By Kate Hughes
Today saw the first step in the road to forcing banks to repay unfair overdraft charges to hundreds of thousands of account holders in the UK. The average refund due per person is around £742.
I reckon my rebate is around £250 plus interest, so as the banks make their decisions on just what they are going to do about losing £3.5bn a year in these lucrative fines, I'm out to get my money back - especially if they then turn around and make us all pay for our accounts as retaliation to keep their fat little paws on the profits.
This is day one, and I've just sent off my letter to my branch - (still around 4 doors down from my parents house in the village I grew up in) requesting the full details of all charges on my account over the last 6six years. They don't know I'm a personal finance journalist at The Independent - the newspaper that started the media campaign against unfair bank charges - so my request should be treated like anyone else's.
The latest predictions are that it could take up to four years for the case to come to a conclusion and the legal wranglings to play out. The Financial Services Authority has allowed banks to freeze all claims until the end of the whole sorry affair. That means 1 million people are waiting for their share of £713m, while the banks make £20m in interest from it, uSwitch.com has found.
I'll be keeping a running blog on my own case, but we want to hear from you if you're taking on the big boys over bank charges and how you feel about the bank pulling every trick in the book to keep your money.
Since, as you say, all claims are frozen until this matter is resolved, how will you be able to progress this blog?
Posted by: Clifford | Sunday, 27 April 2008 at 06:46 AM
I have an Alliance and Leicester account which I opened because they were offering an interest free overdraft. My intention was to transfer all of my finances to this account but there was a problem with the paper work and, in the midst of a house move, I didn't complete the process. After the a year had passed, A&L requested that I pay back the money I had spent using the overdraft. I called to confirm the amount and made the payment assuming this would be the end of the matter. 2 months later I received a letter stating I owed £155! It turns out that A&L had charged £5 before my payment had cleared and, with further charges, the figure had swollen. I have now emailed them twice and spoken to them. All I want to do is close the account and get my money back.
Posted by: MB | Saturday, 10 May 2008 at 11:30 AM
The £15 a day "fine" on a Lloyds TSB over draft excess over £25. One of our accounts has been £0.44 over the limit for 10 days. In theory that we will have to pay £150 for £0.44!! Is there anything we can do about this?
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