls are routed through a switchboard as they don't usually have a "direct line" to every single extension - therefore no "definite" number to display. When I get this problem I call our switchboard and they can patch it through somehow - not sure how, but they can.

I believe it's the very fact that they have to keep records safe that causes all the problems. Medical records are good old fashioned paper folders - less likely to crash like computer records do, and (despite what has unfortunately happened to you) harder to lose - imagine a desk covered in them...you can't miss them. Hospitals also have to keep records for a long time - which means all hospitals have rooms literally stuffed with thousands of these folders - some of which are people that haven't been seen in decades. These are all kept in order, but are often going in and out all the time - different departments being involved in care all wanting to see the notes etc. Likely a "misfile" - being put in the wrong place on the shelves by mistake, or tucked in someone else's notes, these sorts of things could happen. The fact that the hospital has written formally to say they're missing means that someone will have had a good look round to find them - speaking as an NHS employee, losing records is not good and if things go AWOL we'll look in all the likely places and then the unlikely ones as well looking for a missing set. However, misfiles happen, sadly. We're only human. It may be worth contacting your GP - your doctor may well have been kept informed about how the consultation with your wife went, and should have some records (a letter from the consultant, usually, or discharge summary, that kind of thing). Blood test results are kept on computer as well as printed out (well they are at my hospital, anyway). As far as the Data Protection Act goes I don't know. They will probably say they can't do anything more, if the hospital did whatever they could to find the missing notes. A new set will have been made up, and I would imagine that the consultant will have written something in there to say the "story so far". And missing notes often "turn up" if a filing clerk finds them in the wrong place on a shelf or some such, so hopefully they will reappear. Sorry I can't be more help, but you've been very unlucky.

Yeah I had this - worked out over the weekend that I would go overdrawn on Monday so the boyfriend put money directly into my account by Internet banking before work so that it would clear immediately. So it did, according to my bank statement. Still the 39 pound bounce charge though. When I rang them to point this out, that according to my statement I had always had the money for the thing that went out on Monday, they told me that the money going out clears before the money going in (thereby earning a bit more for them, presumably) and so for a gnats whisker of time I was overdrawn by about ten pounds. So they charged me. Even though according to the statement the money had gone in in time. Desi

Lol I was moving further and further west as money got tighter... Falmer to Hollingdean to Seven Dials to Westdene to West Hove to Portslade... skipped Worthing. I've actually done things from various sites - did most of the form from bankchargeshell.co.uk but they're giving the same kind of advice so hopefully things should go fairly smoothly. I thought I'd join the forum for the metaphorical hand-holding. To be honest I hope it does go to court. One good test case...

Very long-winded biography, apologies: Since March 2003 the Halifax has seen fit to charge me over £1,300 in charges. A particular highlight – if you can call it that – was July 2005, in which I was charged a total of £214 in the space of one month, nearly a quarter of my monthly net pay. At that time I was living in Brighton and paying £750 a month in rent – I’m sure you can do the maths! This with only a week’s notice every time, and when you get paid monthly, what can you do? So they take what money I have… the bills bounce… everyone else starts threatening to take me to court. Mind you, the other companies I owe money to have the decency to give me a reasonable amount of notice and arrange repayment options based on what I can afford, whereas the bank just help themselves to the contents of my bank account without any thought as to the effect this may have on me, my ability to have even a basic standard of living, and my financial situation. Because of divorce a few years ago and the financial difficulties from that (suddenly go from housewife with a house and a part-time job to half a houseworth of money and having to support myself), I am limited to what is known as a “basic bank account” - I am not permitted to have a loan or overdraft, so if the outgoings outweigh the wages, as they do sometimes to us all, I’m sure, most people would arrange an overdraft or loan but I just have to watch everything bounce and get charged £39 a week later. Of course, the vicious circle then starts, with bank charges begetting more bank charges, sending me further into debt. I’ve written a number of times to ask for loans, overdrafts, different bank account but every time a refusal, and I stopped doing that when I found out this is likely to make your credit rating even worse. I’m lucky now to have a new boyfriend (who to compound it all was made redundant and is now studying for a different career) and my own flat – it’s a struggle to make ends meet and once all the bills are paid it leaves me about 20 pounds a week for food and household bits and bobs, and 50 pounds a month for enjoying myself with – unless of course the car breaks down or some such, or the bank charges me again… the boiler has been broken for four months so over the summer we’ve had the heating off and been boiling the kettle to wash up. Shower and washing machine are electric, thankfully. It’s going to get nippy soon, though. I, at least, am in full-time employment, but I dread to think how much this must be for people even nearer the poverty line than me. It is almost impossible to live in this modern world without a bank account, but ironically if I didn’t have one I’d be over a thousand pounds better off… This whole system seems to be a cynical money-farming exercise, designed to keep low-income customers constantly overdrawn, in order to get more money out of them. About the only advice anyone has been able to give me is “change your bank” but as presumably every time this happens my credit rating goes down, none of the other banks will have me. Other people have said “manage your money better” or “get an overdraft when you need it then” – I don’t think it’s possible for me to live any more frugally than I do, and they won’t give me an overdraft. It is serfdom, pure and simple – I work, they take a huge share of what I earn leaving me to scrape a living on a pittance, and because I can’t afford to “buy myself out” I can’t leave. I am trying my best to get back on my own two feet in an “honourable” way – I’m not claiming benefits, not turning to drugs or alcohol, not queuing for a council house, not stealing; I spent some time about a year ago off work with depression and on medication but I dragged myself up by my own bootstraps, got off the medicine, back to work, bought my own flat in Chichester (about £100 cheaper a month than renting in Brighton!). The Citizens’ Advice Bureau phone is constantly engaged (unsurprisingly) and they’re only open from 10 to 5 on weekdays (the assumption presumably being that people who have jobs don’t need to go there. Ha ha.) The Halifax have played into my hands somewhat by charging me a mere five pounds to post me 58 A4 sheets of bank statement – eight times less than the £39 failed items charge. Which proves it can’t cost that much, to my mind. So the forms are done, and we shall see what happens. It’s nice to turn the tables – if I win then for every day from now that they dither they’ll owe me 29p interest. I only wish I could just go and take their money with a only a week’s notice like they do to me. I think they call that bank robbery, though. “Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.” Desi