Eugene01-Current Account

[Eugene01]

Hello all,

I'm in a long running battle with Yorkshire Bank to have them refund bank charges on my current account. Previously claimed under the old arguments of the UTCCR's then my claim's been on and off for a while. I'm currently communicating with the Clydesdale Bank Customer Engagement Unit but feel as though they aren't dealing with my complaint adequately. Firstly, it's taken them seven/eight weeks, one letter, two emails and two phone calls demanding a response in order for them to look at my complaint. As far as I'm concerned they're now picking and choosing at what aspects of my complaint they feel they want to respond to. I've joined CAG to post their responses to the questions that I've asked in order to judge whether what they're telling me is accurate, or to put them on show when they try lie about their obligations. Any feedback on the below would be much appreciated.

 

 

My first question was that I wanted a copy of my contract. Whenever I write, YB state I agreed to the charges, t's & c's etc when I opened my account. I know for a fact (but I'm not releasing why to them) that I never signed for my current account and so couldn't have agreed.

YB's response: We're only obliged to keep documents for six years. We no longer have a copy of your signed contract available to send you.

My thoughts on this are that they cannot find my contract, and so they either know they don't have a signed copy, or aren't storing customer data correctly which I'm sure is a serious matter, or have found my contract and realised there's no signature.

 

 

My second point was that from seeing the date on my signed contract, I wanted to see how old I supposably was when the document was signed. The first charge on my account was when I was 17. YB don't offer loans, overdrafts, mortgages, etc to people under 18 for legal reasons, so why at such an early age were they levying charges on my account?

YB's response: This is the only part of your letter of complaint we are prepared to look into as all other aspects fall under previously answered questions.

My thoughts on this are that none of my questions have previously been answered as stated by them. Has anyone on CAG got any thoughts on charging default sums to under 18's? Surely we arrive at a default sum as the bank pay a direct debit when sufficient funds are in the account to cover. They're effectively lending you money for a high charge. Surely they can't lend to an under 18 without a guardians signature/guarantor?

 

 

My third point is that in on 9th January 2002, I was able to walk up to a minibank and only having £125 in my account, was able to withdraw £140. YB then applied an authorised overdraft charge of £5 the same day for going overdrawn. There were no direct debits coming out/going in etc so nothing was to play a part in this. I simply went to the bank and drew more money out than was in my account. At a guess I'd assume I thought enough funds were there and didn't check my available balance. You'd expect the minibank to turn round and decline the transaction due to insufficient funds. The machine didn't. Surely this is an error in the banks software and so for them to punish me for their error in the way of further charges strikes me as outrageous. I have other examples where the machine failed to differentiate between balance and available balance allowing me to withdraw funds that weren't there. Each time I incurred default charges.

YB's response: We've already looked into this and won't address the complaint a second time.

My thoughts are that this is the very first time I've raised the issue. AT the time of submitting my original complaints I hadn't realised this had happened.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

 

My fourth point relates to UTCCR's relating to contracts that weren't individually negotiated.

I've mentioned that the following weren't individually negotiated and this is backed up by the basis I never signed a contract.

- Default sum amount.

- Frequency of Default sum being applied

- Non-negotiable date that default sums were applied to accounts, ie, around 18th-22nd, the before most of the country gets paid in order to apply charges before funds are available to cover leading to a new round of charges, creating a snowball effect!

- Non-agreement that they will charge charges on top of charges. Other banks such as Lloyds do not do this.

YB's response: We've already addressed this matter.

My thought's are, it's the first time I've made an approach for a refund on this basis, so they haven't previously addressed this matter. Has anybody got any thoughts on this point and out of interest, this point stems from the High Court Judge's advice to amend POC's and pursue from this angle following the test case, is this argument still valid, or has a court case ended claims on this route. I'm not so much interested on the chances of success by using this route, just whether legally it is still possible.

 

 

I'd like to thank anyone for reading this post and any feedback would be fantastic.

[caro]

I'm not so much interested on the chances of success by using this route, just whether legally it is still possible.

 

In theory I'd say yes, but in practice no-one has been successful since the supreme court judgment. It's an uphill battle and Govan Law Centre have taken this further than anyone else.

 

I've responded on another thread about T&Cs.

 

If you had charges and were allowed to go overdrawn before you were 18 I believe that you should be able to successfully get these refunded. Others may be more difficult.

 

If you have concerns over their record keeping complain to the Information Commissioner's Office. YB have never been forthcoming in this area, although oddly all the banks seem to have failed to keep old T&Cs.

 

Have you sent them a SAR?

[Eugene01]

Hi Caro,

 

I bet hundreds have successfully argued but been paid off prior to a hearing date. If you sign a confidentiality agreement to settle out of court you're oblidged to stop posting aren't you. There's a lot of unfinished posts on here so they've either given up or been paid off. Personally I hate them too much so will wait to be paid.

 

Regards the SAR I sent this back in 2007 and just got statements but no contract etc. I titled the letter SAR and paid the full £10 but maybe worded it asking for a list of fee's. I made at least three further requests asking for original t's & c's and signed original contract but they have always refused to send them. More often than not they stated that they wouldn't look at my case til after the test case OR we've already addressed this issue and won't address it again. Until they send me the documents they haven't addressed the issue. The moment they acknowledge they don't have a signed contract is the moment any defence they could launch to the ombudsman or in court is fatally flawed. As said above, I know for a fact that document doesn't exist. As fot the six year issue on keeping documents, does that mean anyone with a YB mortgage can suddenly stop paying after six years knowing YB no longer have a record of the loan? Think they conveniently make the situation suit.

 

I have a letter drafted to the ICO for documents to be forcefully released but I'm waiting on confirmation from YB first before I post it along with proof of all previous requests for the info. My problem with ICO and also the Ombudsman is that as they cannot go through YB's records themselves, they cannot actually force YB to release anything that they state doesn't exist. It's only worth doing in the knowledge that if ICO recognise certain documents should exist they can punish them for not storing data accurately.

 

On all fees charged under 18 years old, my arguement is that it starts a snowball effect so anything charged after 18 years old is a direct result of a shortfall in cashflow from the months previous. Also, if YB refund charges from under 18yr old, they have to refund charges after 18 too as the principle of this leads back to the point of signing contracts under age.

[Eugene01]

Got home tonight to find a further letter asking for more time for YB to carry out a detailed investigation of my complaint. The extra three or four weeks would take this to twelve. Absolutely shocking considering my complaint sat for the first eight weeks gathering dust in someones drawer.

 

Email's been sent to head of department demanding action.

Court action regards my arguements for the refund, letter to ICO to demand so called signed contract, and letter to FOS regards handling of my complaint all to follow.

[caro]

Well done Eugene.

[Eugene01]

Thanks for the documents Caro. I managed to get a copy of T's and c's from YBank at the back end of last week. They're sticking to not keeping copies of current account contracts beyond the six year mark though. In my eye's that's incentive for all those hundreds of thousands of YB claimants to fire in a new claim because they can no longer prove you signed such a document which in court they'll heavily rely on. If anone does manage to get a signed original copy in the next few weeks let me know because I've been assured they don't exist.

We've started to negotiate on my claim although the offer they made me was flatly refused, very insulting and was extremely poor form on their part. Potentially you'll be hearing about that offer on CAG in a few days.

 

Have you any idea who's running Clydesdale in the UK at the moment. From various press reports I believe it's David Thorburn and he's getting cc'd into every email I send at the moment, but I could be wrong. Any idea of his email address? I think I've found it but not 100%...

 

Cheers

[Eugene01]

Heard back from Yorkshire Bank again today. Negotiations seem to have halted.

 

Yorkshire Bank offered a refund of £330 for all charges debited against my account prior to me turning 18years old. The specific statement that they were in the wrong never came, however the below comment was put to me when I claimed under 18's shouldn't be charged default fee's, along with a more important fact, under 18's shouldn't be asked to sign for terms where default fee's etc could potentially be levied on accounts.

 

"I can confirm that the Bank would not offer lending facilities to persons under the age of 18. A Current Account would offer debit card facilities only, however the facility to set up direct debits was available. Unfortunately at this time there was no facility to make us aware that charges were being incurred other than being advised by the customer."

 

I read this with the view it is an acknowledgement that something happened that shouldn't have done. Please someone offer an independant view to help me on this matter as I'm aware I could read it with biased eyes.

Although the letter didn't highlight the word, I feel there's a big emphasis on the word ONLY. To me this indicates that nothing other than a debit card should have been provided and no other banking facilities made available to me.

The word UNFORTUNATELY leads me to believe that the bank would have acted differently to the situation had it known an under 18 was being charged. This then leads me to wonder, back in 2001-2002 are Yorkshire Bank really suggesting that their systems were not this advanced. Is anyone in the banking industry online that could offer an independant opinion?

 

My point in this particular post is not to accuse Yorkshire Bank of any wrong doing. I purely wish to find out what CAG opinion is on this, an how they interpret the wording. I asked Yorkshire Bank for clarification however I received a letter saying they had nothing further to add to their previous response.

 

On the matterof this minor success (£330,) I point out that their offer of a refund was flatly and very quickly refused as I was told this was a full and final offer in order for me to end my complaint. My complaint is valued at a lot more and so there isn't a chance of me accepting. If Yorkshire Bank were in the wrong as I read the above comment to mean, I find it highly inappropriate for them to suggest I write off the rest of my complaint. I should get the £330 without hesitation and be allowed to pursue the remainded of my complaint.

 

So please feel free to express an opinion on this. As I said, I want assistance understanding if the above was an acknowledgment of their error or if it should read differently.

[caro]

at this time there was no facility to make us aware that charges were being incurred other than being advised by the customer."

 

 

Another version from YB. They didn't know that there were charges until the customer told them? This seems at odds with what they told the court in their defence to my claim in which they said the bank "had suffered loss and damage in the amount of £xxxx.00" (the amount of my claim), but then that was inconsistent with what they said in the case against the OFT as well.

 

I would be inclined to suggest that by taking those charges before you were 18, they started a spiral that it was hard to escape when you were old enough. It's worth a shot with FOS I think, but I'd be cautious about considering court. Did the offer include interest?

[Eugene01]

The offer didn't include any interest and specifically stated that I had to agreed to close my complaint in order to get the £330.

 

The problem with the FOS is that they seem to look at what they deem to be fair. They don't seem to consider the legalities and the regulations when looking at a complaint which is why my case will end up in court instead. When the test case went ahead, it went ahead on a legal basis, not what might be viewed as fair. It's not fair that any bank syphons off hundreds if not thousands of pounds from customer accounts in charges. It's not fair that banks approach under 18's with complicated terms and conditions about tariffs and charges. It's not fair that banks enforce agreements that clients haven't signed up to whether 18 or younger.

 

Both the FSA and FOS are to receive letters of complaint about the bank in the next 7days regards the handling of my complaint, but I'm specifically requesting they DONT make judgement on my complaint its self. Found a very interesting page on the FSA website the other day. I'm curious to know whether YB are party to the below investigation. The below suggests that as a whole, the banks complaints handling policies are all unacceptable.

 

Five banks are making major changes to the way they handle customer complaints after the Financial Services Authority (FSA) found weaknesses in their approach. Find out how complaints are being handled poorly and how you should make a complaint.

An FSA review of banking groups found poor standards of complaint handling within most of the banks assessed.

As a result, five banks are changing the way they deal with complaints with two of the five banks having their procedures investigated further by the FSA.

Poor standards of complaint handling found by the FSA review include:

 

• Poorly designed staff incentive schemes that make branch staff reluctant to pay redress to customers, even when the bank is at fault;
  
• Poor quality complaint handling by staff in branches and general call centres leading to inadequate investigations, poor decision-making on the outcome of complaints and unsatisfactory correspondence with customers;
  
• Complaint handling procedures leading to staff issuing multiple, repetitive responses to customers, forcing them to restate their complaint a number of times in the face of ongoing negative responses from the bank;
  
• The failure of banks to learn from previous complaints and make changes to prevent similar complaints arising in the future.
  

The FSA did find examples of good and compliant practices in parts of some of the banking groups assessed. This suggests it is possible for banks to handle high volumes of complaints and deliver fair outcomes for consumers.

[Eugene01]

they said the bank "had suffered loss and damage in the amount of £xxxx.00" (the amount of my claim)

 

I worked out what a bank charge would cost and it worked out to be less than £0.60

 

An IT engineer earns £50 000 per year to design the system to process fees divided by 6 as my claims over six years. £8333.00

Divide £8333 by 1million as that's how many instances of bank charges ocur per year per bank (calculation below) = £0.008333p

 

£0.008p for IT systems per charge?

32p for a stamp?

8p for an envelope?

5p for a sheet of letter headed paper

3p in ink to print letter?

5 for someone to click a button to run a report?

5p for an envelope to be sealed by a staff member?

 

A bank charge costs a bank £0.58p per instance assuming every time, a letter goes out!

 

Assuming a charges claim is valued at £1k,

£1k divided by 0.58 = means that for them to genuinely incur £1k worth of damages by going overdrawn, you'd have had to go overdrawn 1724 times.

1724 / 6 years = 287.

Bank charges don't apply for Saturday / Sunday as banks are shut so 365days divided by 7days a week x 5(mon-fri) = 260.

That indicates that you went overlimit every working day for six years plus an extra 27 per year on top.

Hows that for a calculation. Big difference between £35 and £0.58!

 

I notice Yorkshire Bank during the test case first claimed that charges covered costs for processing default fees during the test case and then did a u-turn when the courts rejected this.

 

But what does that calculation matter because now the banks declare that default fees pay for banking for all whether under / over limit.

Not sure that was explained when YB opened my current account!

 

 

Banks earn £300 000 000 per year in charges (ppi claims website)

divide 300 000 000 by £35 = 8571428 which is the amount of charges per year.

8571428 divided by Eight banks in the test case is a little over 1million instances each per year. We'll assume 1million each giving the extra claims to any extra minor banks.

We could assume Clydesdale Bank earned £33million in charges per year (£300 000 000 divided by 9 (9 rather than 8 to account for all little banks)

[caro]

I worked out what a bank charge would cost and it worked out to be less than £0.60

 

 

The reason that I suggested FOS is that it will not cost you anything, even if they don't find in your favour. Besides that you can go to court later if they don't find in your favour.

 

Some time back we had someone on CAG who calculated the cost to YB of charges, and appeared on the Whistleblower programme and the cost allowing for overheads, costs of machinery, staff, etc came out at around £1.30. If you look in the stickies at the top of the forum you will find information on this. However since the supreme court ruling I'm afraid that doesn't seem to matter.

 

You have an uphill battle if you go to court so if you do propose to go down that route I would advise that you study everything. A very experienced cagger went to court but the judge found in favour of the bank and costs were awarded against him.

 

At least see how Govan Law Centre get on, as they are due in court quite soon I think in the next stage of the claims they are making on behalf of their clients. I suspect they have a long way to go yet though.

[Eugene01]

problem with FOS is like we're seeing with the News of The World thing at the moment and when it was investigated years ago. An investigation gets launched yet the people doing the investigating couldn't gain access to what data they needed. All they get to make their decision on is what evidence the defendant decides they will make available to them. It's just like Murdoch's son denying he knew about a payment and the reason behind it then his staff dropping him in it saying he'd received emails. The FOS have no powers to go into YB and start pulling data from their systems.

 

As it stands I've got YB over a barrel and don't want to give them any ammo to come back with.

They've admitted they cannot provide a copy of my signed original current account contract which means they cannot provide proof I signed an agreement. Their whole defence falls away on this point.

They seem to have admitted that they shouldn't be applying default fee's to under 18year olds which they've done and started a snowball effect.

The above issue on under 18's reinforces the fact that if you shouldn't charge the fee's to under 18's, you also shouldn't be allowing them to agree contracts with those sorts of terms included. (I still maintain I never signed a contract)

If I have no money to pay a bill and Yorkshire Bank pay it on my behalf sending me overdrawn and charge a fee later, they are effectively lending me money for a certain period in return for their money to be repaid plus a lending fee, and going back to a post above, i quote "I can confirm that the Bank would not offer lending facilities to persons under the age of 18."

There are various conotations with the under 18 issues and Unfair Relationships under Enterprise Act 2002 which I believe YB have exploited to create an unfair relationship.

YB refuse to be drawn to the direction of the High Court Judge who recommended poc's were re-written pursuing an avenue on terms that weren't individually negotiated.

Regards awarding costs, YB haven't allowed a fair investigation as they've ignored so many of the points I've raised and I've re-itterated this fact to them over and over. If they'd have a genuine conversation with me where they discussed my complaint properly it wouldn't lead to court action so costs wouldn't be awarded.

 

I've got a handful of cards up my sleeve that still need to be played, and FSA, FOS and ICO need to do a bit of investigating so I'm going to sit back for a while and gain extra evidence then lodge my court claim.

[Eugene01]

Phoned YB today to discuss their unsatisfactory offer of £330. The lady that answered the phone said that there was a flag on my account stating that nobody at Yorkshire Bank was allowed to communicate with me any more regarding my complaint. They wouldn't give a proper reason but sugested they'd made a final decision on my claim and wouldn't discuss further. I asked who'd authorised such unprecedented action against my account and she refused to discuss. I kept sending her off to get me a manager and they all refused to come to the phone leaving the call handler to do their dirty work for them. They refused to give contact details for their legal team and refused me a call back. They refused my request for a manager to call back. I should add that the call handler was a nice person. Shame about the rest of the team.

 

I asked for a copy of the phone call, plus a previous call. I was told to send a SAR and they'd provide what they were legally obliged to provide. I asked if they'd send a copy of the warning that flags up and they refused to say yes. I asked that the SAR contained the name of the person who authorised the warning note on my account. Again they refused to say yes. They didn't actually confirm I'd get both the phone recordings I was after.

 

Gobsmacked. So many questions that I've asked remain unaddressed or ignored. I've send them old FOS reports to show them that the pathetic excuses they offer aren't correct. They admit they were wrong to charge me at least £330 but refuse to refund unless I drop the rest of my complaint.

And they believe they've dealt with my complaint properly???