has anyone in the uk applied to get those illegal bank charges back.?

Question

you know the charges you get when you go over your agreed overdraught limit or when you go into the red on your account.they normally charge you 30 quid to send you a letter to tell you.now this has turned out to be illegal and apparenly thousands of people are claiming back bank charges for the past 6 years.

Answer 1

Plenty of people have done it and won

See the following for info on how to do it

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/bankcharges
http://www.bankcharges.info/
http://www.bankingrefunds.co.uk/?engine=adwords!8945&keyword=%28bank+charge+refunds%29&match_type=
http://www.unfair-bank-charges.com/bank-charges-how-is-it-possible.html

I especially recommend the last one as it is the simplest to navigate and has copies of all the letters needed to reclaim this money

PS: The person below is partly correct, you can do it from your statements, but under the Data Protection Act you can insist the bank provides you this information themselves, all you have to do is send them £10 to cover costs (there is a letter for this on the last link as well)

Answer 2

Firstly, bank charges are not illegal. If they are deemed as penalties, they would be unlawful and unenforceable - not illegal, which is totally different. Not understanding the full legal issues is one of the major problems you will run into if you decide to takle this yourself.

Claiming back your bank charges is not as easy as some sites make out. It is not just a case of sending a letter and you will get a cheque back in return. There can be a substantial amount of work involved including issue Court claims, preparing necessary court papers and legal arguments, replying to defences from their solicitors etc. If you are not confident with the strategy it is likely the banks will use their "bully boy" tactics to try and get you to drop your claim or accept a greatly reduced settlement amount. You may need to also lok at other issues like 'debt in dispute' 'default removal' issues as well.

There is plenty of free help available at http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk or http://www.penaltychargesforum.co.uk and other sites.

If you feel you do not have the will or battle nerves to do this on your own, there are other comapnies out there will will do the work for you, but they will charge you a fee from any settltment they get you from the bank. One such company is http://bankcharge-refunds.co.uk

You have to make the choice on whether you have the time, patience and steely nerve to tackle the banks and solicitors by yourself, or use one of the no-win no-fee companies which exist.

Hope this has been helpful.

Answer 3

Yes. The first thing I did was to open another bank account with a different bank, just in case things got hairy and the bank cut off all services to my old account. Be sure to keep a minimum amount of money in this other account, or you may generate even more charges.

Then I wrote to my bank and asked them for the last six years of bank statements, reminding them that I was entitled to them under the Data Protection Act. They sent them to me and then I used a highlighter and marked all those occasions when I had been charged a Penalty Charge, that was imposed on me for being overdrawn. You cannot claim for charges where you have requested a service, or for interest charges on agreed overdrafts, it can only be penalty charges and any interest those charges generate.

Then I went to the website Money Saving expert.com and used their template letter to write again to the bank, listing all those charges and using their inbuilt calculator to work out the interest I wanted to charge the bank. I sent the letter and waited. They sent me a letter confirming my request for the refund of bank charges, and said they were busy investigating my claim. Three weeks later I was offered a refund of the bank charges alone, without interest, and I accepted it. I got back £441.00. I had the chioce to push further, but I was happy with what I was offered. It's up to you how far you want to go.

Answer 4

Yes, I claimed 100% of my charges back.

Basically the steps to do this are:

1) Make a Subject Access Request under the Data Protection Act to get copies of your charges, or statements, for the last 6 years. This is sent with a cheque for £10 (which isn't usually cashed) to the banks head office for the attention of the Data Protection Officer.

2) Go through the charges or statements and see what you can claim for. Make a list of charges you are claiming for and the date and type of the charge. This is called a Schedule of Charges.

3) Write to the bank enclosing your statement of charges, and ask for your charges back stating that they are illegal under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulation (1999)”. Give them 14 days to reply.

4) Send the bank a Letter Before Action giving them one last chance to pay before you take them to court. Enclose your Schedule of Charges again. Give them 14 days to reply.

5) Take the bank to the small claims court using the courts Money Claim Online website. It takes 5 days for the claim to be served on the bank, and then they have 14 days to respond. If they don't respond in this time you win by default. If they do respond, they have another 14 days to submit a defence. If they don't you win by default again. If they do, they will back out just before the hearing, and again you win, or alternatively not turn up to the hearing, as they can't justify their costs in court.

Full guides and explanations of each step can be found at the site below, along with template letters you can put your details into and send to the bank.

The site is completely free to use.

Answer 5

I was listening to the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 and there was a guy on their who managed to get back nearly £3k in paid bank charges.

The only real way to do this is to ensure that you have copies of the back statements for the past 6 years. This would then be used as proof for a claim.

Fortuanately, I have never been charged for these things as I have a pre-arranged overdraft (just in case!) and as I get daily text messages telling me what my account is doing I can foresee if there are going to be any problems. Also, I know of people who ahve claimed any of these charges from my bank and the bank were more than happy credit it back. But that is the world of First Direct - In my experience the best customer experience there is!

Hope this helps.

Answer 6

Lots of people in the UK have and have succeeded.

I personally have not - but there is a website you can visit that will tell you all about it.

Here is a web search link:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Getting+your+illegal+bank+charges+refunded&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7SKPB

Answer 7

A friend of my son managed to claw back 3.5 K . The bank tried him on with an offer of 1K but he kept at them. It is worth sticking your neck out . My other son is fighting it out at the moment . He is after 5k. Dont let them away with it they are already trying to wriggle out of it.

Answer 8

Yes my brother got £600 refund.

Answer 9

mine is in the process of being done! it is so worth doing it

Answer 10

no