Armed forces and reserve forces pension schemes: guidance booklets READ MORE HERE: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/armed-forces-and-reserve-forces-pension-schemes-guidance-booklets

Hi In 2007 I separated from my husband due to domestic violence issue, child was 20 months old. I was working but just surviving (Finance Officer in the Local Council) * I informed the Bank (our mortgage was with Barclays); Requested to change the mortgage temporally to "Interest only" * The other party refused to agree to the change; The Bank suggested I start making transfers from Reserve account facility that we had, in order to avoid arrears * The other party put a "freeze" on the account to stop me from using it; Bank could not proceed as they had to have both parties' agreement (joint mortgage account) * Bank offered to me to pay as much as I can, and suggested the equivalent of the "interest only" amounts would be sufficient to show a good will *A few months later Mortgage accounts were transferred to Woolwich and somewhere in the process, somehow the "freeze" was "lifted" or something, but my ex-husband managed to transfer the fund of the Reserve account to his personal account - £24,410! * As soon as I realised it, I filed a complaint with the Bank, and requested an urgent investigation. Weeks of phone calls and visits to the local branch followed. 4 months later I received a letter, Barclays admitting their fault and confirming that the other party is solely liable for the debt (the withdrawn amount). * I have on numerous occasions asked how they are chasing him up, is any investigation being conducted - never got a reply due to the Data Protection bla-bla. * In 2014, being better off financially, I approached the Bank to discuss Re-Mortgage options, as I still am paying the Interest only amount. Mortgaged period finishes in 2023. I "have no options and until the Reserve account is repaid, I will be unable to do Re-Mortgage" - was Barclay's reply. Debt currently is £41k+, including the interest on the withdrawn amount. * Every now and then I still receive payment demand letters, solicitors' letter and others. I have to call and explain the case for a 100th+ time! I am up to a point to take the Bank to Court, as I do not see any other way out of the situation. There is no need to say how much stress it causes to me, and the adverse financial affect... Does anyone know what legislation I should use to start on? Can I still quote BCOBS? Has anyone else had a similar experience? Thanks for replies in advance.

Hi, Before I start, a big thanks to CAG for past help with different matters. If you read any of my other posts you will see I had debt problems in 2007, with a failed company and business / personal debts to near £150k, its taken 9 years to clear everything, finally debt free I'm looking back over accounts to see where I can claim back some of the huge interest amounts and fees whilst paying off credit cards overdrafts etc.. my wife has a Barclays account, it's still her current account and its been active for over 30 years, due to our extreme financial hardship in 2007, we had big monthly charges, as I mentioned we had cci's and £150k of debt to repay, we had to sell the house, remortgaging with a sub prime lender, DB, Yep DB! it was a real nightmare, looking at her account you can see our mortgage, gas, electric and all necessity bills bouncing every month for years, I have statements, letters etc to prove hardship... To be honest we are not in financial trouble anymore, after 8 years working 24 hours a day, we have cleared every debt, and have brought a house and live mortgage free, I know its been said in a few posts that you have to still be in hardship and that its maybe to late to claim now. I had a thought about this though today, the figures are: Barclays current account, charges including reserve charges up to £200 a month max, we had charges every month from April 2008 to September 2015 total charges nearly £5,000 If hardship and the 2009 time scale is out of the question how about the fact we have just had three PPI claims upheld against Barclays one on this account dating back nearly 25 years, we had a payout of just over £9,000 (which is great) could I not use this as a argument that if she had not been paying these monthly amount (which they agree was mis sold and have paid) she would not been overdrawn and therefore would not have received these charges. Thinking about it there is a note on the PPI payout letter which asks if you incurred any other financial costs... Should she be going down that route or treating it separately this way? I have gone through every statement and noted the date and cost for each charge, put them on an excel sheet and used the template for hardship, I wanted to get feedback first before sending, and only thought of the note on the PPI payout letter whilst typing As always thanks for your comments in advance! Dave

Afternoon, I've been in a bit of a spot recently, lost my job, had to re-arrange my mortage to interest only or risk losing my house, defaulted on my one credit card, missing paying bills every month, I think you guys get the picture but the last year or so has been financial hell for me. My credit report is a sea of red Anyway I'll concentrate just on the Barclays account here. I've had an account with Barclays for around 20-25 years and I have most of the statements which I've started to dump info from into an Excel spreadsheet. I have a question if anyone would be so kind as to help, 1) I've dug a folder from around 1998 onwards and logged charges that include Unauthorised overdraft fees Additions fees Transaction charges for insufficient funds in account Personal overdraft usage fees Overdraft interest charges Paid referral fees Items returned fees Reserve usage fees I'm missing a few statements here and there so will SAR Barclays today to get the missing information. Naturally I'm awful at administoring my personal finances or should I say I was awful until a few ago when I stumbled across this place. My question is this, what are my chances of recouping any of the above fees and if so over what period. The Additions fees which are small are already over a thousand pounds and I still have another 5 years of statements to go through. I hope I don't come across as a chancer who is trying to claw back money for services that I used. I have a deep loathing of Barclays as they have me by the short 'n curlies since I live in their 'reserve' paying close to £100/month for the privalige of doing so. I never asked for the Additions accounts, I frequently popped into my local branch on occasions to speak about the horrendous charges but was always told that I was on the best package for my current situation, surely this was misleading to say the least? I've read the BCOBS stuff in this section but am still a little confused as to what my next move should be once I've completed my spreadsheet and write to Barclays asking for ermmm, some money back please?

Hi guys. Im after a bit of advice.Iv being unemployed for a while now.I receive jsa every 2 weeks which is paid in to my Barclays account.I have being stuck using my personal reserve so every month half of my jsa ends up on paying barclays the reserve charge of £22 every week because i am stuck in my personal reserve which mean i am struggling to stay out of debt. Is there anything i can say to Barclays to stop them charging this reserve fee as i am struggling to get out of it and i am getting depressed and worried. Kind Regards Daren

Hi All Just wondered if anyone else had found themselves in my current sad financial situation. I have had an account with Barclays since they bought out The Woolwich, and things were ticking along nicely until I lost my job in February. I have in the past dipped in and out of the Reserve but only in an emergency. Since the loss of my job I am permanently into this and all I have paid into this account is:- Housing Benefit, Tax Credits, DLA (for my disabled son) and my carer's allowance. Every month they take at least £100+ per month in charges which makes me even more in debt. I received a call from their debt department offering me a solution. 1. To take away the reserve fee and increase my OD to £260. 2. To take £20 a month when I get my child benefit to reduce this. 3. To take their charges in advance so that I would no there would be no more charges for the foreseeable (which is why they offered to bump up OD to £260). I have a nasty feeling they are ripping me off here. Has anyone else experienced this? I would ideally like all the charges back for using the Reserve (over the last 2 years totals nearly £3,000), is there any chance? I know these banks are ruthless (after all they have large bonuses to pay) but surely can they get away with this? Many thanks Deb

My wife and I am on pension credit of £217 a week. We live in private accommodation and our rent is £575 a month. The council pay £81.02 per week + £20 a week Discretionary Housing Payment. Barclays Bank have put a reserve on our account of £150 and I have been charged reserve charge's by Barclays Bank of up to £22 a time, which were unaffordable to me and have been trapped in a cycle of incurring charges which only added to my financial hardship. On Monday the 18 Mar 2013 I cancelled my reserve and today my wife received a texed saying we were being charged anther £44 pound and we do not no what for. This is eating away our rent for the 14 Apr 2013 and now there is only £24 pound left in our account. Are Banks allowed to make these charge's on some one on pension credit?

I think Barclays may be up to their old tricks, or should I say a new trick, which may be pocketing them a lot of fees. Background: I have 2 Barclays account, one with a small o/d of £200 + Reserve of £300, one with a massive mortgage-linked o/draft. Because the household income & outgoings fluctuates, never twice the same date or amounts, I check my current account every morning, without fail. If the money coming out takes me into the Reserve, I immediately transfer some money from the mortgage account to put me back under so I don't incur the dreaded £22 Reserve fee. Bear in mind that Barclays says that if you go back under the Reserve before the end of the working day they won't charge you the fee, this is important. This has worked beautifully for years now and apart from a maybe once-a-year blip where I couldn't get to the account in time (illness, travel etc), I have had no charges whatsoever. However... For a few weeks now, I seem to have slipped more than usual, straying and staying in the Reserve, not because I haven't paid money in, but because somehow I seem not to have put enough to bring me back under. Odd, right? but ok, I am no maths genius, and I am on heavy medications, so I thought it was me losing it, swore at myself and thought of tackling the unfairness of the charges at some point in the future but nothing urgent, kind of thing... So I got more careful and still it happened. By then, my suspicions got worse, but again my memory can play tricks on me. Last week, I was certain I had put enough and I still ended up over when I checked the next day. So yesterday, I took a screenshot in the morning, which shows I was just over the £200 limit and I've transferred £20 over to make it under. That's it, no other transactions. (Remember that card transactions, cheques, d/d etc, ALL get taken out at about 2 am that day, which is where they used to get you with o/d charges that even if you went in at 9am to pay money in, the'd already have bounced the transactions?). This morning, screenshot. THREE card transactions have appeared on yesterday's date, putting me in the Reserve by nearly £100. BUSTED! Soooooooooooo.... I'm going to give it a few days, do a few more screenshots proving that Barclays are being very naughty, and then get the whole lot back, even the ones where it may have been me at fault then again it may not have been, who knows how long they've been doing this, hoping that most people wouldn't cotton on and blame themselves instead? I will of course keep you updated, but meanwhile if you too have thought Alzheimer's was setting in early, you might want to double-check your statements. For me, it will be easy as I can show where I transferred money every time and still somehow managed to not pay enough to put me back under the line.

UGH , where do I begin? It's been a heck of a year with one thing after the next going wrong for me and dealing with financial debt and family issues, etc...so I'm writing it all down in hopes of getting some suggestions as to where to go and what I can start doing about it. (I'm not going to go into too much depth, as some of this stuff is VERY private, especially about my family) I have been getting charged for the Barclays Personal Reserve for some years now, as I missed the letter to opt out and it just got "stuck" on my account. I've now endured countless years of £22 charges every time I go past my overdraft. Every time I try to cancel the thing they just tell me that they can't as my account is inside the overdraft - so basically they're going to push me further into debt because I'm already in debt...which makes no sense at all. This has been frequent as I have had bills to pay that usually require more than I have from my JSA and any help I get from family and friends. This has caused futher strain on my relationship with my family and it has now reached breaking point. Foolishly I have relied on my credit card when times have been tough to pay bills rather than trying to sort things out. By using my Barclaycard Gold VISA to pay the bills has resulted in my card being maxed out (limit of £4,500...standing at around £4,200 right now) - meaning I'm now paying credit card bills of £100 per month. Worse still is that my bank account is in the red near the limit of my overdraft of £1,500 and frequently teeters on the brink - which means interest is pushing up my debt too. I have been reading around the forums and have found a success story about Personal Reserve charges from @gaz0609 in another thread...of course, being a new poster means I can't P.M. and ask for the template he used. So my questions are as follows... 1) Which address do I use to write to Barclays to reclaim my bank charges and opt-out of the Personal Reserve? 2) Does someone have a template I can use for a financial hardship letter that I can send to them and explain the situation? I'm also going to try and see if I can check for PPI on my credit card - and if so reclaim that too, then pay off my credit card and finally destroy the damn thing. I've read the guide at money saving expert website, and it says to send off for your Credit card T&C's...but I can't seem to find the address to send off for my T&C's either! 3) Does anyone know where I would need to send the completed T&C template letter for my Barclaycard VISA T&Cs? 4) Is there any way to find out by looking at statements, etc... if I do indeed have PPI on my card or is that hidden as well? (i.e. - what am I looking for exactly?) Sorry to sound like an ididot - but I don't have much of an idea as to where to start! Hopefully, someone here will be able to give me some pointers as to where to go with all this mess... Thanks in advance folks!

Hi im new to this forum so any help will be much appreciated. I am currently stuck in my £500 reserve with Barclays due to other financial difficulties. As you probably know they charge £22 a week for the priviledge! With me being stuck in my reserve i am currently being charged £88 a month in fees, which along with everything else im struggling to pay. I have tried to phone Barclays but i think they have call centres in India or somewhere, and they tend to stick to a pretty rigid script so they have been no use to me. I also went into my local branch to discuss my situation. All they could do was try and set me up with a loan to pay off my reserve and overdraft! Not ideal really as thats just more debt. Is there anyway that they may freeze the charges for maybe 6 months or so to give me a chance of paying this reserve off? Has anyone had any experience with Barclays regarding reserve charges? Any advice welcome.

I'm wondering if anyone would be able to offer me any advice. I have a Flex account with Nationwide which I use for bits and pieces (an account that i've had since 1999) Approximately 5/6 years ago I called Nationwide to remove the reserve limit that they put on my a/c without my knowledge. This meant that if I went slightly over a 15 POUND unautharised overdraft charge would be applied to my account. Apparently it's a 'buffer' incase you run into trouble and need it. I asked for this to be removed as I don't use the a/c as a main a/c and only have limited funds in there. They removed the reserve limit so I could not go a penny overdrawn - meaning NO charges. ...GREAT..... .until it started happening again by way of paid item charges. They assured me this would never happen again but unbeknown to me it has. Is this allowed?

Hi, I currently have a Barclays Personal Reserve which is costing me £22 every 5 days in charges. I can't afford to pay it off to get back in the black for another couple of weeks, but according to Barclays website, one can cancel it at any time. Does anyone know if I call and cancel it, will I still be charged £22 a week because I'm over the limit? or will cancelling it stop me from being charged any more? (I appreciate I will have to pay it back eventually, and will presumably be charged interest on the overlimit amount, but I'm trying to minimise the cost until I can afford to do so) Thanks Andy