Bank Charges?

[wideeyes]

Hi, I was wondering if I could claim for these back charges I received. I had a direct debit going out of my account on a Monday so I got DBF to put the money to cover it into my account during the weekend, however the direct debit did not go through so I was charged £35 even though i had enough money in my account, this has now happened a few times. when I phoned the bank up they said it was my fault as the money should be in the account by closing time Friday for payments due out on a Monday. I was also told that the system is set up to take debits out before they credit any money into the account. The bank is not being helpful at all and refuse to give me my money back.

 

[carolfoy]

Apparently if you take them to the small claims court they will pay up (no bank has ever disputed it!) as you can prove that the charge was costing YOU more than the amount of money you didn't put in.

 

[Goofyish]

I believe that banks are only allowed to charge the equivalent amount to cover their costs. Anything above that could be refundable.

Check out this information from the BBC website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6169539.stm

 

[wideeyes]

Hi, thank you for the link, VERY helpful.
Seems like I can try to recover the whole 3 years since my account has been opened. I have just requested my statements since my account opened. fingers crossed

 

[carolfoy]

be warned though! apparently this makes you very unpopular with the banks and they do have the right to close your account!

 

[mushumadness]

very true the bank I am with had a case of charges being refunded, which they did but they also closed all that customers accounts,

 

[Cochise]

There is some very good guidance on this subject on the Money Saving Expert forums, included in there is advice to open a new account when you start this process although it is considered unlawful for the bank to close your account for this reason alone.

 

[ely3857]

I work for a bank and deal with this everyday.

If you have already asked for your charges back verbally the next step is to put your request for a refund and your reasons in writing, they have 5 days to respond and 21 days to resolve.

In your individual case, check your account terms and conditions, if it states funds must be credited a working day before any bills are due to leave and this has happened before (meaning you may have a history with them of been late with funds before any debits leave) then you are unlikely to recieve a refund.

With regards to claiming back all of your previous charges, There is ALOT of media hype about this at the moment and I refuse to be drawn into a debate about fair/unfair bank charging tarriffs but please dont think any refund you may recieve will be quick. Your bank has 40 days to respond to your request for historic information and that is only the beginning of the process. The BBC were quick on the radio last night to say that Banks were settling out of court but there has been no talk of this in the industry and the BBC failed to name names.

Finally, yes your Bank can and probably would close your account if you decided to take them to court as your 'Banking relationship' with them would have deteriorated so please be carefull as of course you can get another account elsewhere but the grass isnt nessesarily greener.

One way to resolve this in the future is move the date your bills leave back a couple of days (call the individual companies to arrange this) then hopefully in future you should have the money in your account in plenty of time.



Jodie