Reclaiming fees from your bank ( Advice )?

Question

An investigation by BBC2's Money Programme calculated that the real cost of automatically bouncing a direct debit and writing a computer generated warning letter works out at £2.50. Bouncing a cheque costs only around £4.50. Yet banks routinely hit customers with charges of £30 and more. This equates to a mark-up of more than 1,000% in many cases. The estimates were put together by a panel of two top business academics and a former senior executive at NatWest.


So the Question is !

If i Phone my Bank Lloyds TSB and ask for all the money they have charged me on Direct Debits , Eg when i didnt have money in my Bank , Can i get the 30.00 Charges bk ?

Anyone else tryed yet ! If so tell me your story and everything u did to get your money back , Thx

Answer 1

Best thing to do is to ask them nicely (no I am not being sarcastic) if they would refund you as you have accidental gone over drawn.

You might be surprised at the reaction.

If they refuse, ask to speak to a Manager & ask him / her to waive the fee.

If they refuse ask for the Head Office and request the name of the person you need to adress it to directly, so that you can write in a complaint letter as you think that you are being trated unfairly, also you will point out that you will send a copy of this letter to the Banking Ombidsman AND to a consumer show like Watchdog.

The issue is that the banks KNOW FULL WELL that their charges are over the top and there is growing rebellion from their customers & they do not have a leg to stand on. There have been a number of cases where charges went over £150 and customers took them to the small claims court - guess what - THE BANKS LOST.

Why? Because as you said the charge is way over the cost of sending a letter and so, becomes a fine, which they are not allowed to do.

Answer 2

My fiance is a banker (but it's not his fault). He says you can get all charges back and is quietly advising customers on the best way to go about it.

Be warned though - they may well close your account so if you start proceedings, make sure you have another set up elsewhere in advance.

I'm about to start the process with my bank so unfortunately can't give you any personal examples yet. Here's the website guide from the show, and a couple of others.
BBC guide: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6170209.stm
Help: http://www.penaltycharges.co.uk/
Examples of letters: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/12_12_06_bank_14day.pdf
Money Programme guide: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1141050760,24632,

Good luck!

Answer 3

BBC's Radio 2 have been doing a lot on this as well..

and the short answer is yes you can get your money back although they recommend that you change your banks after you have done it.

here's the website that tells you how to do it and they even give you the letters to printout and hand to your bank.. they must be getting hundreds of these now.. good luck and a happy new year to you

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1141050760,24632,

Answer 4

The answer is yes if you've been overcharged If you link to the Martin Lewis website, there are details on it to enable you to claim back these charges. The link is below.

www.moneysavingexpert.com

Answer 5

Try claiming . My daughters friend claimed back a few years and got hundreds back . Worth go .

Answer 6

YES

So funny I am reading this - I have the page open to do it now!!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/12_12_06_bank_14day.pdf

read that - and follow these guidelines:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6170209.stm

AND LETS GET OUR MONEY BACK FROM THESE HORRIBLE PEOPLE (BANKS)

Answer 7

Forget it. Banks charge fees because they are greedy not because they are fair. The bank will only laugh at you if you approach them. Keep your finances in the black and you will save money.