What happens in court?

[marlow]

I think I've read most of the guides, apologies if I have missed an answer to my query.

 

If it ends up going to court, what exactly happens? I mean, do I need a massive speech lined up like you would in most cases where you defend yourself, eg would I have to recite all the laws the bank is breaking and why I think I'm entitled to my money back? Or does the judge simply read all correspondence that has took place between me and the bank then make a decision? I'm paranoid it may rest on how I answer questions in court and I know I'd bugger that right up!

[BankFodder]

You will have to introduce your case to the court. however, if the jdge sees that you are nervous or not handling it well, then you will find that the judge will probably start to get involved and give you a hand.

If you can handle a speech, then this is the kind of thing which you would want to say:

"Sir I am trying to claim £XXXX from the bank which they took from my account over a period of 2 years and which they said they wre entitled to take becuse I exceeded my overdraft or because a direct debit could not be met.

These charges are very expensive and for instance when I changed my job last year and there was a gap in my salary which meant that a dir3ect debit for £30 was not paid, the bank charged me £35 which they appied to my account immediatly even though it was clear that there was not enough money to cover it. This had a knock on effect the next month and the month after than and put me into a spiral frm which I have not managed to recover.

Sir, the total charges are £XXXXX and here is a table of those charges for you to see [pass table to judge and copy to bank].

 

It is true that I had agreed in my current account contract to pay charges if I did breach my contract and also that the bank was allowed to increase the charges from time to time.

 

However, I have now learned that these charges are actually penalties and that they are only valid if they reflect the actual loss suffred by the bank.

Sir, I have asked the bank to expain to me if the charges to only cover their actual losses and they refuse to tell me and they refuse to disclose what work goes into bouncing a Direct Debit or what it really costs.

The Bank merely says that their charges are fair and reaonable and they will not say what they mean by this. I expect that they will even refuse to give a clear detailed costed explanation to this court.

 

Sir, when direct debit is bounced, it is clear that the decision is made by a computer which rejects the DD, issues a letter automatically which is then sent to the customer. The cost of this must be much less than £1.00.

The bank refuses to give any information about this but if they did and if their charges were really proportionate, no one would try to recover their money they would simply accept the position as being fair.

Sir, the law is not in doubt, the common law cases -[ list cases] - about penalty clauses are clear. The Unfair Contracts Terms Act 1977 refers to un reasonable indemnities and the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regs 1999 makes it clear that a disproprortionate penalty is invalid in a contract.

Unfortunately I am not able to provide any direct evidence of the banks costs because they refuse to dislose them. All the banks refuse to dislcose them.

Therfore I have to rely on circumstancial evidence and hope that you will then consider that what I am saying is more likly than not correct and that you will then invite the Bank to reveal their costs of refusing DDs etc so that the matter can be pout beyond doubt once and for all.

I have already said that the process is fully automated. The bank says that there is manual intervention. I have asked the bank to dislose evidence of this manual intervention as part of a Data Protection Act disclosure. They have refused to do so even though they have a statutory duty.

Additionally, I have a transcript of a BBC Radio interview with Peter McNamara who was the Head of Personal Banking at Lloyds. It is clear that Mr McNamara who occupied a very senior position within a major British bank would be able to speak authoratively and he has made it clear that the charges are penalties which are used to pay for free banking for the British Banking public. [pass transcript to the judge - one ofr the bank].

Sir I have a CD of the interview and a player with me now and If you would like to listen to the interview I can play it now. It lasts about 6 minutes.

 

[The bank will try to object to this evidence - you tell the judge that you consider that it is relevant to the case and that the bank doesn't want the interview included as it tell the truth and embarrases the bank's case]]

 

 

Sir you may hear from the bank that the charges are not penalties and that they are merely a charge for a service. This would not be true. They are intended as a slap on the writ for customers who run into problems.

However, if you accept that there is a service which is performed, then I would ask you to consider that the bank is only entitled to charge a reasonable price. S.15 Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 says that where a price is not fixed for a service then a reasonable price will be implied.

It is true that a charge was fixed at the beginning of the contract, but the bank have now changed the price and I would venture to say that at this point we are no longer dealing with a fixed price contract and the price now falls to be ascertained under the machanism in s.15 [pass extract with s.15 to the judge, one to the bank].

If the bank was able to say that because the price was fixed at the outset, that this is not a s.15 contract even though they were changing the price at their discretion, this would allow any comany to completely avoid the effect of s.15 by a merely by fixing a nominal opening price. To allow this would be to frustrate completely the will of parliament.

Once again, because the bank will not dislose any information, it is difficult to to see what a reasonable price should be. However, the normal mark-up on the High Street is 100%. I do not see why the banks should be privileged beyond this.

However, I also do not think that if the banks refuse to provide basic information about their costs which any other business would be happy to be provide. It is not as if the penalty charges provided the core bsuiness revenue of the Banks.

 

You shouldn't read it out. You will do it too quickly, or too soiftly and stumble etc.

 

You need to really understand the arguments which you are making so that you can talk about them fluently.

Have you looked at the cases?

have you looked at the Statutes and the Regs?

 

You need to do homework so that you know the law which you are referring to and so that you understand what your argument is. You need to be good enough so that if you are interrupted with a question, for instance, you can return to your argument and carry on without getting phased.

 

It isn't hard, but you do need to put in some preparation. you need to invest some time.

You'll feel great when it all starts to click.

[marlow]

This topic was closed on 03/06/19.

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