LloydsTSB, the dictatorship of banks! (aka me vs lloydstsb, financial hardship)

[Ihatelloydstsb]

Hi, thank you for reading this, firstly ill give you a few details. I am Matt, 22 and an ex student, I have been with LloydsTSB for the last 9 and a half years. It is the only bank account I have had in this time. During my Uni years I got frequently charged by Lloyds, which made it difficult but I at least had a form of income so I could always pay the charges, and I did, on all of the 20 or so occassions. In this period the charges amounted to around 1000 pounds.

 

Anyway out of Uni now and I have been out of a job since January, when my contract had run out with the place I was working. Since then I have been living at home with my parents, and training myself to become a computer programmer. I have absolutely 0 income, I do not claim any benefits nor does my training get me any money. I do however forsee some income in the next few months but till then I have literally zero income. So here is where the story begins....

 

Around a couple of months ago, unbeknownst to me I had a direct debit left, which took me to 26 pounds in the unauthorised overdraft. I could have just borrowed some money to pay this but by the time I had gotten a letter from Lloyds, it was to say that they were going to charge me a further 84 pounds. This I could not afford, so at this point my last option was to try to claim my charges back from the bank citing financial hardship. I asked at the very least for enough to put me back under the overdraft limit and to cancel the charges that they had put on my account. A few weeks later left my account being charged at a rate of 200 a month, from what was originally a mere 26 pounds and I got a letter back from Lloyds simply saying that they understand I may be in financial difficulty, with 1 mention of those words before continuing into a tirade about how they feel their bank charges are fair and about the test case etc failing to even say they would do anything about me being in financial hardship.

 

So I wrote to the Financial Ombudsman service because this is actually insane what they are doing to me. I am down and they just keep kicking and kicking... Anyway I am waiting for a reply from the Ombudsman and I got a phone call and a letter from Lloyds saying that if I don't pay the money into the account within a few days, I face black marks on my record about my failure to repay (which by the way, say I managed to get the 111 pounds together to repay it, another 200 is going to come out of my account in 5 days so it will be right back to square one lol!) CCJ's and everything else as well as them downgrading my bank account.

 

I phoned them back today to say that I literally, cannot pay it and am waiting on advice from the FOS, so would they please just not put any marks on my record or whatever, to which the chap just replied "No there is nothing we can do to stop it". He said he acknowledged that there was nothing that I could do to repay it, but that it will go ahead anyway. What do they expect me to do? Its like, they can put a hold on all the bank charge recovery while they sort things out with the test case, but I can't do the same whilst I wait on some advice???

 

Basically the bottom line is, I could have just given back the 26 happily and put myself in the right again but it was too late for that, and now everything they are threatening me with is actually just imposed upon me by their own greed, all this money that they say I owe them is literally only owed to them because THEY levied it from my account. I thought that there were regulations for people in genuine financial difficulty, and it does not get more difficult than this! I don't have much debt bar my student overdraft and student loan, I do not have any credit cards or store cards or anything like that. I have been a customer of Lloyds for a large part of my life, I have always paid back the other 20-30 charges without any complaint, and now the one time my hands are tied and I literally can do ABSOLUTELY nothing about it, they tie me down and financially rape me... It is actually insane and is making me sick... The lack of compassion is staggering... All I need for them to do, is remove the most recent charges for ONCE and then let me pay that 26 pounds back and there, its all good again but they insist on destroying my financial life...

 

If anyone has some advice or anything it would be very much appreciated. As said I have written to the FOS and am waiting on what they can do about it, which hopefully is something, else I am literally screwed... If anyone can help, please do! Thank you very much again for reading, take care!

 

Matt

 

P.S - Thought I should mention that since the initial 26 pounds, i cancelled my debit card just in case any payments would recur from that particular card and removed any debits and everything, NO money has come out of my account other than what the bank has taken out itself. Which btw convieniently for them increases the amount they charge per day/

Edited June 4, 2009 by Ihatelloydstsb
P.S

[yourbank]

I think many people on here would say to put it in writing to the bank so that they acknowledge the claim and go as far as taking it to court.

 

OK, here is the tough thing to say, from what I have read on the post, I can't see financial hardship as the FSA Waiver is being interpreted as being priority debt arrears(mortgage/rent, utilities, council tax). However I would follow all the processes as advised here.

[Ihatelloydstsb]

Well I put the initial claim in about the original charges, stating my full situation at the moment and then again on the phone. If nothing else the fact that I have been charged over 500 pounds in a 1 year window is indication of financial hardship, is it not? I forgot to mention as well that I do at least have a phone bill to pay, ergo responsibility to a creditor meaning that my income is less than sufficient for my outgoings.

[yourbank]

Well I put the initial claim in about the original charges, stating my full situation at the moment and then again on the phone. If nothing else the fact that I have been charged over 500 pounds in a 1 year window is indication of financial hardship, is it not? I forgot to mention as well that I do at least have a phone bill to pay, ergo responsibility to a creditor meaning that my income is less than sufficient for my outgoings.

 

I agree that you tick one or two boxes that may be indicative of hardship however, and this may not sound what you want to hear, I have seen a lot worse and with LloydsTSB, you have to be humungously worse off for them to even consider a payout. They are by far, the worst for dealing with claims, BUT definitely claim and take it as far as this site states which is to complete an N1 form and make sure you claim ALL the interest you have been charged on those charges as well.

[Ihatelloydstsb]

Thank you for the help, and don't worry about things I don't want to hear ;D I want to hear it all! Anyway I am just hoping that Lloyds will waiver the last few charges, I am not expecting nor am I asking for a full payout of all the charges. Anyway thank you again!