Spreadsheet with interest

[krakan]

Bang on as I understand it!

[Rooster-UK]

Almost right.

 

Stage 2...... Detail your charges along with the overdraft interest. Don't add on the 8%.

 

There is a letter in the templates library for this.

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=92

 

Good luck with your claim.

[D.R.Burgess]

Cheers - much appreciated

[blinkyblinkyblonk]

I downloaded the basic Xls sheet, I have entered the statement date and amount and reason. But how do i calculate the days since offence. Do i have to count back for every transaction (about 30)? Is there an easier way to work it out?

 

 

 

Tim,

 

There is a formula set up in there. Don't delete it. You may need to copy it out again.

 

 

hi vampiress,

 

im sorry if i may be sounding a bit thick here, but i have entered the date of the charge and the charge amount, but the formula just says #NAME?

 

I have the same problem as tim, i thought i had to count back the days from my first date of charges.

 

can you help me please,

 

many thanks

[barracad]

i have entered the date of the charge and the charge amount, but the formula just says #NAME?

 

Are you using Microsoft Excel?

[blinkyblinkyblonk]

hi barracad,

 

no i dont have microsoft excel its open office one that i downloaded from here.

[bram stoker]

hi barracad,

 

no i dont have microsoft excel its open office one that i downloaded from here.

You have a corrupted formula in that cell. Try downloading the spreadsheet again and copying the formula back in. If you get stuck Let me know.

[powerful_rogue]

You have a corrupted formula in that cell. Try downloading the spreadsheet again and copying the formula back in. If you get stuck Let me know.

 

Vampiress,

 

Im having the same problem. Thought I had to count back how many days have passed since august 2001!

 

I have downloaded the basic spreadsheet a few times but it still shows up with #NAME? in the "Days since offence" and "interest at 8%" fields.

 

I am using open office as I dont have excel.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[bram stoker]

Are you all downloading the Excel spreadsheet or the Open Office spreadsheet? You need to make sure you get the correct one as they have different formulae.

[powerful_rogue]

Are you all downloading the Excel spreadsheet or the Open Office spreadsheet? You need to make sure you get the correct one as they have different formulae.

 

Im downloading the excel spreadsheet and using it on open office.

 

For some reason the open office spreadsheet isnt working.

[barracad]

The Excel template will not work with OpenOffice.

 

You need to download the OpenOffice template and try that again.

 

If that still doesn't work, have you got Micrososft Works?

 

As a last resort, you can go to Think Free and register on that site, then upload the Excel template and use it on Think Free - it should work on there.

[blinkyblinkyblonk]

thank you vampiress and barracad for your wonderful help

 

i was getting the two muddled up but have now downloaded your one vampiress with the two bits of interest on

and its working wonderfully

 

thank you so much for your help, i appreciate it very much

 

i can now start proceedings on monday as now i am fully armed, well at least sorted out the interest,and have added a few more charges which have come out recently , almost £3000 with interest, blimey and thats only since last march 2005:mad:

 

anyway i digress

 

thanks again

 

 

many thanks

[robdprince]

Hi Vampiress,

 

The Excel sheet is great thankyou, I just have a question about how it calculates the interest.

 

I put in all my charges and I put in all opverdraft interest charges for the last 6 years. When calculating the interest I noticed that for the earlier interest charges made by the bank your sheet calculates an interest value for me to claim which is smaller than the interest charge the bank made, this I understand. Part way down the sheet however (as the dates get more recent) the interest to claim amount is exactly the same as the interest charged amount, is this correct or have I not filled the sheet incorrectly?

 

I hope I've explained myself in a way that you can understand, I'm happy to send you the sheet if that helps.

 

Many thanks

Rob

[bram stoker]

Hi Vampiress,

 

The Excel sheet is great thankyou, I just have a question about how it calculates the interest.

 

I put in all my charges and I put in all opverdraft interest charges for the last 6 years. When calculating the interest I noticed that for the earlier interest charges made by the bank your sheet calculates an interest value for me to claim which is smaller than the interest charge the bank made, this I understand. Part way down the sheet however (as the dates get more recent) the interest to claim amount is exactly the same as the interest charged amount, is this correct or have I not filled the sheet incorrectly?

 

I hope I've explained myself in a way that you can understand, I'm happy to send you the sheet if that helps.

 

Many thanks

Rob

This is probably correct. By the more recent dates the charges will cumulate to quite a large sum. Most probably all of your overdraft is made up of bank charges. Therefore, all the interest is in relation to bank charges charged.

 

Hope that makes sense.

 

(And thanks all for your kind words. Get yourselves to the BAG forum party. ;-))

[Rooster-UK]

The 8% is added at the Moneyclaim stage or filing claim if doing it manually.

 

In other words, as soon as you add the law to the equation then you also add the 8%.

 

Good luck with you claim.

[Guest BlueRuby]

Am I right in thinking that the interest part of the spreadsheet won't work for credit cards? The interest they charge is on the whole balance of course and I can't see how to work out what part of the interest is being applied to the penalty charges.

[Fred_Funk]

BlueRuby,

 

No, you're not. The spreadsheet does work for credit cards and, more to the point, you don't need to work anything out - just fill in the figures and let the spreadsheet do all the hard work for you.

 

You merely need to input the amounts you have been charged in interest - in the columns on the right - and the spreadsheet will calculate what proportion of this is attributable to unlawful charges.

 

Hope this helps?! ;-)

 

Fred_Funk

[Guest BlueRuby]

Thanks Fred! I started to worry because it kept giving me the whole amount of the interest charged, ie if Barclaycard charged 13.80 in interest, the spreadsheet put the whole amount in the penalty interest column. But if you say that's OK I'll take your word for it!

[mumsjustice]

Hi there

 

I am trying to download the spreadsheet but keep getting a page saying "You are not authorized to view this page". I have excel, I use internet explorer, and my security system is Zonealarm. I have tried to go through Opera instead of Internet explorer, but get the message "The object has been blocked" Have also tried to download the open office version but cannot open file.

Please help as I have looked everywhere for an answer but can't find anything. Am getting quite frustrated....

 

Thank you

[baineth]

Hi and thanks for the spreadsheet. Because of the dates my bank uses to apply interest, my account is usually in credit on the date at the end of the period for which interest is 'due', so the 'interest on charges' column comes up as zero. Would it work to use a formula based on the maximum amount by which I was overdrawn during the period to which the interest applies? i.e.

 

_____________maximum overdrawn amount during period________________ x interest

(maximum overdrawn amount during period - cumulative charges to date)

 

 

I think this would give a fair proportion of the interest as it's saying "If you hadn't taken the charges out in the first place, I would have been x% less overdrawn so would have incurred x% less interest".

 

Also, do I need to provide the bank with an explanation of how I arrived at these figures to show that they are reasonable?

 

One final (possibly dim!) question - I keep seeing references to a 'step by step guide' but I can't see it listed in the forums, just the template letters. Could someone point me in the right direction please?

 

I'd be grateful for any advice.

Thanks

Baineth

[thewifeandI]

This sounds like the way I calculated my interest with Halif*x. I used the largest overdrawn figure in the month that the charges referred to (sometimes the same month, other times the month before that). I gave me a suitable figure, but without the computing power (and the original formulae that they use) there's no way we'll reach the same figure that the bank would. But it's close enough for me - I labelled it 'Best Estimate' in my Moneyclaim.

 

You will find the Step by Step Guide in the FAQ forum here http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=5.

[thewifeandI]

Hi there

 

I am trying to download the spreadsheet but keep getting a page saying "You are not authorized to view this page". I have excel, I use internet explorer, and my security system is Zonealarm. I have tried to go through Opera instead of Internet explorer, but get the message "The object has been blocked" Have also tried to download the open office version but cannot open file.

Please help as I have looked everywhere for an answer but can't find anything. Am getting quite frustrated....

 

Thank you

It sounds to me that you have some form of attachment blocking turned on - you might be able to disable it temporarily in ZoneAlarm, but I've not used that for a few years, so I can't help to much - sorry.

[Fred_Funk]

BlueRuby,

 

It's hard to say without being able to see your spreadsheet but it does sound as if you may have got something not quite right.

 

It's unlikely that, in the first instance, all of the interest you've incurred will be as a result of unlawful charges, though this may well be the case after some time, ie when the total of charges is equal to/more than the figure by which you're overdrawn and on which you are being charged interest.

 

Assuming you are using Vamp's excellent spreadsheet, you need to enter any interest you have been charged on the right-hand side in Column H. The spreadsheet should then calculate how much of this interest is attributable to unlawful charges in Column P.

 

Are you with me now?! ;-)

 

Fred_Funk

[baineth]

I'll see if I can explain by way of an example:

 

The bank charged me interest for the period 05/04/01 - 03/05/01 of 0.35.

During this period, the maximum amount of my overdraft was 55.23.

BUT 14.50 of that was charges from the previous month (the first month I had any charges), so if they hadn't imposed any charges, my overdraft would only have been 40.73.

 

The instructions on the spreadsheet say put the account balance for working out interest at the last day of the interest charging period i.e. 03/05/01 in this case. At that point, my account was in credit by 200.00+ so the spreadsheet shows zero for 'interest on penalties'.

 

What I want to do (and apologies - I got the fraction upside down before) is work out roughly what the interest on the 'legitimate' overdraft of 40.73 would be and reclaim anything over that as 'interest on penalties'. So my calculation is:

 

40.73 _ x 0.35 = 0.26 (this is the interest they should have charged)

55.23

 

In this case I can reclaim 0.09p interest that was charged on the illegal charges. (I know these figures are small but I picked the earliest example for simplicity and it soon adds up over the years)

 

In some later months, I would not have been overdrawn at all if they hadn't taken charges from my account for the previous month. Using this way of working it out would allow me to reclaim the whole amount of interest charged in those months.

 

Hope this is clear - it's not easy to explain at a distance!

Baineth

[thewifeandI]

I'll see if I can explain by way of an example:

 

The bank charged me interest for the period 05/04/01 - 03/05/01 of 0.35.

During this period, the maximum amount of my overdraft was 55.23.

BUT 14.50 of that was charges from the previous month (the first month I had any charges), so if they hadn't imposed any charges, my overdraft would only have been 40.73.

 

The instructions on the spreadsheet say put the account balance for working out interest at the last day of the interest charging period i.e. 03/05/01 in this case. At that point, my account was in credit by 200.00+ so the spreadsheet shows zero for 'interest on penalties'.

 

What I want to do (and apologies - I got the fraction upside down before) is work out roughly what the interest on the 'legitimate' overdraft of 40.73 would be and reclaim anything over that as 'interest on penalties'. So my calculation is:

 

40.73 _ x 0.35 = 0.26 (this is the interest they should have charged)

55.23

 

In this case I can reclaim 0.09p interest that was charged on the illegal charges. (I know these figures are small but I picked the earliest example for simplicity and it soon adds up over the years)

 

In some later months, I would not have been overdrawn at all if they hadn't taken charges from my account for the previous month. Using this way of working it out would allow me to reclaim the whole amount of interest charged in those months.

 

Hope this is clear - it's not easy to explain at a distance!

Baineth

As I said before, this is exactly the way I calculated my interest, so I'm agreeing with you! ;-)

 

The only trap to watch out for is where they use the 'Interest as previously notified' line - this is where they calculate the interest for May at the end of May and don't charge it until the end of June - at least Halif*x do it. In this case you need to go back to May to look for the lowest balance there. This might not be the case with your bank though.