Don't Forget To Reclaim Your Bank Charges
Unless you've been out of the country for the last several months you will definitely have heard about the snowball of reclaiming bank charges that is getting ever larger.
The banks are really on the run and basically caving into anyone that puts up a decent fight. We ourselves have helped 5 friends and all of them have got a massive result, ie 100% of the bank charges reimbursed PLUS court fees (£220) PLUS interest at 8%. The interest angle is interesting because past charges can accrue as 8% (the official amount allowed by the courts) year on year. This means that a £25.00 charge taken say on the 12th Feb 2001 is now worth around £45 as interest takes effect.
Why The Charges Are Illegal
The argument behind the strategy of reclaiming bank charges is simple. It's got nothing to do with whether you were overdrawn or bounced a cheque but everything to do with the fact that a company can only charge a fee that is in relation to how much it costs to process a letter. Experts have worked out that the costs should actually be £5 or less, so banks charging £25 or £35 are clearly profiteering. And this is the reason they haven't been fighting, instead they are quietly paying up.
If you or anyone close to you has raked up these charges over the years (you can claim back the last 6 years) then we strongly advise you to start proceedings against the banks. The two websites below tell you all you need to know and we'd estimate the cumulative amount of work needed is less than 5 hours - not bad when you might receive a cheque for several hundred pounds or even a few thousand. The largest win we've heard of is for nearly £20,000!
Play Hardball Or The Banks Will Laugh At You
One point that we cannot emphasise enough is to play hardball with the bank in question because it's the only language they understand. In all the cases we helped an initial letter was sent saying they owed this money and if they didn't pay it back within 2 weeks they would be sued. The banks then wrote back with a typical fob off letter -
'we take our customers seriously and will be looking into the matter etc and will get back to you in a month'.
As indicated, we weren't having this so immediately sent them another letter saying -
'thanks, but we don't accept it will take a month, however we're giving you another week and if the money is not returned to us we will sue, you will have no further warnings'.
Of course we never heard anything back from them so followed up our threat and sued the following week. Then and only then did they start to take us seriously. Note that taking the case to court is very easy, it can be done online in under 20 minutes.
Note, we would advise that all letters sent to a bank are done so via recorded mail otherwise there's a good chance they will be 'lost', ie ignored.
No-Win No-Fee - Not Worth It
Finally, there are many firms offering on a no-win no-fee basis to reclaim bank charges. Their costs are between 25% and 50% of the total reclaimed. For well over 95% of people it's not necessary as the process is actually very easy to understand and implement (with the help of the websites below). We strongly advise you to do the work yourself so as to benefit from 100% of the reclaimed money.
Good luck!
