Advice on reclaiming natwest bank charges

[Rebchappers]

I used to have an account with natwest and approx 3/4 years ago i came into financial difficulty and was unable to meet many monthly repayments. I had numerous DD returned, but the main problem i had was being charged for writing a cheque. Every month i had at least £300 worth of charges, leaving me with less and less money each month, forcing me to use my cheque guaranatee card to purchase things. In turn, this added more and more charges to my account (£25 a time i think)

 

Eventually, i decided enough was enough and i opened an account with another bank to which i had my wages paid in. I left Natwest with an unauthorised overdraft of nearly £2000. This debt was transferred to a debt collection agency and for the past 18 months i have been paying it off and i now owe only about £250.

 

My question is.... can i reclaim these bank charges? I expect i paid approx £1500 in charges throughout the time i was in difficulty and i am still paying them off now. The only reason it got so bad is becuase of the continuous charges they kept adding every month. Does the fact that it was transferred to a debt collection agency stop me from reclaiming?

 

Your help is much appreciated

[Mr lex]

Hi Rebchappers and welcome to the Consumer Action Group.

 

If you haven't already done so it would be a great idea to start a thread in the Nastywest forum here :-

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/natwest-bank/

 

Here you will find a lot of help from people who have already reclaimed their unfair charges from Nat West.

 

On first glance it seems most of your charges have occurred in the last six years? The first thing to do is to get copy's of your statements from the bank (If you don't already have them)

 

To do this you need to send a S.A.R. letter that can be found here :-

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bank-templates-library/516-1-data-protection-act.html

 

You will then be able to work out just how much you have been charged.

 

There are some more links below that may help you, but to start with, read as much as you can.

 

Hope this helps, please come back with any Questions you may have.

 

Lex

[MARTIN3030]

Welcome to the site.As Lex says you will need to get a true figure of what were charges related.Although the debt (or alleged debt) was sold ..its Natwest you you will be claiming from.Once you have notified Natwest that you are challenging their charges,then you effectively put the alleged debt into dispute.Whilst we do not encourage users to stop repayments that have been made under agreements or arrangement,if maintaining these payment is a financial burden to you,then you can inform the dca that they should suspend further recovery pending the dispute resolution taking its course.They are obliged under law to do so.If the DCA are adamant that you entered into the repayment agreement after accepting liability and admission of the debt,simply point out that you were unaware that the charges were being challenged as unlawful by the OFT,and as such would not have entered into any agreement being knowledgeable of that fact.

Read some threads in the debt forums for more information.

[Rebchappers]

Here is a brief outline of my story (bear with me, its a long one!)

 

I used to have an account with NatWest and approx 3/4 years ago i came into financial difficulty and was unable to meet many monthly repayments. I had numerous DD returned, but the main problem i had was being charged for writing a cheque. Every month i had at least £300 worth of charges, leaving me with less and less money each month, forcing me to use my cheque guaranatee card to purchase things. In turn, this added more and more charges to my account (£25 a time i think)

 

Eventually, i decided enough was enough and i opened an account with another bank to which i had my wages paid in. I left NatWest with an unauthorised overdraft of nearly £2000. This debt was transferred to a debt collection agency and for the past 18 months i have been paying it off and i now owe only about £250.

 

My question is.... can i reclaim these bank charges? I expect i paid approx £1500 in charges throughout the time i was in difficulty and i am still paying them off now. The only reason it got so bad is becuase of the continuous charges they kept adding every month. Does the fact that it was transferred to a debt collection agency stop me from reclaiming?

 

Now... from another thread, i believe that this wont stop me from claiming these charges back, so last night i compiled a letter to send off to NatWest, requesting details of all the charges on my account in the last 6 years. Could i ask that you look over the letter and let me know if anything needs to be changed before i send it off!

 

Letter below

[Rebchappers]

Name *****

Adress****** Date of birth******

Sort Code*******

Last registered address******

 

Dear Sir/Madam

 

My account with yourselves had been passed to (*DCA*) to which i have been making monthly repayments, but i am no longer in possession of my account number. I ask that you search your records using the details provided, in order to collate the information requested.

 

Please send me all of the information your company holds relating to my account history with your organisation. I would like a schedule of all charges and interest applied to my account including details of instances where manual intervention was required. I understand that under the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998, you are obliged to keep data on file for 6 years, so i expect to receive at least 6 years data.

 

All data, including that held on microfiche, must be provided within a reasonable timescale, a maximum of 40 days. I enclose the maximum statutory fee of £10.

 

I am now aware that the charges you applied to my account throughout this time were likely to be excessive and unfair, and following receipt of the information you are providing, it is my intention to reclaim these back using amy viable means.

 

I look forward to your written response

 

Yours Faithfully

 

***

 

How does this look? Its a mish mash of many wonderful examples i have found on the site, tailored for my circumstances. Is there anything else i should add, or remove from it?

 

Also, i was intending to send it to the follwong address:

 

Customer Service response unit

NatWest Bank

The Cornerstone

60 South Gyle Crescent

Edinburgh

EH12 9WF

 

Is this correct?

 

Thanks

[Michael Browne]

Yes thats fine. I would head the letter:

 

Data Protection Act: Subject Access Request

[Rebchappers]

And probably another silly question... but who do i make the £10 cheque payable to?

[Michael Browne]

Natwest, or if you're feeling generous......me

[Rebchappers]

Ok, well... i sent off my request last week to Natwest, to have a copy of all my statements for the past 6 years, and guess what landed on my doormat this morning!! It took them just 5 days!

 

Now, after adding up all my charges going back to April 2002, it comes to the princley sum of £3699! and that doesnt include any of the interest that they charged me for being overdrawn.

 

I am about to write off to Natwest, asking for my charges to be refunded, using the letter in this library. Do i give them a timescale in which to respond?

 

Thanks

[Guest Old_andrew2018]

Hi Rebchappers

 

The letter templates have been updated to take into account the recent high court ruling this is a link to them, http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bank-templates-library/671-2-letter-preliminary-approach.html#post3489

 

Regards

 

Andy

[Rebchappers]

Thanks for that! Thats the one i used, so fingers crossed!

 

When i received my statements this morning, i also got this small letter included... is this something i should be worried about?

 

''With reference to your request concerning manual intervention to the admin charges, these charges have been processed in accordance with the terms and conditions of our current agreement with you, as a result of the activity on your account. In the event that you breach the terms and conditions, we will take the appropriate action, contacting customers when appropriate, or handling customer enquiries regarding their account status. When a customer has raised a concern in relation to this process, the decision will be communicated to the customer and where appropriate, noted on the account.''

 

I have entered a repayment plan with a DCA in order to repay this debt with natwest. Does the manual intervention refer to the payments that have been credited to my account from this repayment plan? Is there anything there that i should be worried about?

 

Thanks

 

Also, cam i reclaim the £30 that was debited from my account for a 'default letter'?

 

Ok, well... i sent off my request last week to NatWest, to have a copy of all my statements for the past 6 years, and guess what landed on my doormat this morning!! It took them just 5 days!

 

Now, after adding up all my charges going back to April 2002, it comes to the princley sum of £3699! and that doesnt include any of the interest that they charged me for being overdrawn.

 

When i received my statements this morning, i also got this small letter included... is this something i should be worried about?

 

''With reference to your request concerning manual intervention to the admin charges, these charges have been processed in accordance with the terms and conditions of our current agreement with you, as a result of the activity on your account. In the event that you breach the terms and conditions, we will take the appropriate action, contacting customers when appropriate, or handling customer enquiries regarding their account status. When a customer has raised a concern in relation to this process, the decision will be communicated to the customer and where appropriate, noted on the account.''

 

I have entered a repayment plan with a DCA in order to repay this debt with NatWest. Does the manual intervention refer to the payments that have been credited to my account from this repayment plan? Is there anything there that i should be worried about?

 

Thanks

[gni03349]

Are you aware you opened another thread about this just now? The other thread is still open. It might cause some confusion.

[Rebchappers]

Yes, sorry! I thought it would be more appropriate to be in the NATWEST section. How do i remove the original post?

 

Thanks

[gni03349]

Well, you cant, but the moderators and site helpers can (or site helpers can at least pass it on). They will merge the threads and move to relevant section of the forum once they are aware of it, but hopefully someone will see these few messages and then do the merge of this thread.. or the first message at least, into the original thread.

 

You dont have to apologise to me... just grovel to the mods, 'cos you made them work lol.

 

Regards

[steven4064]

You dont have to apologise to me... just grovel to the mods, 'cos you made them work lol.

No need to grovel. Used tenners in a plain brown envelope will do fine

[Rebchappers]

Thank you!!

 

'slapping my own wrists as we speak!'

[Rebchappers]

Ok, well i sent the prelim letter to natwest last week, kindly asking for my charges back. Today i have received a fairly standard letter, that reads:

 

We acknowledge receipt of your complaint about bank charges. We believe that your complaint concerns the level, fairness or unlawfulness of charges. It would be our normal approach to resolve your complaint through our internal complaints process as quickly as possible. However, the bank (along with a number of other banks) has now become involved in legal proceedings with the OFT in relation to personal current account charges which we believe will resolve the legal issues regarding the fairness and legality of your bank charges. Until the determination of thelegal issues in the above proceedings, we have asked the FSA to suspend the normal timetable for dealing with bank charges complaints, and the FSA has agreed to this request subject to conditions to protect your rights.....

 

It then goes on about if i am in financial hardship, this will be waived etc..

 

Where do i go from here? Does this mean i cant do anything until the results of the legal proceedings have been found? Or do i carry on with the next letter, regardless?

 

Thanks

[Michael Browne]

Or do i carry on with the next letter, regardless?

Yes send the LBA and then file N1 at court

[steven4064]

Give them the 14 days just in case (yeh, right ) and then send the next letter.

[Rebchappers]

Ok, so i will wait the 14 days and then send the LBA. Does the 14 days run from the day i sent the first letter, the day they received the first letter, or today (the day i received their reply)

[steven4064]

The day they received it (or the day you posted it +2)

[Rebchappers]

Ok bit of an update. I didnt send the LBA, as i read somewhere on here that if i file for court, i cant adda ny more charges onto the amount they owe me. So i decided to wait for the outcome of the test case.

 

Today i have received another fairly standard letter that explains what has happened in the recent high court hearing but basically says that my claim is still being put on hold until the outcome. I am sure many people who are currently battling with Natwest have received this letter, but just wondered what exactly it means to me. I presume that i just sit tight until we know any more. The way it is worded seems like i will never get my charges back

 

Any advice?

[steven4064]

Today i have received another fairly standard letter that explains what has happened in the recent high court hearing but basically says that my claim is still being put on hold until the outcome.

I got two of those today

[Rebchappers]

Hi, hopefuly you can help me.

 

I had an account with Natwest which was passed to the BCW group for collection. I set up a payment plan with them and have stuck to this for the past 2 years. I now only owe approx £200 but i am in the process of reclaiming over £3600 in charges from Natwest (which is why this debt came about in the first place)

 

Obvioulsy Natwest have put my claim on hold pending the outcome of the OFT case

 

My question is, do i have to continue paying my monthly payment to BCW, or can i stop, pending the outcome of Natwests decision? Effectively the debt is now in dispute, so wondered if i am within my rights to stop paying until Natwest have repaid me my bank charges?

 

Thanks for your help x

[maroondevo52]

Hi, Redchappers.

 

You could try sending them this..........

 

Dear Sirs

 

Re: Account in dispute

 

I am writing to clarify that I am currently in the process of requesting a refund of bank charges unlawfully made to my account.

 

I need to make you fully aware that I am disputing the sum owed and, as such, you must refrain from any further action until this dispute is fully resolved.

 

If you do not stop, and proceed by making any adverse comments on my credit reference files, I shall be forced to take legal action against you under the Data Protection Act 1998.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

*Remember, don't sign the letter*

And send it recorded.

 

 

 

 

 

Regards.

 

Scott.

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