This topic was closed on 03/06/19. If you have a problem which is similar to the issues raised in this topic, then please start a new thread and you will get help and support there. If you would like to post up some information which is relevant to this particular topic then please flag the issue up to the site team and the thread will be reopened. - Consumer Action Group

This topic was closed on 03/06/19. If you have a problem which is similar to the issues raised in this topic, then please start a new thread and you will get help and support there. If you would like to post up some information which is relevant to this particular topic then please flag the issue up to the site team and the thread will be reopened. - Consumer Action Group

This topic was closed on 03/06/19. If you have a problem which is similar to the issues raised in this topic, then please start a new thread and you will get help and support there. If you would like to post up some information which is relevant to this particular topic then please flag the issue up to the site team and the thread will be reopened. - Consumer Action Group

This topic was closed on 03/06/19. If you have a problem which is similar to the issues raised in this topic, then please start a new thread and you will get help and support there. If you would like to post up some information which is relevant to this particular topic then please flag the issue up to the site team and the thread will be reopened. - Consumer Action Group

This topic was closed on 03/06/19. If you have a problem which is similar to the issues raised in this topic, then please start a new thread and you will get help and support there. If you would like to post up some information which is relevant to this particular topic then please flag the issue up to the site team and the thread will be reopened. - Consumer Action Group

This topic was closed on 03/06/19. If you have a problem which is similar to the issues raised in this topic, then please start a new thread and you will get help and support there. If you would like to post up some information which is relevant to this particular topic then please flag the issue up to the site team and the thread will be reopened. - Consumer Action Group

This topic was closed on 03/06/19. If you have a problem which is similar to the issues raised in this topic, then please start a new thread and you will get help and support there. If you would like to post up some information which is relevant to this particular topic then please flag the issue up to the site team and the thread will be reopened. - Consumer Action Group

thanks for reply. Can I ask what CRA is please - tried looking up on Google but couldn't find. If a specific/recognised term you see, it means I can look it up and it'll help fill in my understanding of how the banks are rating me (I am aware of particular things they can get hold of at different places, eg through the standard credit reference agencies, Experian/Equifax...). ta.

You are right that they are strictly speaking providing a 'service'. My wording was not as exact perhaps as it should have been; I was wanting to pick at the the reasons for banks like Lloyds sometimes only issuing cards when you take out the insurance (as happened in my case) and turning down the application if you don't take out the insurance; and show that it may be a 'service' in the legal sense but there are other meanings of the term that do not apply to the provision of payment cover protection. The advisor who dealt with my application, you see, tried to make out that the insurance showed I would be being properly sensible about having a card; since it meant that if I was unemployed and couldn't make card repayments, it meant there would be no problems with being able to carry on having the card. By this logic it was conveyed to me that the insurance was a sensible part of the package of having a card, and that was why Lloyds could not issue a card if I did not have the insurance, the insurance being a vital part of being sensible about having the card. Whereas the reality, when you unbundle this reasoning, is that you are paying for something where Lloyds's approach means they are making a profit; you are relatively unlikely to benefit from the cover, and if you went to another card provider you would find you could get a similar card without having to take on the extra costs of card protection. So Lloyds provided me with a 'service', without doing me a service, while conveying to me that they were doing me a service because they were letting me have this impressive card+insurance deal. it seems to me with banks you have to unpackage all aspects of what you are actually being given. Lloyds managers seem to be either disengenuous or false in my experience - for example, Lloyds loans are quite expensive and the manager, when I gently pointed out that the loan I have nearly now repaid was considerably more expensive than others on the market, reacted as if this could hardly be the case (when to a bank manager, it would bleedin' obvious).

inconsistent charges at Lloyds btwn business and cur a/cs An observation: Lloyds charge a 'business focus fee' simply for a customer having a business account - £10 a month - and charge on top of that, fees for processing business account cheques and the like. nothing happens on my business account that does not happen with my current account - they are both normal accounts and I have a cheque book for both. Yet Lloyds are charging around £13 a month for the business account. There is no 'business focus' involved; the only focus that ever took place was an administrative meeting with the manager in order to sign forms when I opened the account. Presumably I am simply being ripped off by the bank for these business a/c charges; unless a monthly account charge for an account in credit (my business one) is some kind of norm elsewhere. All the same Lloyds surely can't justify the business account charge when there is none for the curent account and the same things apply to the account. Any views on whether I can get the £10 business focus fee element for my business account revoked? I did write once to query it (about 1 year or so ago, when it may have applied at that time, as I think I signed up to a one-year introductory deal with that fee applying) but never got a reply. thanks very much!

ok will assume that account shutting and so on would happen to me so would ensure getting a new account, card, credit facilities etc at a new bank before suing my existing one. Given my existing position of having an overdraft (partly up to the limit), a small loan, credit card with a couple of thousand on it, it would seem best to wait to clear some of this off, at least, before suiing the current bank. However...a very major question...I could handle having to move bank as a result of having sued them, but let's say I had opened the new bank account using my current credit rating and got things set up so I had the same kinds of credit limits as at my existing...wouldn't my financial position at the new bank still be weakened if my existing bank shut down my account entirely (and card etc)? Wouldn't the new bank hear/find out about the position with my 'old' - the existing - bank, and wouldn't that dent me in a significant way in their eyes? If so then my position at the new bank might mean, for instance, that even years later I was not able to get say a large loan for an enterprise through them, or a mortgage; or I might be able to get a mortgage with them but not at as good terms as before. Is that the way things would play out with the new bank if my old - the existing - bank enforced a shutdown of my account as a result of my having successfully sued them? I don't know the way banks work on these things - what records an account termination would go down on for instance, how much it would count against you - but would very much like to know given there is quie a lot at stake here. My position is that having fought back through financial difficulties pushing me near to bankruptcy - when the bank's charges exacerbated my difficulties and contributed to them - I have partly got out of the position of debt, and I can, a lot later than most people, maybe envisage getting on the property ladder finally, in two-three-four years' time (in my 40s). It would be cruel (!) to have that possibility taken away from me through clawing back excess bank charges made to me in the past...if you see what I mean. Any info you had on this would be very gratefully received...

can accept I've lost that money...in fact I recall thinking I might cancel the payments before but was intimidated at the time by thinking that if you do something like that, the bank might ask why, and as I had become unemployed (not in a way that would have entitled compensation from them in any way, having been a contract worker previously) I did not want to reveal my financially weak position to them, having an outstanding balance. It would be difficult for them to claim the payment cover was 'providing a service' though when nothing was provided - except a charge on the bank statement. A service only comes in if they have to do something. But I quibble I guess... nowadays, I take the approach like the person who says forget it to something like employment insurance...a much better approach. I guess if you are in a permanent job then payment protection cover might be worth it; except it's quite a lot of money, hidden as observed, when quoted at 70p in £100. Very revealing that banks often won't issue a card unless you sign up for ppc; they wouldn't like it if you actually had to make an insurance claiim as it would mean you were one of the people they were paying out to, so basically they like it when you tick the ppc box (to get your card) as it means there is a charge they can enforce, they've sold something at a profit. Ta for the replies.

With my Lloyds credit card, I noticed about 18 months ago that I was paying 'card repayment cover', or 'credit protection cover' as it was sometimes called, every month. Stupid, perhaps, but I hadn't quite taken this in before on statements as I was concentrating on avoiding late charges and the like; I rang up to stop the payments on notcing them. I did as far as I remember query why they were on there but not in a very full-on way. In light of finding out about bankaction group and the actual legal position on account excess charge, bounced SO and DD charges etc...it is not the same thing but I wonder if contesting these charges is possible, if I have sufficient grounds for it. When I stopped them 18 months ago I was not as aware of my rights as I am now; and the fact is that, since being given my card say 5/6 years ago, I had never had any letter or enquiry from the bank about continuing to make monthly payments of that nature. I believe I signed up for the payment protection cover originally when I was given the card (probably, I'm not even sure I officially signed up for it but presume I must have done at that point), and was certainly under the vague impression this would continue for a year when the card was issued. By the time I stopped the payments 18 months ago, 3 or 4 years had passed and looking at my records, I paid around £400 for these payments in 2 years of these 3-4 years alone. So, as I was never sent a letter after an initial period asking if I wanted to carry on paying these payments, do I have grounds for arguing they were in reality inapplicable and should be refunded to me? or do I have to live with the fact that I made the payments as part of my usual payments to my card and should have been sharper about these slightly hidden costs if I wanted not to pay them, at the time? Perhaps a moderator, or anyone else, would know the answer? Quite a lot of the time my payments to my card were automated through the period concerned. incidentally. Cheers

It's a tricky thing to prove then. I have a health complaint that is stress-related and it was caused by financial problems which the bank's actions contributed to. I have explained in a response to one of the other moderators that my own position was - mostly 5-6 years ago but I am not free of debt yet - one of being close to bankruptcy through difficult financial circumstances (following redundancy in a field where due to structural factors employment was reducing). In any case, when you're on or near your financial limits due to difficult circumstances, obviously bank charges can lead into a v. unhealthy kind of scenario...if you go over your limit (even by mistake), the excess overdraft charge or bounced SO or DD charge means you have to find extra money again to get your account back under the limit (to avoid more excess charges); and it's difficult to find that extra money that has been partly caused by the bank charges, so you end up incurring further costs in getting the money needed. With me for instance, I often had to take money from a credit card (which also getting near the limit), incurring the cost of a 'cash withdrawal', in order to make a credit to the bank account to get it back under the limit for the month, and you incur interest at the higher rate on the amount you've just added on to your card by doing that. When this scenario happens more or less every month the bank is exacerbating a delicate financial position by its continual excess charges which are more costly than even their face value. Anyway that whole period of being near bankruptcy was v. stressful, the bank charges were a part of it due to the kinds of extra financial problems they gave me; it gave me my stress-related health condition (which survives to the present day, in more minor form, largely due to partly working my way out of such a financial position), my doctor is aware of the condition and accepts it has been there from that time, it would just be difficult to prove to the courts I suppose that, definitely, the bank was a contributory factor. But it would be good to have those pointers please... oh a complication. I guess I didn't reveal all my financial circumstances to the bank - the underlying reasons for my position of not having money etc - because I suspected this would have made things worse in the long run ( did consider it very carefully). So, I guess for that reason - I didn't disclose that stuff - it might be difficult to get a compensation charge for the 'stress' element. (The reality is that if you are in difficult financial circumstances, you may get advised to declare them by some people, in order to be able to lobby for reduced payments of bills with creditors etc, but you have to make a decision whether that is something you want on all yoru financial records for a long time; I took the decision that I woudl be likely to get out of the situation over a period and it would be better not to have having been on the brink on my records, though this might not have worked for everyone. But it might make arguing for stress compensation harder I guess.) Will keep my postings shorter in future! Any emails/posts about the people to follow up with on the stress compensation costs welcome.

FAQ says claiming for charges more than 6 yrs back wd be uncharted territory - beyond what we know to definitely be possible. Just wonder if anyone, moderator or otherwise, might have any idea how one could look in to what might happen if this kind of action was pursued...you'd think it is only time before someone tries it, so I guess there must be ways of researching this area, even if it's a pretty complex area/difficult to look in to...