Read more.UK judge rules that government agency can decide fairness of bank levies against account holders who exceed their credit limit.
Read more.UK judge rules that government agency can decide fairness of bank levies against account holders who exceed their credit limit.
Hurrah...
Lloyds TSB screwed me over last month for £160 of charges. Guess what for? They waiting till the last week of the month to levy a charge on my account for an 'administration' fee of going overdrawn in January.
I rang them and asked if they could take the 30 pound fee the week later when they can CLEARLY see on their systems when I get paid each month. The woman on the end just smarmily said no... borrow it from someone you know.
Why is it the banks cannot be flexible on things like this, but now they're going to give a bit of leeway on people that have issues meeting their mortgage repayments?
I don't think the fee's themselves are nessercarily excessive.
What *is* a clear issue is how these fees are levied. For example, a friend of mine is on a tight budget and has been for a while. The trouble is, that when she gets hit for these fees they cause her to go overdrawn and thus generate more fees! It's like the banks have license to generate money whenever they want. Despite my friend ringing them constantly to try and get it sorted, they just tell her tough.
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This is bunny and friends. He is fed up waiting for everyone to help him out, and decided to help himself instead!
Exactly what happened in my case Lucio. With the cost of everything rising now What little I had at the end of the month their fee's took me past my threshold of my overdraft incurring excessive fee's which amounted to the figure I stated above.
As I've said, a little bit of flexibility would be great, but the banks just don't want to seem to know and in some cases I've heard of from others, can be very rude about it.
the charges are unfair - its quite simple - how much does it cost to send out an automated letter? £5 max. Yet they screw us out of £30 EACH time we go overdrawn (Most of which is down to the fact as pointed out them levieing high charges which force us into our overdrafts again).
And now they are threatening us with "we will be forced to end free banking" - let them - nothing in this world is free - lets see how they like it when we all desert them for the only one or two that do offer us free banking.
They make a killing off us consumers with millions (if not billions) announced in profits for the fat stakeholders EVERY year - when it comes to paying out - then they can't afford - poopookaka I say.
THe headline is HUGELY wrong, the decision today is nothing to do with whether the charges are unfair.
The decision today allows the OFT to decide if they are...... and if so by how much in a seperate case.
Then there will be two cases where the banks can stop it, one is the appeal of this one, where they will try and get the OFT stopped from looking into the fees at all.
The second will be where they look at how much the fees SHOULD be....
TiG
-- Hexus Meets Rock! --
I'm fortunate to be in a position where I don't go into the overdraft I have available, but I can see how it causes problems.
Was there not a guide on MSE on how to reclaim all the charges for the last 5 (6?) years?
as far as i'm aware all requests for reclaiming fees have been put on hold while the bank sort out the legality of the situation with the FSA. This case will be the first of many at the moment and it doesn't define whether the fees are fair or not. That will likely come in test case later.
@TiG: Fair point.
A couple of points in favour of the headline:
1. We didn't say "unfair", we said "punitive", which has a specific meaning not in any way concerned with fairness or otherwise.
2. Why would this case have taken place in the first place if the OFT wasn't likely to rule against punitive overdraft charges?
It doesn't mean they are going to be curbed though.
The main headline on the front page has a much more acceptable title. There are still lots of steps to be taken, all we've had sorted is the OFT can legally look into them.
You are assuming something will be done, something that has another court case attached to it. Personally i just feel the title isn't reflective of accurate reporting. Say the banks raise an appeal to this ruling and get it overturned. it means no refunds to any charges, no matter what the oft and banks decide in the whats fair case.
TiG
-- Hexus Meets Rock! --
Fair enough, to be strictly accurate the title would have been better saying "could be curbed" instead of "to be curbed".
I still reckon that the OFT will curb them though and that the banks won't win any appeal.
Furthermore, banks will start charging more for normal banking as a direct result of this ruling.
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