.....Guarding
Your Consumer Rights |
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Are you struggling with Debt ?
Do you have excessive bank charges?
Do you just need a bit of support?
We are delighted that you’ve found your way to Legal Beagles.
The Free Forum is where everything happens, so make sure you Register today!
We are a small free site and have a great community spirit with many experienced and knowledgeable people on hand to help, whatever your problems or queries may be.
With our experience, knowledge and resources we will be at the forefront of the battles against unfair practices, whether they be from the banks (where our main battle is at the moment) or any other organisation that feels they can use unfair business practices to take money from our members. |
| TEST CASE |
Big question on everyone’s mind is ‘’whats happening with the Test Case ?’’.
In the main cases are still on hold pending the outcome of the Test Case being held between the OFT and the Banks. However, thanks to the FSA updating the waiver in July and putting pressure on the Banks to assist consumers who are suffering financial difficulty, we are seeing a number of settlements for our more vulnerable users. We have set up a Financial Hardship forum to concentrate on these claims and you can read further information, and details of our successes here > Hardship Claims during the FSA Waiver - Legal Beagles. If you are struggling financially, facing repossession or your circumstances have changed since the start of the Test Case then please take a look and see if you fall into the category of hardship.
We are awaiting the decision of Justice Andrew Smith with regards to the application of the UTCCR and common law penalty arguments applicability to historical (pre November 2007) overdraft charges. The initial Judgement handed down in July was that banks’ current terms cannot be construed as penalties, but that the terms may be assessed for fairness under the UTCCR. This is now subject to an appeal by the banks, which is expected to comment October 28th in the High Court. Therefore the FSA have extended the waiver until January 2009 and claims remain on hold.
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| BEAGLES MEET THE OFT |
In July the Office of Fair Trading published the long awaited report into Personal Current Accounts. The report focused primarily on switching between accounts, transparency and of course structure of insufficient funds charges. This report can be viewed on the OFT website http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/rep...ts/OFT1005.pdf and there is discussion on our forums OFFICE OF FAIR TRADING - Legal Beagles . The OFT have invited Legal Beagles, and other consumer groups, stakeholders and banks to respond to this report and assist in finding remedies for the issues highlighted in the report. To this end four representatives of Legal Beagles attending a special meeting with the retail banking team at the OFTs offices in London earlier this month. The meeting was extremely positive and we are confident we have a good opportunity to get across to the OFT the views of the consumer on the street. Our report is currently being prepared and we are grateful to have the assistance of barrister Tom Brennan. We would like to obtain as many views, thoughts and experiences from our users as possible and if you visit our OFT forum you will find a number of threads to which you can contribute and have your voice heard in the future of the personal current accounts in the UK.
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| What are the Banks doing ? |
BARCLAYS
In August we saw the introduction of the new Barclays Reserve account system of charging. Despite shouting about a headline reduction to £8 for insufficient funds requests, the Reserve foisted onto vulnerable consumers has seen people further crippled with excessive charges as they began charging £22 for every 5 days you are over your standard overdraft and into your reserve amount. The new reserves were offered to customers on an Opt-Out basis and many customers were not aware of the change. If you have been affected and feel you are worse off due to these new charges we encourage you to write to the Bank and to the FSA to complain. The OFT are currently looking at these new charges for fairness, however they are not part of the waiver and complaints about the reserve must be dealt with within 8 weeks of your complaint under the Banking Code.
We also encourage Barclays customers who previously struggled with the old charging system to OPT OUT of the new Barclays Reserve. If you are unsure if you have been given this account please contact Barclays.
Opting out means you will have a buffer zone of £15 over your current overdraft which is not charged for, and any transactions that would take you over that would be declined and returned, excepting guaranteed cheques. These insufficient funds transactions will attract a fee of £8 per transaction - as opposed to the previous £38.
ABBEY
We have also seen Abbey plc make changes to the way they charge interest on their Current Account overdrafts. Whereas previously they charged a set rate of interest on your authorised overdraft balance, then another, higher rate, on any further unauthorised overdraft, they have amended their terms and conditions to allow them to charge the higher unauthorise rate on your entire overdrawn balance. For example if you have an overdraft facility of £100 and then go into unauthorised overdraft by £50 - you will now pay the higher rate of interest on the entire £150. We have made the OFT aware of this situation but we suggest anyone affected writes to both the bank and the OFT with their concerns. |
Latest News |
12th September
PPI complaints over 500 a week
The FOS has already had extensive discussions with the banking industry, but is worried that organisations that sell PPI are "not getting the message."
One bank, RBS/NatWest, has responded to the FOS's approach to the FSA by changing its attitude to dealing with customer complaints about PPI.
According to an internal bank memo, dated 22 August, the bank decided "at Group Senior Executive level to reduce the volume of complaints going to FOS" to demonstrate to the FSA and FOS that their concerns have been taken on board.
2nd September
Justice Smith on hols till 30th September - Judgement on historical expected before 28th October.
28th July
As we predicted at the beginning of July the new waiver terms are now in place and included that hardship is defined as incurring more than £500 of charges per year. The banks unsuccesfully protested against this definition which places 1.4 million consumers in hardship.
16th July 2008
OFT have published the PCA Market Study report.
It recognises over 1.4 million consumers are charged over £500 in overdraft fees per year. If the FSA keeps to its proposed definition of hardship, as detailed in the following story, this effectively places those 1.4million consumers within the boundaries of 'hardship' and thus able to continue their claims exempt from the terms of the waiver.
Read more on the OFT PCA report here
2nd July 2008
The FSA is focusing on the treatment of hardship cases in considering the extension of the waiver and has proposed that hardship is defined as incurring more than £500 of charges per year. The Banks do not agree with this definition and are putting forward alternative proposals to more 'accurately reflect' hardship. A meeting was held on the 2nd July to discuss the options. We await further details. |
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